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Urban Arts Space

Part 2 Project 2009
Adrian Gamble
University of Lincoln Lincoln | UK
Lincoln’s designated cultural quarter encapsulates several urban blocks with no direct link to the Cathedral Quarter and is dissected by Silver Street (a block of estate agents) which denies a direct link between attractions. Currently Lincoln’s pedestrian routes spread east and west from a commercial spine, during research potential for a second cultural spine became apparent. Analysis of un-used spaces developed into specific site analysis and a route parallel to the proposed cultural route was formed, concluding with a new development at the terraces northern extent.

Street art is often seen as an anti-social activity, in recent years the international art main stream has been infiltrated by increasing numbers of street artists. I discovered a local street artist had secured legal graffiti sites in Grantham, Newark and Nottingham and was currently in consultation with Lincoln city council. The artist had also developed a workshop programme to develop urban art skills, which he offered as a business to companies, councils and schools nationally.

The art space has been designed to incorporate areas for printing, sketching, digital design, graffiti, chalking, and sculpture. Areas have been designed with both their workshop activities and gallery credentials in mind. Members of the public pass through all of the spaces on route strengthening the link between the art and the process of creation.

With entrances to the north and in the south, the arts space creates an adapted route through existing structures, while developing surrounding areas into usable public spaces. Gallery and work areas are designated by the pallet of materials used. Graffiti and chalking areas use an ideal flush brick and mortar surface reducing shadows while minimizing absorbsion. All internal surfaces within the main hall have been finished this way allowing the creation of works on 3D surfaces. Corian has been used in areas designated for displaying hanging works, as well as in areas where graffiti is not desirable, (such as the sculptor hall and the exterior of the new build structures). Finally wood has been used in areas designated for work and creation related activity.

Adrian Gamble


Adrian began by investigating Lincoln’s rich urban and historical context, its economic and social history, its landscape characteristics and geographical significance documenting the way in which these have impacted upon its architectural and urban typologies. A new cultural route has been proposed connecting the cities train station with Lincoln’s cathedral. Scale, proportion, materiality, light, privacy, thresholds, emptiness, in-betweeness, connections, identity, attractions, slack spaces have all been investigated and recorded creating a rich and divers cultural journey through the city avoiding the existing commercial corridor.

He has take a piece of the cultural route and designed a building within the existing cultural quarter, stitching old with new, testing the importance of achieving a specific level of detail that is fundamental in the creative process of making architecture that is well crafted, with simple and striking forms that has a strong sense of materiality with subtle complexities.

He has demonstrated how the suppleness and adaptability of vernacular buildings can be combined with the formality and representational capacities of contemporary architecture, resisting the temptation of creating an icon.


Tutor(s)

Prof Peter Fawcett
2009
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