>key ideas

there are a number of key concepts that have generated my proposals for briggate; keeping in mind the points raised through definition and redefinition, through proposal i have aimed to change the perspective of briggate for the average user, i aimed to create an island of respite providing shade and shelter, to create greater connections between briggate and leeds and leeds and the wider region, i have aimed to promote sustainable practices and provide a missing function for the improvement of the street.

in providing a sheltered gathering space above street level, i have tried to create a lookout on briggate where the buildings and streets surrounding can be viewed and decisions can be made about the journey to come. taking people off street level changes the normal perspective of the street and eases tension on the user away from the constant flow of people. 

rainwater collection is a key aspect of the design. this will be collected using the canopy structure, stored and used to flush toilets in the public wc below. the inclusion of such a system will be highlighted through the creation of a feature water wall, where a visual sculptural effect will be created by the water collected on its way to storage tanks for the toilets, raising the sustainable profile of the proposal. 

the shard window fecade relates to the alternative perspective i have tried to provide the users of my proposal. the nature of the toilet areas being below street level dictates there will be high level glazing from the perspective of the interior spaces. the windows are designed to appear like shimmering coloured jewels in the rough concrete walls, like a subterreanean cave or mine. these jewels not only provide natural light to the interior, but pick out and frame key features of the surrounding fecades on briggate above street level, highlighting the historic jewels of the street. at night these will be lit and will glow providing an attractive sculptural feature to passers by.     

>facade idea

The urban water wall is an interactive fountain system in which falling streams of water can be controlled by digital means. The streams can be started and stopped or their pressure changed. The wall is urban scaled, like a canal running through the city, but twisted into the vertical plane so that one can experience it from a distance. 

on briggate this idea can be used to show images of the wider city creating a link with leeds as a whole.

>initial model

>tile-tastic!

while researching the humble bathroom tile for my briggate wc, came across this. interesting.

>model in context

>sketch proposals

propose>sketch model

Create by Kumiko Inui to celebrate the new bullet-train station in front of which it stands, this pavilion in Kumamoto Prefecture serves as a waiting area for travelers. From a distance, the pavilion recalls a typical house as drawn by a child. But as visitors get closer, the building seems to dematerialize, thanks to a blizzard of openings cut into the glass-reinforced concrete walls and roof.

Public toilet provision has become increasingly unsatisfactory, because of closure of existing facilities and a general neglect and marginalisation of toilet issues by urban policy-makers.’ Why are public toilets of relevance to architects, or to the creation of Great Architecture? Architects are increasingly taking on the roles of urban designer, regenerator and policy leader, as legitimated by the Urban Taskforce agenda (Rogers, 2000). New Urbanism and urban renewal policies demand that architects contribute to meeting social needs through enlightened design. Public toilets are a necessary component for users of the built environment in enabling user-friendly, sustainable, safe, equitable and accessible cities. 

>ref: inclusive urban design-public toilets.

toilet art (?)

Public toilets have become cultural artefacts in their own right. Because in our society excretory functions, like using the toilet or sex, are seen as ‘dirty’, it is inevitable that the avant garde, seeking to shock, will use toilets as ’art’, often in association with depictions of ‘sex’. It is easy to be alarmed by those women artists who appear to have bought into the whole ’male thing’ about the ‘dirtiness’ of bodily functions and, as a manifestation, the ’ladette’ who mistakenly imagines ‘girl power‘ to be like the boys seeking to shock their audiences, But when it comes to attitudes to street urination presumably they find they are not really one of the lads after all?

The artist, Sarah Lucas, included a full toilet bowl in her exhibition at the Arnolfini Bristol, while Tracy Emin hastaken this trend even further. ’Disgust’ is the operative word infusing such art, not its antonyms ‘delight’ and ’pleasure’ which are words seldom associated with excreta. Lucas’s work was part of an exhibition entitled ‘Minky Manky’. This oeuvre was entitled TX: Two Melons and a Stinking Fish, no doubt alluding to the fact that many men say that women’s genitals smell of ’stale fish’. In reality many women clean out toilets, put down lav seats, wipe the bottoms of the very young and very old, and clean up after male, elderly and/or careless family members. So such ‘art’ is probably more annoying to ordinary women who do not have the luxury of being disgusted either by sights or by smell, but simply have to get on with it (Curtis, 2000).

