SPACES BUILDINGS MAKE
Botanical Research Terrace
BOTANICAL RESEACH TERRACE – (Inflated space)
BOTANICAL RESEACH TERRACE, will be shown on London's South Bank
as part of Londons Festival of Architecture between the 9th and the 13th
of July 2008.
BOTANICAL RESEACH TERRACE, an Inflated Structure at Middlesex,
CAT HILL campus on the evening of 17/12/07
This is the first of a series of installations involving this
inflated space.
BOTANICAL RESEACH TERRACE – (Inflated space)
The construction, by the architects Howell, Killick, Partridge and Amis, of Phase Two in the mid-70s coincided with my own adolescence, a time when I was discovering the nuances of repression and subterfuge in dealing with authority. I hope to connect these themes to my investigation of the building.
Originally there were two glass and Fletton Brick turrets on the south elevation of the Cat Hill campus. They towers were built to house two important resources: the botanical specimen glass house and the animal morgue, both of which were central to Middlesex’s internationally renowned Botanical Illustration courses which were studied as part of the BA (hons) in Illustration. One turret, having sustained structural damage, has recently been partially demolished and had the glass removed. What is left, the brick under tower, currently houses a small fitness centre on the ground floor and now student lift weights where once the bodies of birds and other small mammals were refrigerated.
This project uses the original profile of the turret to recreate its silhouette using an inflated structure. This life-sized, transparent, lightweight form is based on the original architectural drawings of the building from 1975 and fits into the original brick base.
This installation attempts to creatively engage with the archives and memories left behind after the demolition of this section of the building. Doing this may encourage those who encounter this tower (and the building from which it has developed) to re-think, re-visit and re-consider their relationship with the building and the real and imagined spaces that it produces at difference times and in different circumstances. How has the buildings meaning changed over the course of its history? Does it mean the same thing to all those who use it? Can it’s meaning for its users change?
The bright new exterior formed by the inflatable structure represent, for me, concurrent attempts to resurface or redevelop the campus and one’s damaged identity as new guises and forms of self-expression become sampled within the buildings framework.
Two archival images to the south elevation of the building 1978
Hendon Campus on the evening of the 11th of December 2007
Inflated Building at Middlesex on it’s first test inflation in the atrium at Hendon.
Arcive image, Cat Hill 1978
Inflated building, first look in Main Hall of Cat Hill 13/11/07
Summer 2005
Inflate Space in Main Hall, Cat Hill 13/11/07
