During this period, I have been exposed to the ideas of rich heritage design, which also allowed an insight into improved assessments in today’s architecture and design.
Thanks to Student Development Fund (SDF) received from LDoc, I organised trips to Belper to visit local archives and engage with local people and organisations including local architects, urban designers, city planners as well as local councillors, and civic groups -i.e. Belper Urban Forum, Transition Belper and volunteers and owners at the sites.
During these visits, I also researched and documented the Post-industrial town and its spatial and architectural context through photographs and audio-visual media.
Subsequently, I produced maps, drawings, photographs, and diagrams as well as sketches refining and building on the previous year’s material. The strategic and historical research conducted has provided me with a clear understanding of the town’s urban and architectural typologies and their major spatial constructs and meanings.
First-hand investigations of Belper and its surrounding industrial landscape as both a heritage site and living community has helped to develop a cultural critique and aesthetic sensibility that will inform the design project.
This will be a strategic design approach exploring relationships between people and buildings and the role of the architecture as a carrier of memory as well as the potential architectural responsibility to the public for recording the history of society.