This genre of art has its precedents in the origins of ’Modern Art’ in the early twentieth century - for example, in DuChamp’s painting of a urinal from 191 7 entitled The Fountain. DuChamp saw himself as an anti-art artist (see exhibition ’DuChamp‘s Suitcase’, 30.8.2000). More extreme is the work of Herman Nicht, an Austrian, who undertakes public performance art involving blood and entrails, and also Damien Hirst and his sawn-up sheep. Is this their way of resolving the clean/dirty dualism? Efficient sanitation and investment in public toilets would seem a better way to do so.

The work of the late Helen Chadwick is far more healthy (Cullis, 1993: 23-4). In 1991 she produced a series of sculptures entitled Piss Flowers. These consisted of bronze casts of the fantastic shapes created by her pissing in the snow in Canada, and were intended to be both beautiful and a way of breaking down taboos about it being dirty or naughty for women to urinate in public (or urinate at all!). Avant garde artist Andy Warhol also went through a phase of producing ‘oxidisation paintings‘ based on himself and his friends pissing on canvas and chemically treating the stains to create interesting patterns.

>ref: inclusive urban design : public toilets.

worth a read....

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2008/apr/23/localgovernment

would you pee here?

sketch idea.....

as an intervention with a dual purpose, here the functionality of the wc is hidden or not overtly obvious concealed within a structure that could be an extension to the existing makeup of the street, with more emphasis on its impact on the surrounding urban landscape and the possible gathering spaces created. 

public lavs, westbourne grove, london

Public Lavatories

Westbourne Grove, London

The local residents’ association took the initiative of commissioning this design as an alternative to the Council’s own mediocre proposal. An area of triangular paving was reclaimed from the centre of two diverging roads and furnished with benches and trees. The plan of the building echoes the triangular site with the lavatories at the wide end, entered from either side via a lobby leading to the disabled lavatory to one side, with the remainder split into male and female by a central service corridor. 

public toilets, gravesend - plastik archtects

Gravesend, a small town on the River Thames in Kent, is undergoing significant regeneration. The site for the public toilet lies at a key junction along a new public footpath linking the heart of Gravesend to public parkland to the south. The brief was to provide a new toilet facility on the edge of a car park within the Lord Street / Parrock Street regeneration area.

 

Gravesham Borough Council required the building to be an eye-catching, 'minor-landmark' as a centrepiece to the adopted masterplan for the area. The basic form of the building is derived from the slope of the topography and the geometry of the site. A simple conceptual diagram provides four main load-bearing internal walls, defining the internal spaces, with sanitary items serviced from the eastern wall. The slope of the roof facing the new tree-lined avenue emphasises the slow incline up to Windmill Hill, reinforcing the view of the hilltop and creating a welcoming and bright entrance at its high point. A more fluid and faceted form was developed for the Parrock Street side in response to the fast moving traffic. The roof form is a distorted and inverted cantilevered pyramid, consisting of four triangular facets that meet in the lobby space. Roof planes fold upwards to hover above, but never touch the irregular external walls. Four faceted structural walls and two distorted columns are positioned to allow the roof seams to lead directly to the primary internal spaces - visually connecting the heart of the building to each corner. A single triangular roof-light was positioned along one seam in the heart of the plan, allowing the entrance space to be awash with natural daylight.

 

The mass concrete roof is separated from the tile-clad, concrete block walls by a continuous glazed clerestory; achieving a visual tension in the composition between architectural elements and allowing all internal spaces to be naturally lit. Structure is set away from the external wall to emphasise this separation. The design achieves a building that functions both as a landmark structure and as an efficiently planned toilet facility, housed within a sculptural form.

 

sketch ideas

leeds public toilets, or lack of.......

Public toilets

The following public conveniences are cleaned by us.  If you have any queries about the service please ring or email us using the contact details on the right hand side of this page.

These facilities are locked overnight from 16.30 hours
Armley, Leeds LS12 – on Theaker Lane off Town Street near Burnsall Multi Storey Flats.
Boston Spa  – High Street, in the public car park by side of the library.	open Sunday
Bramhope – Old Lane, in the public car park between the public house and school.
Bramley – Town Street near the Bus Station in district shopping Centre.
Farsley – Town Street next to no.45 near the High Rise Flats.
Garforth – Barleyhill Road in the public car park.
Hyde Park, Leeds LS6 – situated by play areas and skate park on Woodhouse Moor corner of Hyde Park Road and Woodhouse Lane.	open Sunday
Meanwood, Leeds LS7  – Green Road, on the junction with Church Avenue.
Morley – Wesley Street situated near the junction with Queen Street.
Otley – Nelson Street part of the library and visitor centre.	open Sunday
Pudsey - Market Place situated near the bus station and park.	open Sunday
Rodley – Town Street in car park next to the Owl Public House.
Rothwell – in Marsh Street car park.
Wetherby – in The Shambles, Cross Street near the market place and Town Hall.	open Sunday
Woodlesford, Leeds LS26 – Midland Street  at lower end near bookies
Ash Road, Leeds LS6 – by the side of the Lounge Cinema building on the corner of Ash Road and North Lane.

