Pleased to announce after two years of late nights I have graduated from the BA at sheffield university architecture school with a first class Degree. First I designed a housing scheme in the yorkshire town of Goole, then a polling station for Birmingham. Here is a concept drawing for the Goole project. I am please to be able to report that Architectural teaching at sheffield and the standard of the students was really impressive. There was a whole lot more drawing and communication education going down than in any art school I have been to recently.

In January I spent some time reading about the urban transformation of Berlin in particular the process of re-use over successive decades of the Mietkaseren (rental Barrack). Interestingly Berlin seems to have had a series of influential exhibitions, stemming from a general discomfort with the way the 1960's large scale urban renewal projects were changing the city aiming to adapt it into to separate zones, economic, industrial, residential and so on connected through high speed rail links. The International building exhibitions - with typically german poetic themes such as 'the inner city as residential area'  and 'European monument preservation year (1975) explored and proved that 'renewal without removal' was a workable, profitable (renewing meant 40% to 60% of the new build cost) and vital undertaking. Apparently leading to a new approach by the city architects and planners to work with the old people, the squatting movement and the inhabitants to create more care in keeping the unique characteristics of the buildings, and the mix of residents and artisan businesses in areas such as Kreuzberg. It is an inspiring realization that the soft and intellectual undertaking of a city exhibition had a direct and real impact in changing the opinions and approach to the hard economics and business of regeneration. Having experienced first hand the last decade of art biennales and art fares, such as frieze, Liverpool biennale, Istanbul biennale, Venice biennale etc, and locally; situation Leeds, Manchester international festival, has the city exhibition become a celebration of culture, the individual creative and an attempt to place itself within a largely too broad global issue or debate (the theory led curatorial vision ), at the expense of something a bit more sensible and useful.

After a year and a bit studying for my part 1 in architecture at Sheffield University, renovating a house and studio for Laura and myself and most importantly of all having a baby, young Alfred Davies, it seems that I have re-hitched my saddle and slowly got back on the art/design band wagon with four projects about to kick off this spring and summer.

The first is a sculptural commission for the omnipresent builders and developers BAM properties, which is just about to be submitted for its planning permission.

The second is a project for Leeds University called the Road to Voting, http://www.theroadtovoting.org/ a bit behind my hoped schedule but the contract is nearly signed, and by all accords its time for a voting based artwork to leap from the moleskin notebook and into the world.

The third is a commission for a new School in Bristol headed up by public art consultant Aldo Rinaldi – other artists undertaking the series of commissions are Tom and Simon Bloor from Birmingham, the Arnolfini Gallery, and amazingly Nick Park of Ardman animation in collaboration with Conrad Shawcross?

Finally there is a design commission for some new offices for the Leeds based building developer St James Securities, the first proper building design I have been asked to undertake.

We have been commissioned by the multi-multi disciplinary ‘Road to Voting’ project  www.theroadtovoting.org to create an artwork based on the research and recent interviews into the moment of voting by Professor Stephen Coleman (Professor of Political Communication and Director of Research at the Institute of Communications Studies, University of Leeds).  The artwork will come to fruition alongside work by co-commissioner Vanalyne Green  and a new theatre piece by Steven Bottoms and a building proposal for the final archive of the whole project being developed by Irena Bauman of Bauman Lyons Architects.

To expand on a hypothetical artwork at this early stage is never a good idea, initially I have just been thinking about the spaces that we vote in, such as village halls and school gyms, thinking how these seemingly haphazard places are utilised every four years – and the possible effect that their associated and symbolic meaning might have on the voter as he/she marks the ballot paper. What would a designated voting space look like as a state project?

