(Source: simplypi, via architecturesheloves)
Hello. My name's Gurmeet - I'm an Architect based in London. I'm really interested in exploring ideas about new architecture and art in spaces where at first glance you may not think there is an opportunity to do so. Well designed spaces can be used to enhance the enjoyment and appreciation of any place! I'll be sharing with you both built projects and sketches for conceptual proposals, and would love to hear your own ideas as well!
Go to www.officesian.com for some of my Studio's projects! • Ask me anything
Missed Opportunities
Go to www.officesian.com for some of my Studio's projects! • Ask me anything
Missed Opportunities
Guy Street SE1
I walk through the park at Guy Street twice a day, to and from my way to the Studio. It’s a bit of a closed/drab park surrounded one major-ish road, but 3 minor roads that I’ve never seen any cars drive down. The metal fencing on the boundary has always seemed as an ‘over-the-top’ measure, which closes the green space away from the residential blocks on the perimeter.The park is a used by a key pathway for people walking to and from London Bridge Station, but the landscaping seems to have been designed less in mind for the pedestrian, and more in mind for the car-driver.
I think a far better way to understand this space would be to see it as an area which links one side of the park with the other, instead of having a patch of grass surrounded by fencing to keep people out, and then driving a pathway through it!
How’s about reimagining the park as an extension of the residential blocks on its perimeter? By retaining the main road, the other 3 roads are converted to ‘slow-go car/pedestrian’ areas. The park is now seen as a conceptual ‘front garden’ to all of the flats on its edge, and the visual barrier of an ugly tarmaced road is removed. The road surface is replaced with a ‘grass-crete’ treatment, [which is grass interwoven between a concrete mesh], so that a visual link is made between the centre of the park + the edge of the residential blocks, The park looks larger, is more welcoming, is still protected from the major road, and is integrated within the local context and community. A colour scheme to enforce this new spirit can be introduced. The Guy Street Community’s Park is created!
![That’s me! [Sketching away…]](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lpetsrf7hW1r114r9o1_500.jpg)
When an Opportunity IS taken…Not an old asbestos shed any more!
Let’s kick this blog off with a bang. First up is a doozer - my recent design for a garden studio, to replace an existing asbestos shed - filled with junk and spiders!
Whatever can be done with a patch of land at the end of the garden??
What replaces the original shed [demolished + now residing in shed hell for the rest of eternity] is this beautiful building, used as a garden studio and workspace for the Clients.
The back of their garden is transformed - all that was needed was a willing client + loads of imagination!
All the materials were bought from sustainable sources, with a key design factor being the need to create a environmentally friendly, warm and comforting haven in urban London. The studio was even designed to a set size so that the plywood boarding on the walls didn’t have to be trimmed, and therefore there was no material wastage!
Even the Architect’s Journal liked it, voting it one of the 24 best ‘Small Projects’ in the UK in 2010.
Not bad for a shed….