ALL CISTERNS GO

Public toilets closures opposed

More than 6,000 people have signed a petition against a decision to close 10 public toilets in Derby. The city council's Conservative and Labour groups are sending 200 letters to businesses urging them to support a campaign to keep the facilities open. Derby Labour Leader Chris Williamson said the impact on local businesses could be severe. Funding for the toilets was cut to help balance the budget, a spokeswoman for the Liberal Democrat council said. Closure programme Mr Williamson said: "We're looking to get the support of businesses in the Cathedral Quarter, whose business is likely to be affected by a reduction in footfall in the area if people stop going there because they're concerned by a lack of public conveniences." A motion has been tabled at the next full council meeting urging officials to have a rethink. Six city centre toilets are due to close later this month, with two at Victoria Street and the Spot due to close in January. Those at the Assembly Rooms and the Eagle Centre Market will not close until building work on the new bus station is completed later next year.  the article above is one of many i have come across in both national and local news reports, all highlighting the lack of and further closure of many public toilets in towns and cities in the uk. could this be what briggate needs? the provision of respite and shelter from the hustle and bustle.

>PROPOSE?

the next step? through the process of definition and then re-defnition, it appears to be a natural progression that as a proposal some kind of installation that provides an alternative perspective of briggate or changes the existing pattern of the street in a way that is adds to the user experience of moving through the space. i would like to create greater connection between briggate and the wider city, and if possible connection between the city and the wider region. i want to provide a comfortable space for respite and contemplation of the surroundings. space that provides a shelter from the pressure of briggate and the commercial environment, where there is no pressure to spend and consume but only to appreciate the built environment around. iitially i had thought to propose some king of pavillion, that exists only for its own existance with no other function than itself, however further thought on this has led me to seek a greater functionality in my proposals and aim to create the contemplation space i seek to, but with perhaps a dual or hidden function. i aim to create an intervention that uses sustainable ideas and forward thinking technologies, perhaps something self sustaining that makes no demands on the system operating around it; an island of respite with hidden functionality.  

>DEFINE>REDEFINE>

>DEFINE in first defining briggate as a circuit board plugged into the mother board of the city of leeds, we were able to identify the lines of communication between briggate and the city, and see where there is room for improvement, and in particular, where there are errors in the system. the rich cultural features that exist in and around briggate are currently over shadowed by the dominance of retail spaces and commercial landmarks. the street is imbalanced and not reaching its full potential.

>REDEFINE through redefinition we seek to change the perspectives and experience of the average person passing through briggate by altering the focus of the street. the main aim of our redefinition is to identify the existing links between briggate and the city of the leeds, and then the further links that exist between the city of the leeds and other major cities. through the promotion of these links and altering the focus of briggate making these real and obvious connections with the wider community more apparent to its users, briggate can be redefined by simply making the most of what already exists and allow a free flow and greater connection of people with place throughout the city and beyond. in identifying the strenghts  that exist in briggate and its place in leeds we can gain a stronger position in identifying an appropriate Proposal suitable for such a street.  

>CONCEPT enhancing the existing links between briggate and key features of the city introduces the concept of a more connected city, where important and significant features can be accessed readily from a key street  or node such as briggate. the character and dynamic of the street can be radically altered through such a redefinition.

>CONNECTIONS in reality these connections do exist and through their redefinition such a well connected city is achievable, we would see this done through the enhancement of upper and lower briggate creating a more coherent street as a whole rather that the fragmented existence briggate currently has. capitalising on the existing links east to west within the city is also key to our redefined better connected briggate. through redefinition it is also possible to further identify existing connections between the city of leeds and other uk cities; sharing in the character and successful design they possess and looking to what is possible to achieve in Briggate

>REDEFINITION from redefining briggate and the city of leeds in terms of their place in the national community, here we seek to redefine in a more intimate scale by an analysis and alternate look at the elevations that make up the the combined length of briggate. by breaking the street up into an intimately scaled grid and analysing each square and collection of built forms we are able offer a refocused and redefined view of the street. our redefinition provides an alternative perspective of the existing street scene and identifies links, routes, forgotten space and opportunities for enhancement of the street, as well as areas for possible future proposals.

model pics to follow.......