Belize Barrier Reef

The Belize Barrier Reef is a series of coral reefs straddling the coast of Belize, roughly 300 meters and 25 miles country limits. The Belize Barrier Reef is a 186 miiles long section of the 560 miles long Mesoamerican Barrier Reef System.

This Reef reminds me of the time I visited the Blue Hole in Eygpt, its simplicity and perfect shape is like non other and the clear and distilled Ocean is one that is lovely to Snorkle in.

Charles Darwin described it as "the most remarkable reef in the West Indies" in 1842.

courtesy of msn.com

Focus Week 2 - Factory Quarter

Image courtesy of Durkan.com

The Factory Quarter comes to a cost of a £71 million development, designed by Durkan Estates (Its largest to date). It provides 450 homes on behalf of the Genesis Housing group.
Before the Factory Quarter was designed, the location used to set out as a Prestolite Factory complex. Architects BPTW, Living Architects and GHM, all linked up as a group that provided a mixture of 104 appartment for rental, 185 for shared ownership, and the remainder of 165 apartments for private sale. There are many blocks contructed and range from 2-8 storeys, this development takes up 2.4 hectres of space.

Other facilities include a multi-use community focused meeting space, retail and commercial space and a children's play area.

Focus Week 2 - Anish Kapoor

Images courtesy from GettyImages

I was amazed when viewing the mirrors, it actually showed the world upside down. It is constructed from highly reflective stainless steel, it's upside illusions is the most prominent feature as the giant surfaces created in various forms such as curved mirror suface that creates the distortion of the natural surroundings. I was engaged throughout the visit and it even possibly made me a child for a minute.

Focus Week 2 - Landscape Graphics

Author: Grant W. Reid



This book will inspire me to improve my plans, of what I have heard it is a cheap and superb book. It main focus is on landscape designing, it's supposed to take you through the stages of the design process, and also to give details of quality graphics.

Awaiting Delivery!

Focus Week 2 - Photoshop Landscape Effects

This video shows how to changes colours and lighting effects to change the mood of a image.

Focus Week 2 - Aspirations

Top of the list for things to do is to visit the Anish Kapoor Exhibiton, an event I missed out on focus week 1. I've heard only good things about it!

Also for this week I set out the task of learning new software, and it couldn't have come at a better time as we had a task of designing a beautiful abstract object, I would need to experiment with a 3D software that will enable me to cut though wood for my design.

Martha Shwartz - Barker Park

Residential rear garden design

Focus Week 1 - Detail in Contemporary Landscape Architecture

Virginia McLeod



This is an excellent book for all students and professionals within the Landscape Industry. The lack of training in these important skills means that you have to improve by using additional resources such as this book. This book uses a great combination of details, images and texts of many contemporary projects. It also includes CAD files of the details on CD placed in the back of the book. This is an invaluable source of inspiration and technical reference. I highy recommend this book to all of similar interests.

Focus Week 1 - Imperial Wharf

Imperial Wharf residents however will be overwhelmed with beautiful surroundings. Landscaped gardens. The landscapes are spread over a third of the whole development and balconies, terraces. From balconies there is said to be a wonderful view of parkland area and river. In this development there are 1800 luxury riverside apartments.

PS. A Few Chelsea Football player live here such as Ivanovic, Essien etc.

Focus Week 1 - Westfield Shopping Centre

Westfield shopping centre is located in Shepherds Bush, London. The centre was developed by the Westfield Group (which is run by Frank Lowy) and the overall cost of £1.6 billion. It is also known as one of the largest shopping centres across Europe and opened on 30 October 2008.

The main focus of development was aimed at the oppotunity of retail and therefore can hold upto 255 stores (150,000m² space for retail floors).

The Village also known as the nre high end retail area was in particular unusual. The main purpose for this was to attract high end retailers to its shopping centres.

LIVING WALL - AECOM

AECOM was signed on to complete a distictive landscape and public realm design. A project that the cost eventually came to £1.7 billion.

It's trademark is a 170 metre long and four metres tall living wallt located at the Southern Terrace. It stands strongly in between restuarants, local homes and commercial centres. It gives customers of restuarants and shoppers an exciting and vibrant view. The wall itselft is constucted using a modular system from a Canadian firm ELT. Planted beside it are native woodland plants and water feature. It brightens up the shopping atmospthere most of all.


