Gosports Cultural Compass

Gosports

CULTURAL COMPASS

Tician Turi

Abstract

The pamphlet introduces my Major Project design and the whole journey, including design concepts, development stages and precedents used on the way. The booklet aims to give an inside of design process and highlight the key element of the project.

The project is located in Gosport, around the High Street area. The key themes are culture, nature, education and history. The project delves into the challenges of Gosport and aims to resolve some of these issue by producing cultural opportunities for the locals and visitors. At the moment Gosport is lacking excitement and attention, which is reflected in the dull, saturated colours used in this pamphlet. The light green and pink accent colour within the booklet symbolises potential and opportinuty that Gosport holds.

Throughout the pages, a simplistic/ clean style is continued to simplify each design step and make the nevigation through the project seamless. The two chapters, include the site and masterplan, plus the building. The first chepter introduces the location and the research, with a brief overview of the Masterplan proposed. The second chapter delves into the cultural centre, including the different design stages that were leading up to the final outcome.

More than 17% of people don’t have a qualification in Gosport

Research

We looked into Gosport. The city has a number of issues that needs work to become a successful and inviting city. After deeply investigating its history and collecting data to see how the city is developing, a few major issues stood out to me that I wanted to tackle with this project: Education, Popularity and Health.

Looking into the green spaces and woodland in Gosport with all the different rasmar sites the city has, I felt like promoting and building on these elements could be a strong start to improve the city. The research tought me that Gosport has a huge number of special scientific Interest sites that needs more cosiderations when designing around it.

Population in Gosport has decreased by 0.9% between 2011 and 2021

More than 71% of adults in Gosport are classified as overweight

Site

Zooming more into the High Street area a more issues arise, such as flooding risks and historical sites. However, the site presents a lot of great opportnities, such as great access (ferry and bus station) and many green spaces and its also close to the sea.

The initial thing that stood out to me was the number of car parks. In my opinion these could be used in a better way. The High Street is an important element of this site. It has the potential to draw in people, but also to improve the economy of Gosport.

For me the most important location of this site is the Cockle Pond located just bellow the High Street. The site around it is an important local nature scene, and the lake is a designated Site of Scientific Interest (SSSI). The salt water pond is obtained from the sea, which attracts many birds from the mudflats. The reason this is such an important location is because it has a history of yachting activities and boat racings from 1890s. Re-introducing these activities will attract visitors, which makes this an appealing site.

parks, ponds and mudflats

18th SDG

After looking into the site I realised Gosport has an amazing history and culture, however its not being promoted and celebrated as much as it should be.

I am proposing that the 18th Sustainable Development Goal should be ‘CULTURAL OPPORTUNITIES’, which aims to promote and create cultural activities and facilities that celebrates the local culture.

For this project the goal is to use nature and combine it with cultural facilities to encourage people to go outside and produce educational possibilities for the locals. The idea is to create an environment which is easily accessable for both locals and visitors for learning and exploring the History of Gosport.

Concept

The main idea with the masterplan was to merge the isolated green spaces into a larger park, to improve the continuality and to prioritise nature and and environment over cars.

The park will have 4 different themes/ focus: Art, Education, Environment and Boats. All of these will be specifically focusing on the local culture, for example local artist will exhibit their work, boating museums will explore the history of boat making in Gosport and Science hubs will go indepth of the science behing mudflats and the specific scientific interest sites that are located around the site.

To connect these different themes and buildings, multiple even and performance spaces will be dotted around the whole park. This will improve the flow of the park, as it will help guiding visitors through the site.

Masterplan

The masterplan consists of a large park that includes 6 main buildings, each of them celebrate a different local subject, such as local art, history, boat making and science. The car parks are transformed into large public spaces that include performance and event spaces to attract people from the High Street. The public spaces are aiming to bring the community together and act as a breathing space between the city and the park. A bridge runs over the mudflats, where boats will be

exhibited, this creates an exciting and educational journey, over a Rasmar site.

I am also increasing the number of trees to increase the woodland in Gosport to fight climate change, but at the same time reduce flooding risks. The mudflat has an amazing biodiversity and importnace to the habitats and the environment, so I am aiming to protect and promoting it, by creating awarness to its importance and beauty.

Cultural Compass

This project is zooming into my previous master plan, which aims to enrich the cultural landscape by introducing new opportunities for residents and visitors. This is a cultural building designed to draw people from the High Street into the park; the building serves as a gateway, guiding visitors through the site.

A highlight of the building is the comprehensive gallery, showcasing rotating exhibitions by local artists every 2-3 months. This strategy ensures a continuous flow of fresh themes and styles, drawing locals to revisit the centre regularly for new cultural experiences.

The pond plays an important part as its the host for the boat racing. The building is designed so that on special occasions it can be transformed. Flexibility is a crucial element, with a multi-purpose space on the ground floor, the space can be used for events, lectures, exhibitions and presentations (e.g. announcing the winner for the boat racing).

