TEST III: Invisible/visible apparatus

TEST II: invisibility

Test

Short circuits

Pro-bono collaboration

Thanks to my tutor David I found this initiative called i-Probono offering free legal advice for those who can't afford it: http://www.i-probono.com/index.aspx (featured in recent Observer article about top New Radicals in UK)
This gave me an idea.


As mentioned earlier, the closest meso-climate of the Broad Chare site, where Finnish Institute is going to be based, is pretty much defined by the activity of law - solicitors' and barristers' offices as well as the Newcastle Law Courts itself are going to be the closest neighbors of the Finnish Institute. At first I thought I am only going to be able to use the lawyers' lunchtime to get my 'asorbtion of energy' going. On the other hand...

I decided to provide an office space for a pro-bono student law firm within the institute where students work for public by using their experience and legal skills.
I am already envisioning Finnish Institute as very multidisciplinary and transparent: different activities experienced at the same time to achieve a kind of short-circuit we call a creative collaboration.


Nice one, Northumbria:

schematics

An old Russian valve radio

Some ideas on Broad Chare and amplifiers in architecture

The proposed site for Finnish Institute - Broad Chare or Trinity Court - is on Newcastle Quayside - the part facing a cultural belt of redeveloped Gateshead Quays: BALTIC centre for contemporary arts, pedestrian Millennium Bridge, The Sage music and arts centre, tourist information centre - Gateshead Heritage in St. Mary's Church and extending to the Riverside Sculpture park in PipewellGate.





The site is an evidence of a rich history of Newcastle Quays - busy marine commerce in 18th century and later, marine industries on the River Tyne. Most of the chares - little alleys that created an extraordinary urban feature - have been destroyed after the great fire. But some still remain around the site.


Newcastle Quayside map from 1732:



For the Finnish Institute I deliberatelychose a culturally and socially rich environment surrounded by multiple institutions with very contrasting (well... i will try to prove that not really) activities. Perfectly interactive area to develop my strategies in.













Following my idea of creating a place for the Finnish Institute's social networking from the beginning I aimed to create a kind of Transmitter/Receiver space which would in some way either absorb or release the energy (energy here can be understood metaphorically - as in potential ideas coming from collaborations, experience of professionals of different/contrasting disciplines - and literally - heat energy, accumulation of steam in a sauna*).



Some diagrams explaining the architectural strategy of providing transmitter spaces ( release of energy), receiver spaces (accumulation of energy) and amplifiers (boosting energetic flow: spaces for unexpected collaborations, accidental meeting spaces, venues, spaces of action).
I find it hard to somehow define whether a certain space required by the brief would necessarily be a transmitter or receiver, because both happen simultaneously, however, I have the idea of the main energetic axis in the building: RADIO and SAUNA. These spaces and activities happening within them somehow draw the boundaries for the scheme and ideally, establish it as a kind of apparatus driven by the fuel of creative collaborations. In other words, like an organism fully dependent on the efficiency of circulation/energetic flow within. The building itself becomes an organization?

Thought this was kinda fun for you? If anything it can be a humorous motivational tool! : )

Design development up till now (with epilogue)

Currently having some troubles with image resolution on blogger ( it would be useful to show the north arrows at least) but will post the diagrams once this technical issue is solved.)

Brief summary of so-far development:

MORE | FOLK| LORE (more people/more ethnicity)

1) MICRO (the office) , MESO (the context) , MACRO (media). This trinity of cultural climates came from trying to find out what exactly the Finnish Institute does and where it happens. Some things I've been thinking about so far:
Finnish Institute - more as organization/activity, less as a certain place?
Could this organization gain/give benefits when given a sense of place?
What unexpected collaborations could occur in micro/meso environments and challenge the potential of macro environment?
What is the best place for such collaborations to occur, where do I find it in Newcastle Quayside?
How to get all three environments to be parts of the building for Finnish Institute (just as they are parts of Finnish Institute as organization)?

I think I have an answer for every single one of these questions by now. It might not be right, but it is my interpretation. I will see where this approach leads. On the other hand, when I write the questions down, I sometimes feel even more confused - even more questions come to my mind. We'll see where that one leads, as well.

• THE INCUBATOR. I came to a conclusion that media proves a great success for Finnish Institute as a 'field' for potential collaborations. I did not leave the macro cultural environment behind with my next task - The Incubator.Client: Culture Lab Radio. Interests: Radio as technical and social apparatus, collective experience in broadcasting, sharing (Finnish Myths and storytelling; recording of ethnic lullabies; other folklore)
  
• The idea lead to simultaneous research about: Community Radio: externalising a free word of: Ethnic minorities? Activist groups? Neighbourhood communities?; "Electronic Elsewheres" (ed. C.Berry, S.Kim, L.Spigel): the idea of "...places are conjured up, experienced, and in that sense produced through media"; Receiver/Transmitter: the place of energy accumulation (sauna?) and energy release (radio?) - the kernel of design is two counter-balancing spaces, both experienced collectively. I like the idea of collaborative effort to make the energy 'apparatus' work.
• This key idea leads to design quite quickly as I am 'dismantling' the brief into pieces and rearranging into clusters while continuously analysing the proposed site and a radio (almost literally - I got my first raido apparatus from a friend for dismantling!).

Other related things I'm currently interested (in no particular order, I like to write words down so they collaborate in my mind by themselves): Dismantling (taking in pieces? look up: New Brutalism, Parallel of Life and Art, A. and P. Smithsons, Paolozzi's Typewriter); TransmitterReceiver : the FEED spaces? Little distinction between outdoors/indoors. Outdoors also inhabited, inside people as tube coil around the kernel of the building - generating energy, activity visible - available for all to see, experience, take part of - real-life internet; dialogue/feed?; Human Right in Finland to have access to internet; Old/new - ethnicity/globalism. Ethnic media??Discovering new,old. Sharing. Learning.Popularizing folklore. Inclusiveness. Old/new - radio transmitter/internet. The visible/invisible mechanism. To make visible how collaboration occurs. Old/new - vernacular/modern. Brick, glass, black, wood, pitched roof, steel. Large opening, invisible facade

etc.? I'll come back to those diagrams.

