The space between things

 

Summertime

Summer holidays are busy times and routine flies out of the window. This is in itself a refreshing break.  It can be seen as the space between things, time to breathe and take stock. In reality though, more often than not, it can include frustrating times, recognising that the flow forward of any project is not moving at the steady pace which was set a month ago. The space between things is something that I have always been interested in within aesthetics and a design context but to recognise it with time in mind is a new phenomenon for me.

The space between things.

Obviously, Summertime sits between the Spring and Autumn seasons and school summer holidays are within that space. As I have two fairly young sons this time is lively and full, project plans slow down and I know that I will have to jump aboard onto the flow forward soon enough.

Moving forward

I believe how we encounter space and what emotions it stirs in us is fascinating.

A bridge, a safe path to follow.

Design is a powerful process that can be used to influence how people feel in a space. An example of this in its very basic form is to imagine a room, quite bare but at its centre on the floor lays a brown standard brick. Now, imagine how this would compare with the same room, again quite bare except in the centre there is a beautiful vase of colourful flowers. Each encounter would feel very different. This is what encouraged me to explore Spatial Design all those years ago, yet over time I have become more interested in our movement through space to the destination. Factors such as orientation of the building, circulation flow of its occupants and how spaces relate to each other through doorways, over thresholds and with the people who inhabit them are significant in my design process. Moving forward and recognising the space between is physical and temporal.

Desire Paths

My MA led me to research ‘Desire Paths’, these are paths which humans make to take shortcuts when the constructed paths are too awkward and perhaps longer to take.

Desire Path, a  shortcut to the seat

I saw a great example of a couple at Kent and Canterbury hospital last week.  Unfortunately I didn’t take a photo but I should think that institutional places are probably the best places to spot them. If anyone can make themselves feel individual by walking a different path, then it would be on this land. I wonder whether if in the country, it may feel safer to follow a path, amongst the wild but the opposite may be true in urban areas as planned pathways may be overlooked, except in the rain, and our wilder instinct of following the best route may prevail! It would be interesting to see whether any town planners, architects etc have left the paths until last and then create more solid and permanent pathways from the desire paths of the inhabitants. Their construction would follow the trace of pedestrian use.

Trace and Traversal

This was the title of my final project last year. I created a design methodology to trace forgotten ancient routes in the landscape and bring them back to life through the act of walking, connecting people to place. I wrote that geographers and archaeologists search for these traces in the landscape, which can in turn inspire artists and designers.

Old 'No Swimming' sign painted on the prom.

Personally I have always been inspired by the idea of layers. This could be translated as a poetic nostalgia when looking at the wear layer on industrial archaeology such as canal lock gate mechanisms to perceived colour layers seen when observing a landscape or urban scene. So the idea of searching for a layer of human trace in the environment, added to my existing interest in encountering space as we move through it to a destination was of great interest. Add to this a love of maps, walking and being married to a topographic surveyor, my project choice seems obvious now!

Layers

Yesterday, on a quest to highlight the text in this blog by looking for thresholds and entrance ways to photograph, I walked East along the promenade past brightly painted beach huts towards Herne Bay.

Path down to prom, heading East.

The weather recently has been a steady mix of strong winds, bright sunshine and torrential rain; this has created the most wonderful cloud patterns, layer upon layer of confused cloud cover, each moving at their own speed, high above me.

layers and layers of cloud

Last night I went out into the garden and looked up at the stars for a long while. The more I looked the more I saw. It reminded me of the depth in the sky that I had recognised during daylight hours whilst looking at the clouds.

Detail

Whist sitting on the pebble beach yesterday, I saw mustard coloured lichen on the wood groyne post.

Lichen on post or map of terrain?

It formed a rising layer of texture on a wooden element which had become worn and cracked with age and exposure to the elements. It looked like it could have been an aerial photograph of a sparse landscape or a medieval map fragment, awaiting monstrous beasts to be added by imaginative cartographers. The huge Sea Kale on the beach looks monstrous in itself. It must be about 3 foot in diameter and about 1 foot high, but throughout the year it is a delight. Its early shoots are purple in colour and emerge optimistically from the pebbles, it has blossom in the freezing spring months which turn into globular seed pods and about now it takes up a lot of space on each beach.

Sea Kale, Crambe Maritima

I love the green-blue leaf colour and its wobbly shape. I found a specimen on my promenade which had a Horned Poppy growing next to it, using the giant mass to shelter it and its delicate yellow flowers.

Delicate Horned Poppy

Vistas

From small details to the bigger picture, the question is what next?

Where next?

Well, to enjoy the last of that time, the space between things: to appreciate the details and look at the depths, to squint at the vast vistas and know that I will get there, eventually.

The ancient vast vista from Long Rock towards the Isle of Sheppey.

The path isn’t clear at the moment, but once I get the opportunity to jump onto the flow of the project again, it will find its own way. As the inland water flows out to the sea, forward movement is inevitable. Give me a week and I shall be ready for it!

 

(I completed my MA last September and recorded the last two months of it in another blog called www.thesaltwayfarer.blogspot.co.uk

Please feel free to look at that anytime, as it is from that, that I am where I am now.)