"A range of living wall types were considered. Among the choices was the traditional method of using climbing plants such as ivy, or pre-grown moss or sedum tiles, but these would have been slow to establish or unsuited to the north-facing location. The system selected is based on modular plastic panels approximately 50cm high by 50cm wide by 8cm deep subdivided into 45 cells. Each cell drains into the cell below through slots. Panels can be stacked and fixed to a board or frame to create a wall of almost any size. Water is supplied to the top of each wall by irrigation lines and is collected in a drainage sump below."
AECOM Offical Website

http://www.aecom.com/What+We+Do/Design+and+Planning/Landscape+Architecture+and+Urban+Design/_projectsList/Living+Wall+at+Westfield+Shopping+Centre

Focus Week 1 - How to plot a scaled map from AutoCAD to Photoshop

Focus Week 1 - Chiswick House

Chiswick House is a Palladian villa located in Chiswick. It was originally built during the reign of George II of Great Britain, it is today a Grade 1 listed building. Chiswick House is a wonderful neo-Palladian villa set in beautiful historic gardens in west London. A development that gathered a £12.1 million project has restored the gardens. It was actually built by the third Earl of Burlington in 1729 to present his artwork collection and to entertain his his guests, the house continues to display many spectacular works of art and provides a stunning venue for entertaining. English Landscape Movement is primarlarly due to Chiswick House and have inspired many gardens including New York's Central Park.

Focus Week 1 - Swiss Cottage

Designed by Gustafson Porter, this space joins together with the neighborhood, libary, Eton market. The park has a distinctive water feature intended for play. The water feature have jets that are set to a thirty degree angle along a 15 metre streams of water. There is a thin sheet of water that emerges from grillea embedded into the paving at the head of the fountain, this allows a shallow pool to form on one end of the granite plane. The basin of the water is made from a barehold sunk deep into the chalk subsoil.

"A strongly moulded land form, together with lush planting, provide a striking context for the water element."


Gustafson Porter, embraces the presence and absense of water for the advantage of equal ease.


Swiss Cottage brings life into the local area, it provides a social space to be indulged by many locals. The water within the site refreshes the area and provide stability to the landscape.











Facilities
•heated swimming pools, 25 metre and 20 metre training pool
•fitness centre with 170 stations of equipment
•group exercise studios
•sports hall with four courts suitable for basketball, volleyball, netball, badminton and trampolining
•indoor climbing wall
•squash courts
•rascals adventure playzone
•creche play and learn
•cafe
•health and beauty treatment rooms
•sauna and steam rooms for men and women
•outdoor seven a side astroturf
•meeting room

Focus Week 1 - Whitechapel Gallery - Walid Raad

Walid Raad says his work ‘was in some ways made possible by the wars in Lebanon’. He playfully considers the effects of conflict not only on body and mind, but also on art itself in Miraculous Beginnings, the first survey of his work from the past twenty years.

A series of monochrome blue photographs, the negatives for which were found under the rubble of war-ravaged Beirut, hide the images of anonymous men and women found dead in the Mediterranean. 24 black-and-white photographs provide the only record of the journey the historian Dr Fadl Fakhouri took across Europe.

Upon their arrival in Lebanon all the works scheduled for a major retrospective are found to have miraculously shrunk to one hundredth of their original size. These are just some of the stories that accompany the photographic and video works produced by Raad in his various art projects: as founder and member of The Atlas Group, as both instigator and executor of a series of self-posed photo assignments, and as a contemporary artist who claims via telepathic powers to communicate with artists from the future.

This, Raad’s largest survey to date, brings together works including Secrets in the open sea, 1994/2004, and Let’s be honest the weather helped, 1998/2006-2007, with the premiere of Sweet Talk: Commissions (Beirut), 1987-present, his exploration of the changing face of Beirut over the last twenty years. An astute analysis of the art boom in the Middle East and the implications this has for art and artists from the region lies at the heart of Raad’s latest project, Scratching on Things I Could Disavow: A History of art in the Arab World, 2008-present.

All images and text courtesy of whitechapelgallery.org

Focus Week 1 - Chiswick Park

“All our staff really enjoy working at Chiswick Park. As a result, the company finds it much easier to retain people. Some people travel from as far away a Kent. They seem not to mind the journey because it is such a great place to work.”

Jason Brown, Intelsat








This is something I really wanted to look at as it was local to me and was being developed as I grew up, I was engaged into the development before it was even completed. It boasts a whopping 33 acre site Chiswick, London. Its original idea to redevelopment came with a high interest of the local community, nethermind the countless number of investors involved. As there was a lack of quality employment oppotunities within the area, the designers decided to take on the challenge for a office park that would hail its wonderful views that every offices should look like.