Community Radio - Transmitter/Receiver

From AMARC (World Association of Community Radio Broadcasters):

''Community radio, rural radio, cooperative radio, participatory radio, free radio, alternative, popular, educational radio. If the radio stations, networks and production groups that make up the World Association of Community Radio Broadcasters refer to themselves by a variety of names, then their practices and profiles are even ore varied. Some are musical, some militant and some mix music and militancy. They are located in isolated rural villages and in the heart of the largest cities in the world. Their signals may reach only a kilometer, cover a whole country or be carried via shortwave to other parts of the world.

Some stations are owned by not-for-profit groups or by cooperatives whose members are the listeners themselves. Others are owned by students, universities, municipalities, churches or trade unions. There are stations financed by donations from listeners, by international development agencies, by advertising and by governments.''

I like this.

Cultural Incubator and Social Networking in the North East, part II

An agent I chose to design an incubator for is Culture Lab Radio - a voluntary initiative to increase awareness of activity within Culture Lab and in this way encourage people to colaborate (Newcastle University http://culturelab.ncl.ac.uk/home; check culture lab's social initiatives: http://culturelab.ncl.ac.uk/research/inclusion-engagement) .According to the founder of this radio - Ko-Le : "My initial motive to set up the station was to capture and relay live performances in the lab, for I felt that there weren't always a critical mass in the city to support these events".On the Culture Lab's site we can find radio's contribution to social inclusion and engagement explained in this way: ' Culture Lab radio was initiated to help connect people to one another. Playing a wide variety of experimental music and sounds, Culture Lab Radio exists to provide a creative outlet for our students and the wider Culture Lab community and is a valuable medium through which to widen the reach of our research and activities.'

Culture Lab in Newcastle University campus:

Even though Culture Lab Radio is an internet radio,rather than a traditional broadcasting station, it allows to externalise ideas at macro scale (similarly like Finnish Institute is promoting itself via media, and most people come to know this organization by being able to use internet, access to internet in Finland is legalized as part of human rights). Read @Finnish Institute blog : http://blog.finnish-institute.org.uk/2012/02/broadband-access-is-human-right-then.html
This is where I set up my task - micro environments have to INCREASE the potential of artistic collaborations and 'feed' the macro climate. In other words, what happens in the broadcasting room becomes very important (similarly, Finnish Institute becomes a 'venue' for unexpected collaborations).

A radio not only as a technical but also social apparatus became my side interest in this project.

(diagrams to follow)

Cultural Incubator and Social Networking in the North East, part I.

in·cu·ba·tor (nky-btr, ng-)

1. An apparatus in which environmental conditions, such as temperature and humidity, can be controlled, often used for growing bacterial cultures, hatching eggs artificially, or providing suitable conditions for a chemical or biological reaction.

2. Medicine An apparatus for maintaining an infant, especially a premature infant, in an environment of controlled temperature, humidity, and oxygen concentration.

3. A place or situation that permits or encourages the formation and development, as of new ideas: a college that was an incubator of new approaches to sociology.
(thefreedictionary.com)

Graduate Design Project - Finnish Institute in the North East - is a call for a cultural enterprise that invests in socioeconomic and cultural benefit on urban or even larger scale: artistic collaborations, strong partnership between creative industry groups, social innovation (see The Finnish Institute in London 'About Us' http://www.finnish-institute.org.uk/en/about). While analyzing design brief and physical requirements for a new Finnish Institute in the North East, several approaches to the project came to my mind.

What environment for innovative collaborations manifested by the client can I create?

micro - Let's say that micro environment for social collaborations is among the members directly involved with Finnish Institute - artists, visitors, staff, neighbours. The members united by the same/similar idea and view towards activities within the Finnish institute.
meso - The idea and cultural benefit of Finnish Institute indirectly influences cultural environment of Newcastle/Gateshead Quayside or even the North East : smaller cultural enterprises start clustering around larger ones and collaborate (Example: Baltic+ Sage = external Quayside live music, dance venues, artistic interventions/installations, art festival venues etc.)

macro - I will call it the environment outside contained spaces. Branding, social networking, indirect collaboration between UK and Finland via cultural promotion.

I have been practicing on making the best environments for collaborations and social interactions within contained spaces (physically or arbitrary) for 3 years. Not this time.

CULTURAL INCUBATOR

As a "feed" research project, we've been asked to look at Newcastle Centre - an environment of clustered cultural enterprises - and design a small incubator for a client that represents a certain cultural group activity/research field. This small scale contained activity would have to act as a catalyst in an already crowded area and still enhance the level of cultural awareness and general quality of place.
However small the incubator is, it's duty is to expand into meso or even macro cultural environments - initiate larger creative enterprises, contribute to positive changes in social fabric of the city or be a confident manifesto of an influential, creative idea. A social or cultural structure has to be designed (or found) in order to expand the tiny contained activity.Designing an incubator is a great test-run of activity+space which lively interacts with larger scale cultural environments.

According to the physical brief, establishment of Finnish Institute in Newcastle/Gateshead Quayside requires as much as ~2000 sq.m of space. But it is clear that this contained activity or cultural enterprise would have to expand into urban/international scale to achieve the social and cultural impact the client aims for.

More about proposed incubator design, Finnish Institute site analysis and social networking scheme to follow in further entries.