Framing

Framing

1810:

Introducing the site

Our site is Port Edgar, upon the banks of the Firth of Forth in South Queensferry, on the outskirts of Edinburgh, it has a long and rich history. It is a place where the theme of care is introduced in a variety of ways

First pier was built and Port Edgar rst opens as a harbour

1869: North British Railway begins construction of a ferry to North Queensferry on the other side of the river

1878: Ferry service begins

1890: Forth Rail bridge opens, making the Ferry redundant

1891: HMS Caledonia, a training ship is based at Port Edgar until 1906

1916: Purchased by the Admiralty and turned into the Destroyer base HMS Columbine

1928: HMS Columbine is closed and becomes a holiday camp for unemployed families from Glasgow and Edinburgh

1939: Becomes HMS Lochinvar, a minesweeping base

1943: A preparation facility for D-Day is established

1975: HMS Lochinvar is closed

1978: Port Edgar is bought by Lothian council and becomes a marina and sailing school

Figure 1

Figure 2: Port Edgar, Navy Days

Understanding the brief

The first thing I did in this project was a quick exercise which summed up what I thought and felt about the brief for this project

A small group of us then made a triptych to depict what our idea of care is.

Group Exhibition

In October we were split off into our own smaller groups and we begun to create an exhibition where we would begin to create an exhibition that would culminate in our group creating a theme which would inform our later work. As a group we decided that our theme was to be “Care within Conflict”. Within this exploration of these two themes upon our site our research and work concluded with not only a comprehensive portfolio but a wide ranging exhibition of work across several different media.

GROUP MANIFESTO

CARE

As CARE can be seen to be prevalent in the CONFLICT of war, our Group attempts to understand human nature and its requirements in design to achieve the atmosphere of care within a conflicted context. Our agenda is to relentlessly explore the concepts around the care that is given in wartime.

From our extensive research on Port Edgar, we discovered elements of care within conflict spanning its time as a Naval Base (1891-1975). This concept will be ingrained in our project throughout, exploring the juxtaposition between care and conflict in the military context. Our concept will be realised through expressive pieces of scenography and representation, with a totalised aim to generate a “scenography of care”. Along with this theme, we will address the impact of the climate crisis on coastal environments and how different levels of intervention affect this (conservation, preservation and regeneration). A further exploration will be into biotechniques and other material and construction advancements. All this will demonstrate our knowledge of technical, constructional and design techniques.

The Port Edgar Naval Base in South Queensferry has become a place detached from its purpose and our project intends to bring it back to life through revived purpose, reimagined purpose, and complete individualised purpose.

Arts based response

This piece of work uses our artistic interpretations of the site in tandem with a number of precedents to create a strong image which begins to highlight the contested nature of the history and context of our site

Site Modelling

We then made several iterations of a site model. We had to make several version of this model. Our first iteration was made from foam, second from cardboard, then third from card exhibition board. We each had different visions for each of these site models, so much so we ended up making a CAD rendering of our concept for the third model which showed how we originally envisaged elevating each layer to show their respective importance and how they each show the contested attributes of conflict and care

Precedent Board

It was suggested to us that we should take the opportunity to illustrate our visions of and for the site through differing media. These included films which represented conflict through care like Dunkirk and Empire of the Sun. As well as methods of representation inspired by people like Stephen Hillier, Bernard Tschumi, and John Cage.

Film

In a similar vein to our precedent board we also created a video which illustrated our concept of care within conflict. We used clips from the films we were inspired by as well as archival footage from Edinburgh and Port Edgar itself.

John Cage

Using the contrast that naval dazzle camouflage presents I used John Cage’s Graphic notation as inspiration to show an idealised flow through our site and the dramatic contrast it presented

Zaha Hadid Architects & Stephen Hillier (overleaf)

I continued the use of dazzle to show what I believe to be the two different yet strenuously linked concepts of care and conflict. Here I used the hand, a symbol of care and have extended it to show the many different facets that this idea has. As precedents I used the works of Stephen Hillier’s Grimm City and the plans of the MAAXI Gallery by ZHA.

Site visit

In November we went on a very wet site visit to South Queensferry to visit Port Edgar. We undertook a tour of the building and we began to learn in finer detail the original purposes of the building’s when it was a military base. While visiting the site I was particularly inspired by the graffiti on the site, the decaying architecture, and the sites relationship with the Queensferry crossing.

While I was in Edinburgh I was also inspired by the beautiful architecture of the city in general.

Building Survey

Our Group then had to undertake a dereliction report. In this exercise we began to gain a very basic understanding of what there was on our site which had been damaged through the years of neglect which the site had experienced. We used a photo based 3D modelling software called Polycam to construct models of our areas of investigation. While undertaking this exercises we had to analyse a specific component of our area of study, I chose the wooden gabling.