Mount Pleasant 24/7- Information and Analysis
At the beginning of our design classes it was said that this project should be like REAGENTS ,
so that’s what I want to focus now on: what is a reagent in science? What are the reagents in
design project? What kind of reaction do we have in this project? What can they bring
about? What is my view on this designing method?
I began my work with looking up two definitions: REAGENT and REACTION.
“REAGENT is substance or compound that is added to a system in order to bring about
a chemical reaction, or added to see if a reaction occurs. “[1]
“A CHEMICAL REACTION is a process that leads to the transformation of one set of chemical
substances to another.” [1]
An example of a simple reaction:
2H2 + O2 → 2H2O
reagents
H2O- reaction product
Environment: with oxygen
H2, O2-
A scheme of simple reaction:
A, B- reagents
AB- reaction product
What are a reagent in a design project?
Examples of reagents can be: design project, part of design project, space for meeting, green
spaces, small architecture, users, investors, administration, transport infrastructure,
neighbors, etc -all persons, things or actions that exert influence on each other.
What is environment for our reaction?
Examples of the environment can be: city, district, quarter, residential district,
neighborhood, some site etc. All places where we put the design (reagents).
What kinds of reaction are there?
Positive- most of people are satisfied. We achieve our goal.
Negative- most of people are unsatisfied.
Unreactive- reaction hasn’t occurred. Nothing has changed. It is a negative reaction.
What can exert influence on the reaction?
Environment, design project (our reagents), number of reagents, speed of adding reagents,
kind of people (for example age.)
An example of simple reaction in architecture:
act→ reaction
design project + people → happy people
reagents
happy people- reaction product
Environment: district.
design project, people-
What is our reagents in this design project?
Reagents are: design project, part of design project, space for meeting, green spaces, small
architecture, users, investors, transport infrastructure, neighbors, workers, dwellers, Wi-Fi,
shops, restaurant, river, old people, children.
What isthe environment for our reaction?
Environment is our site-Mount Pleasant and surrounding.
What kind of reaction is there?
Positive- most of people are satisfied. We achieve our goal. We solve our problems.
What should bring positive reaction? What is our target? What kind of problems do we have
in this places?
Now, I can go on to an analysis of our site and describe the most important things.
Mount Pleasant is situated in North London in Camdem borough near to border with
Islington. The location is very attractive, especially due to good transport infrastructure.
The site is located between underground stations: King’s Cross (about 15 min by walk), Angel
(18 min) , Russell Square (12 min), Chancery Lane (8 min), Farringdon (10 min). In the site
there are a lot of bus stops, so people don’t have difficulties getting to this place.
Unfortunately, there aren’t enough bicycle paths.
More bicycle path+ people -> less accidents
In this surrounding the most busy roads are: Gray’s Inn Rd, Farringdon Rd, Rosebery Ave,
Clerkenwell Rd, (Calthorpe St). The streets around our site are quiet, so we can consider
designing nice pedestrian places with some benches, trees small architecture and safe
bicycle paths. We should try to pull people away from noisy roads.
Safe pedestrian places, safe bicycle path-> less accidents
Environment:quiet street
The next advantage of this site is to have some green spaces- in the neighbourhood there
are about 8 parks. We have also some sport facilities. The disadvantage is that these places
aren’t connected, so people can’t walk safely, run or ride a bicycle between them. We can
try to create connection between Coram’s Field, our places and Exmouth Market. Another
important thing is that in this spot there aren’t locales to spent time in rainy
weather(restaurants not included), so would be good to design some places with some kind
of a roof.
Build connection between green places->people can move safer and nicer
Build roofs above meeting points-> people can meet in rainy weather
In the surrounding there are primary schools, kinder gardens, churches, hotels, supermarket,
galleries, public offices, shops, pubs, restaurants, charities, hospitals. There are a lack of
places for the elderly. They don’t have space to spend their spare time. The same problem is
present for children. They haven’t got places to spend their after-school hours. There is also
a need for building a secondary school.
Build a school-> children don’t have to travel long distances to get to school.
On our building spot there are now a car park, residential houses and some office
building(which seems to be temporary structure). The other important information is that
the topographical structure was formed by humans and it is characterized by small number
of levels. We can use this in the design; we don’t need to smooth the ground.
Few levels of ground->Few levels in design project.
Demolish building office, carpark-> Create new function.
Retain residential houses ->dweller can stay at house.
The project site is surrounded by Royal Mail Sorting Office (on east site), buildings office
(within INT designed by Norman Foster) and residential houses.
As you can imagine the neighborhood lacks unified organization. In the immediate
vicinity there are: buildings which of different functions (offices, another places of works,
residential block of flat), different sizes (big offices building, a lot of residential houses
ranging from 2- through 7-storey buildings), different users(dwellers, workers). There are
similar problems with facades- the architects used different materials. We have glass, brick,
stone, concrete. The new structure should be congruous with other buildings; it should have
the right height, simple solid and not too many materials.
There is lack of unified organization-> try to connect the buildings
Sorting office is separated from the outside by high wall. Similar to our site which is fenced
on one site by a wall, on second side there is an unpleasant netting. Office buildings aren’t
available for people who go through these places. For this reason this place becomes empty
and a little dangerous after working hours (after 5 p.m.).
Open space-> nicer place-> more people-> safer
Around our site there are a few orientation points: Royal Mail Sorting Office, office building,
Holiday Inn Hotel, so it is easy to locate this place.
We should remember that there is a plan to put in this area more residential houses.
Before starting the analysis I visited this place and made some mapping. My friend, Anna
Filpa Castro, and I also made a survey of 11 people in area Mount Pleasant todetermine their
degree of satisfaction with this place. We interviewed 6 women and 5 men at age between
15 and 62.The respondents complained about a lack of cheap super market, like Tesco.
To sum up my analysis and results ofsurvey I decide to design some kind of architectural
structure with mixed-uses. Probably it will be a place for resting, meeting people (both
young and old), workshop, green places, eating, some shops and few places for living. I think
that I can build a community center.
This is a simple idea for the solution:
The most important idea of reagents in design is that at all times we should try to think
about influence our design project on the site andpeople there. We have to remember
about the surrounding areas. Our building has to be useful and well located in the context.
We should remember that a small action might cause a much bigger reaction.
Dominika Słaboń
Literature:
[1]IUPAC,
Compendium of Chemical Terminology, 2nd ed. (the "Gold Book") (1997).