The Development consist of 12 buildings, a small river, and shops. It has created an atmostphere for workplace that embraces a philosophy of "Enjoy Work" - putting people, rather than buildings, at the heart of Chiswick Park.

Focus Week 1 - Barbican Centre

The Barbican Centre is a beautifully crafted place, the landscape is crafted by wonderful ray of sunlight and the scenery holds many water fountains. The Barbican seen from just its exterior, mesmerizes individuals with its open court area surrounded by wonderful sights.






The Barbican Centre is known to be as the largest performing arts centre in England. It generally hosts music concerts such as classical and contemporary, film screenings, art exhibitions and theatres. It also maintains its hold on libaries, restuarants, consevatories and more. It also hold many Graduation Ceremonies here including KINGSTON UNIVERSITY.The Barbican is also known for hosting the London Symphony Orchestra and the BBC Sympthony Orchestra.


The Barbican Centre is owned, funded, and managed by the City of London Corporation, the third-largest arts funder in the United Kingdom.

Constructing Landscape: Materials, Techniques, Structural Components: Materials, Techniques , Building elements

Author: Astrid Zimmermann



This book focuses on the construction side of designing, it relates to all materials and techniques used for constructed. This book guide me into the final steps of finalising a concept.

Focus Week 1 - Aspirations

After the long break from the summer holidays my landscape knowledge was slowly decreasing as I didnt engage myslef with it during the break. I decided for the first week of focus that I would be concentrating on existing projects, commercial and residential and how they can inspire me to get motivated for the year.
Whilst I was refreshed over the summer break I decided to buy a book which I am currently awaiting delivery for!

Personal Development Plan (PDP)

In my third year of university I will be using the focus weeks as a guide of my development and involvement in the subject of Landscape Architecture. I also intend to use the focus weeks to gather information, to focus primarily on my knowledge and skills of landscape through the year. The aim to produce sufficient evidence for focus weeks I will be planning and recording every detail about my experience.

To realise what I have to achieve for each focus week took me until my third year, I never understood fully the reason behind the module. My understanding of focus weeks has gradually improved year after year and I am hoping to make this blog year my strongest. I will be looking into studies that interest us as Landscape Architects or of Landscape interests, these opportunities will guide me into discovering into life whilst in university and upon graduation. The main reason is to discover my landscape initiative and help me progress towards a more educated future.

Over the first few years of my degree there have been many distractions away from university at important times, therefore planning beforehand will keep me on line with university. My blog will be updated as regularly as possible and I will be giving an insight to each activity I wish to do for each focus week. This will give not only me but readers to also take into account on exhibitions, seminars, lectures and events taking place the following week. This will also enable readers to avoid being led astray over reading a post out of nowhere.

There are many constructed Landscape designs to date as I wish to explore as many as I can to inspire and motivate me to producing designs of more quality and meaning. I am going to use existing landscape developments as precedents for my studio work as the market of landscape is evolving around the world there is more to look out for. Although I believe that landscape has a bright future, I will try my hardest to incorporate existing developments and use the most prolific designs to influence me.
During the recent years of Landscape I have noticed my many of my strengths and weaknesses. My strengths are sketching and surveying, whereas I have many more weakness such as analysis, development of concepts, masterplans and use of software to interpret my designs. I wish to make each weakness and turn them into strengths, for this I will clearly state my aims and ambitions for the coming year. Even though learning a lot of the softwares such as Photoshop, Illustrator and inDesign which are all products of Adobe, I also have learnt about 3D model making software including Rhinoceros 4.0 and Google SketchUp.

Third year is the most important as I have come so far towards my degree I will need to integrate many softwares and combine them together for my designs to be more effective. My targets and goals are to improve in the use of softwares such as AutoCAD and other 3D model making software such as Vectorworks, all of the mentioned software will aid me to more success for my future in Landscape.
There are many ways to develop an understanding of landscape; I will try to use many references such as websites, books for contemporary computer designs, visiting exhibitions, events, galleries and videos to correspond with my recordings of experience. I hope to report on every documented experience and reflect on my knowledge.

My main tasks for the year is to:
-Explore current landscape developments
-Improve in Software
-Enrich my knowledge about Landscape
-be involved in Landscape Books
-Get a Good Grade!

I hope many people will be engaged throughout my blog as I intend to write with enthusiasm and encouragement about my findings and hope that you don’t lose focus.

All comments will be appreciated, the GOOD and including the not so fortunate BAD.

Thanks Mohammad.