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Bitterne Park Interactive Partner Programme Map
www.bitternepark.southampton.sch.uk
Bitterne Park's year 8's have now started a project where they hope to re-design the school grounds. This project will be connected to there ICT, Geography and Design Technology modules. They will be carrying out survey work, design work, model making and school trips throughout the project. This will cover over 2 terms and with hope to get there final outcome funded.
School Grounds
The first task of the project to walk around the school grounds with all the students to identify key areas that need improving. Also it was an opportunity to see how the grounds are used by the students, teachers, parking and how the weather effects the site.
From walking round the school grounds it was clear that the school had parking problems, as a lot of the cars were parked on the grass, which demonstrated that there isn't enough parking spaces. Also the signs needed to be updated.
Hillier Gardens
The Hillier's trip was set-up to be an idea generator for the pupils. The building was designed by Hampshire County Council and has had a lot of architectural interest. The grounds are well matured with a variety of sculptural work scattered throughout the gardens. Andy Siddall (Architect) let the tour, pointing out ideas that could be used for the school grounds. The pupils collected information using note taking and images, all this information gathered will be used as research for when they start the design work when they get back from there summer break.
Here are some examples of what the pupils were looking at in the grounds of Hillier's. The water features had a lot of interest as well as some of the sculptural work. The tour showed different examples like the natural fence above, as well as different styles of sculptural work. It was also a good opportunity to get the pupils to write down what they liked and disliked, and what would work well in the school grounds. Hillier Gardens
Research
The students have been busy going out on location collecting images, and then going back to the classroom to create possible ways to improve the site. This was achieved by having a layer of transparency and drawing over the image. Here are some of the ideas:
Click to enlarge:
Architect Andy Siddall came in for an afternoon session to see the group's progress. It was also a good opportunity to collect all the ideas and to start talking about where to go next with the project.
Progress - 10/01/08
24/01/08
Two weeks since the group were introduced to sketchup the group have come a long way with the designs and have now created a lot of the design in SketchUp. Part of the session was spent out on location to photograph the site. This was carried out with a member of the Solent team, with the aim so to collect images of the whole site so the group could start to render the SketchUp designs with the images taken. Detail shots of various textures were also taken for ground cover and planting.
07/02/08
The group have nearly completed all the models in sketchup, with Andy showing them how to combine them all in to one sketchup file. Andy also gave some pointers for when the group will have to do the presentation of the school grounds.
11/03/08
30/06/08
The group visited Robert Kranenborg at Utopia Forge in Guidford. The group were shown round the forge and had a demonstration of how a piece of metal came be shaped once heated up. The group had also brought along there plans of the school gates and Robert explained what they need to do next to get the plan ready for him to work with. From this visit the group now need to refine the design and get it sent over to Utopia Forge before they break up for the summer.
Landscape Design: Martha Schwartz