The structure aims to draw in people using the high contrast between materiality and textures. The building sits on a public space, which landscaped to hold seatings for the boat racing, even and performance spaces, which all aim to draw visitors in.

Concept

The main goal of the design was to bring people from the High Street into the park. The building is designed to guide people from the High Street, through the building into the park.

The shape was made using the grid of the site. The lines connected resulted in a shape that wraps around the site. This hard angled form also links back to the old fortsification from the Gosport Lines that were once there.

The design concept was to produce a circular interior that created a journey through the building. The curves are aiming to create a more natural path, like in a forest or in a cave.

Development

The first iteration was formed by extruding the shape made by the grids. The form was very successful as it wrapped around the site, which helped guiding the visitors into the park.

After looking deeper into the spaces required, I managed to cut out any negative spaces, which left me a slopped design. This made the building blend with the context more as more of the greenroof is revealed. I have created a cut in the north elevation, this sloped enterance walls mission is to get peoples attention.

People should approach this structure because they are curious of what it is and whats inside. Which is why I made the decision to force the fire stairs outside. This adds more character to the building, therefore increases the curiosity of visitors.

Design Features

Throughout the development journey I was experimenting with windows. I was aiming to design a window that represents the interior on this hard surface. These scattered windows have a deep meaning, but see it the building has to be folded apart. If we assamble each elevation next to each other we end up with a massive wavy/ curved line, which is meant to represent the inside: flow/ journey. These scatted windows will also let light through in a unique way, similarly to a forest where light is shining throught the trees.

The concept of this building is to have a hard, dense, angular outside, which contrasts and stands out from its environment, however once you step inside its all open, soft, and curved. This cut out of the facade is meant to reveal the interior. The curved curtain wall represents the interior, but also allows for a peak into the inside.

It was a design choice to move the fire stairs outside of the building. This allows the interior to continue the curves uninterrupted. The stairs go higher than the building to allow access to the roof for maintanance. This excrusions add character to the building and makes it more memoriable.

Precedent

The Weston is an enterance to a sculpture park in Yorkshire. The design ambition of this building matches the cultural bulding I am designing, which made this a very effective and helpful architetcure to study.

The main inspiration from this building was the pigmented concrete, which simbolisis the rocks in the surrounding area. I like this material as it has a natural look with earth feel and harsh textures. I believe it would link to the park nicely, but at the same time would stand out from the light material of the public space that the building sits on. I swapped the concrete out with rammed earth to improve the sustainability of the building but alsoto add more pattern and colour to the exterior.

The use of weathered fiberglass is a very effective way to cover up the concrete sawtooth roof. I used this clever idea to covering up the concrete fire stairs. I like the contrast between the harsh concrete and the smooth fiberglass.

Figures: Feilden Fowles. (n.d.) TheWestonExterior. https://www.feildenfowles.co.uk/ the-weston/ (Edited) Feilden Fowles. (n.d.) TheWestonGroundFloorPlan. https://www.feildenfowles. co.uk/the-weston/ Feilden Fowles. (n.d.) TheWestonSiteSection.https://www.feildenfowles.co.uk/ the-weston/

Landscaping

I wanted a public space that brings together the locals, the artists and the visitors, therefore using the same grids used to create the building I have split the site into 5 sections: art, boating, services and locals. One main element is the huge performance stage, which aims to grab peoples attantion from the High Street. It will act as a multipurpose space that can be transformed accordingly, such as into outdoor exhibition, concert, bonfire, local market day, skate ring, etc. The additional elements, such as seating, performance stages and playgrounds are all going to be pink to add more colour and contrast to the site to produce a more vibrant and energetic setting.

I studied the Israel Plads Square in Copenhagen. I believe a similar design would be very successful in Gosport, as the High Street is famous for its variety in architecture from different time periods, however public space would have a clean modern look, which would hugely stand out. Having a more modern styled space would incourage younger generation to use the space and be outside. Just as the Israek Plads, this public space will be home to every main events and exhibitions that will be held in Gosport. A space where people go to socialise, connect with the community, learn and express thereselves.

Figures:

Dezeen. (2020, July 6) PinkconcreteplaygroundsinMexico. https://www. dezeen.com/2020/07/06/productora-tlalnepantla-de-baz-tultitlan-pink-concrete-park-mexico/ (Edited) Cobe. (n.d.) IsraelsPladsSquare. https://www.cobe.dk/projects/israels-plads (Edited)

Interior

This design is all about guiding people from the Highstreet to the rest of the park. The way this building achives that is by using curves to create a journey inside the building. The scales of the spaces warry to lead people through. From a large space it shrinks than opens up again. This also adds to the experience of the spaces.

The ground floor contains a large open multi purpose space, a lecture hall, cafe and a gift shop. This floor is for the general public, with the cafe it aims to draw people in. The first floor has a huge gallery with seminar rooms and workshops. This floor is focuses on exhibitions and giving opportunities for local artists to promote themselves. Top floor is where the appartments and studios are allocated for artists.