It seems on first inspection that there is little written about the architecture that democracy actually takes place in. There is though a lifetime of research into ancient Greek buildings, the first theatre and its relation to the origins of democracy. There are also studies of buildings where internal party voting takes place, Foster’s Reichstag Dome above the debating chamber in Berlin and his similar City Hall in London. There is Alvar Aalto’s interesting brick built ‘House for Culture’ in Helsinki for the 1950’s Finish Communist Party to meet in. There are also famous buildings that nod their head to democratic power such as Sir Charles Barry’s Palace of Westmingster and there is plenty of architecture for non-democracies (e.g. Versailles, the architecture of power). There is also interesting theorizing around democratic processes in architecture – and its participatory nature. But there seems little in the way of buildings that express the importance of the ground up voter’s role in the whole democratic process. At this stage we can say that these ideas might play a part in a project that as yet has no venue, no imagined form nor fixed deadline (dependant on when Gordon Brown calls the next election!). This point in the process is a familiar if  temporary moment, a nucleus of potential energy, a projected zone for imaginative projects.

The exhibition ‘Double Signature ‘ opened mid-February displaying the work of four collaborative teams, my prototype of a lakeside pavilion is a ‘not to scale’ model of a structure that conveys an approach to the site, rather than defines a certain building, a model that oscillates between structure and proposed walkway. Laura’s textile prints and cushions approach the imagined pavilion from a different angle, dealing solely and in detail with the interior patterns/ finishes and internal feel of a building that will never be built or fully designed (e.g. it can only be built by the viewers imagination).

Opening the show whilst there was still plenty of snow on the ground meant it was an interesting and determined crowd that gathered in Fermyn Woods a gallery in the countryside near Corby, they came by car, on foot or by horse, a motley crew of surprisingly interested people, in rain coats wellies, some camouflage jackets and with children in tow. A different demographic to a urban art space that reminds you that contemporary art culture isn’t solely the preserve of the urban trendy.

After the three and a half weeks we spent in Chinese village of Wuzishen (Nanling forest), one of the outcomes is my proposal for architectural changes to the streets of ping-fang houses in which the retired forest workers live. These are set to be demolished in the next 3 years and tower blocks will be build to house the residents. However the ping-fangs are unique houses much loved by those who live in them, built in 1958 during Mao's 'great leap forward' they are set on communal streets that splits the sleeping area and lounge from the kitchens and bathrooms. This ensures constant to-ing and fro-ing. interaction with neighbors and a sense of community.   

The challenge is to create a far more holistic re-development scheme using the existing buildings that looks and smells like progress, modernises some of the very basic kitchens and bathrooms and attracts a younger generation to the housing, it should maintain the existing unique character and feel of the Ping-fangs. It would also need something to attract visitors, helping unite the division between the incoming tourist wealth (for the nature park) and the village.

Click here for a movie that outlines the proposal so far for Mr Chen from the Nanling eco-resort company who seemed interested in helping to build a prototype/ show flat.

Caption: discussing poposed architectural changes in the village market. 

I can't believe that another of my favourite buildings in Leeds is being destroyed! (along with the international swimming pool). The H-blocks at Leeds Metropolitan University are about to meet their maker. Surely these functional concrete structures with a proper internal refit and new metal or wooden windows could stay, maintaining their honest geometric simplicity and no nonsense chic that has graced the student zone in the city for the last 40 or so years. This would also be far more eco friendly than wasting energy demolishing them and building some mediocre quasi-contemporary architecture in its place which will also meet the demolition squad in another 30 years. It would be nice to see more of this concrete architecture receiving the same holistic approach and regeneration that the industrial brick buildings of the 18th and 19th century have in recent years. The H-block buildings are currently used as the art department and convey a gritty urban edge that art needs, also referencing back to the days when Leeds was awash with political activism and the Leeds Metropolitan (then polytechnic) led the way for cutting edge performance art. At least Leeds University is still keeping some of its fantastic 60's and 70's gems (because it is so Sci-Fi it is rumoured to have been used to film episodes of Blake Seven).

Visit to the apartment in the suburbs of Paris in which Le Corbusier lived between 1935 and 1965, in the top two floors of a residential block that he designed. It had flexible space and views with large swing doors/walls, transparency on both sides of the building looking over the Paris skyline. It is strangely empty compared to the cluttered space in the documentary photographs that show it as his home and studio.

Watch a video walk around of the apartment.