ID:415 | Open in NocoDB | Type:Text | Themes:3 | Attachments:1 | Finding:16 chars | Connections:0→0 | Location:52.50930283117868, -2.084694534804059 | Weather:2 tags | Date:Saturday 31 July 2021 | Press 'D' to close

Dudley Time Portal

Big old building - 210731 1335 Big Things.png
Big old building
Added to Archive Wednesday 3 November 2021
Experienced Saturday 31 July 2021
Last Updated Tuesday 25 November 2025
Location 52.50930283117868, -2.084694534804059
Season Summer
Type Text
Weather Cloudy Rainy
Themes Big Things Architecture Old
What was/is/if What is
More tagged with theme Big Things
This visual represents Dudley High Street re-imagined; a new vision of a re-wilded, food-centric town centre. The green canopy will begin as a frame that will encourage the growth of plants. Smaller scale units will be integrated at the start and build towards the final vision. - 1_8oJ0eISAIDZ0uX4_VksliQ.png
Seen as the heart of the town, Dudley High Street stretch- es from the Dudley ASDA, all the way up to the St. Edmund King & Martyr Church. Although, the street has seen better days. Along the High Street itself, there are 28 abandoned shop fronts, accounting for 1/5 shops being neglected. It is also home to a few of Dudley’s landmarks: The Drinking Fountain, a Grade II listed fountain, which had a portion of a £4.6 million funding from the HLF European 2015 funding go towards to its restoration (Richards, 2017). The Market Place is a fixed centre of trading and selling at the heart of the market square. It too benefited from the funding, allowing for permanent fixings. The Top Church, St. Thomas and St. Luke, overlooking the entire street, and most of the surrounding town itself. - Oscar Law Group 1.png
The themes I investigated were the Connections, Movement, Routes and Ways. My gift explores those themes through a figurative expression hidden within the structure of the dreamcatcher, allowing for a flexible interpretation by the audience, and to aid the imagination. The structure of the dreamcatcher symbolizes the relationship between the destination and the journey the user undertakes, but while it highlights the importance of the destination, placing it in the centre as the biggest piece, it emphasizes the significance of the journey over the destination in the ratio of one big element vs many small elements. This can be relevant to the High Street, if the connections are thought of beyond the transport means, and can relate to anything from the layout of the landscape of the High Street, to the interactions between the users. The web symbolizes the connections between the pieces, plotting the blue foam pieces around the different lengths of the thread, off the centre where the destination piece is plotted. This is meant to show how the connections can be made in various ways and that there is no set order or pattern, meaning that the movement is individual and the connections are adaptable. The blue foam pieces can be viewed as points or highlights of the journey, or they can represent different ways of getting to, and from the centre, suggesting that the journey doesn’t end with the destination. Another way in which the web can be interpreted is that the small foam pieces are the destinations, the thread is the connection between them and the big piece symbolizes the decision making. - 0_kW-5L8zNDic2CWkq.jpeg
Geological story of the Black Country Video by Ellie Ramsey Narrated by Graham Worton https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PaxRX8-c2fU - Screenshot 2022-01-27 at 14_21_08.png
[Drawing - trident] - 210731 1335 Big Things 2.png
More tagged with theme Architecture
Building Deterioration There was a familiar aesthetic regarding the buildings during the initial site visit to Dudley High Street. However, a large proportion of the façades that look onto the street have noticeable damage, graffiti or structural issues. With that said, these images (right) are an insight into some of the damage. If the local authorities saw the high street as a priority, then damages and aesthetics would have been resolved and fixed. However, as there are multiple damages, this assumes that this high street is not one authority wish to preserve. That said, this opens an opportunity. Instead of being a conservationist and repairing these buildings to their former glory, why not make them a statement piece within the high street. Possibly by placing a blanket ban on all of the current materials seen on the street. Instead, any repairs must be in Zero carbon / Carbon negative materials. This could then become an educational street with great architectural character. Both combined may increase the high streets footfall. The first step would be to highlight any listed buildings or monuments within the high street. - Ryan Cooksey Building Deterioration.png
Our collective vision for Dudley is to support a creative community that is connected through our internet of things; creating spaces that allow for the collection and redistribution of materials that locals can use to construct products with. Community engagement is central to this design network with local businesses encouraged to get involved in manufacturing. We decided to bring alive this vision through a series of pavilions positioned through the High Street, following a process through recycling, storing constructing and manufacturing. To take this idea further, we allocated several empty units along the High Street to become spaces involved in the open factory, from workshops, educational centres and co-working hubs. Since we wanted to show the journey people would be able to take, we decided to create a storyboard for our final visual. These visuals show how the pavilions could sit in the High Street, starting at the market place, past CoLab Dudley’s base, and ending up at Top Church. We wanted to show how people would be able to interact with these different spaces and navigate between them. - 1_VMp1Jai-Vr7tZ4pe8U752Q.png
Localising Material Accessibility During my initial walk through the High Street of Dudley, I noticed an inevitable decline in the area. There were vacant shops, but those open had apparent facade damage. For the area to thrive, there needs to be an aesthetical uplift. Here I began to question how to make the repairs. On the one hand, one could complete a like for like repair with a deep clean to provide a new lease of life to achieve an aesthetical value. Alternatively, the repairs could be a status of where the street aims to be in the future. To achieve a statement, the implementation of repair work needs to stand out. It needs to be futuristic, a bold contrast to the existing. At this point, I decided that after being informed of the damage the built environment has on the climate crisis, only carbon zero/ carbon sequestering materials would be present during repairs. This does not aim to destroy existing buildings but instead carefully implement repairs creating a patchwork effect across the street. This would then grow over time as more repair work is required. Over time, the high street would transform into a zero-carbon environment. The manufacturing and growth of these materials need to be local, so consideration is vital. This provides an opportunity for the site to be a material producer itself. - Ryan Cooksey Ban Materials.png
Peeling paint on beautiful old windows - 210731 1050.jpg
The main structure would have various spaces such as the Museum space, possibly a place that people can pin up local activities, and maybe rooms for either changing or for performance practice. As the street is 11m wide on average, there is plenty of space to have the building fill the space. As the sunlight comes from mainly the south, the south side buildings often shadow the street entirely, which would mean that something being built (especially as it will be dug down a bit) would not shadow out the other buildings. The biggest hurdle to tackle is that the space shouldn’t not feel overwhelming to the other shops or those who walk down the pavement. Because of this, most of the building’s structure would be in the underneath area, and only parts of it would pop out over the pavement. As the design would be flush with the pavement, there are also opportunities to have crossing bridges that are both useful by the public, but also incorporated with the design of the new street. The back of the street would create a unique space for social activities. The space is wide enough and long enough for a performance theatre space to be erected there, but it also has the possibility of having some kind of altered shape to the area, like a raised platform that could house seating and other social activities. However, the space can also perfectly fit a fully regulated tennis court, badminton court, and volley ball court. People have mentioned that there is also a lack of sport engagement in the area, so this could be used to provide that kind of space. - Oscar Law Proposed design.png
More tagged with type Text
Broken tile edge - 211110 1735 Tiny Things 4.png
Break light red glow - 210730 1515 Tiny Things.png
Barber - 210731 1403 Smell.png
Soft plastic - 211007 1500 Waste 14.png
I was asked about what I was doing [asked them what they think is beautiful] Old lamp posts giving the town some character - 210730 1100.JPG