‘A Cacophony of the Unheard and the Yet-to-Be’

The people’s palace, Alexandra Palace in north London, is alive with voices – redolent with the history of popular entertainment. In order to fully evoke its narrative, the writing must be too: the proposed piece uses imaginative and critical writing, historiography and creative non-fiction, demonstrating a method of re/producing place. It explores and exemplifies the use of writing inand asarchitecture, as a tool in possible regeneration through inscription of its existence in writing inspired by observation, plans and images, first-person accounts, interviews and archive work. Together the areas of writing cultivate and investigate a method based on the factual (or ‘factish’) for greater understanding of the building’s cultural recovery, recognizing the role of the fictional or speculative in regeneration. This adds practical value to the literary, as layers of expression and varied opinions and memories can feed into decisions about redevelopment under consideration. Speaking of the relationship between writing and architecture and their respective uses, Adrian Forty suggests that language makes buildings come alive, that it can ‘do things’ that buildings cannot, such as nuance, metaphor and storytelling (‘Writing Architecture?’, Royal Academy of Arts, 2014). Between evidence and imagination, this piece, rooted in the real and taking flight from it, brings these ideas together: the certainties of the material building and the multiple ‘truths’ of language. Katherine Shonfield describes ‘what happens when we accept that architecture does tangibly exist, not as a pristine impervious whole, but in the perception of the beholder’ (Walls Have Feelings: Architecture, Film and the City(London: Routledge, 2000), 160). Plurivocity, an ‘imaginative method’ of uncovering and recovering a building’s specifics, offers a response. Using excerpts from three ‘scenes’ – ‘People/Public’, ‘Lost/Missing’, ‘Found/Futures’ – that formed part of my PhD (‘Writing Alexandra Palace: Plurivocity as a method of cultural recovery of buildings’, Royal College of Art, 2016), an understanding forms of how the palace can be renewed, addressing and responding to what its publics need and want from it.  The term ‘people’s palace’ is examined in relation to public space, and to the inherent contradictions of exclusion and openness in a palace, in public ownership since 1900. A consideration of what the building lacks is an essential condition for planning or conjecturing on any reinvigoration. An outline of what the palace could be for, how it could be programmed, reaches toward its next phase of existence with new and adapted suggestions for revitalization and reprogramming as a driver of regeneration. More than simply memorializing or adding forgotten strands of history, this piece examines how spaces were produced, how they exist now and how they can be renewed and transformed: looking at past, present and future

Looking back again and forward re: Review and reconstruction in writing and architecture

The review in its multiplicity of forms and directions can be said to underpin architecture, and is crucial for its dissemination. From the perspective of a writer in and of architecture, the review is a means of both responding to the physical and creating another form on the page. This article focuses mainly on writers whose work moved from print to physical architecture: Walter Besant and Orhan Pamuk. It stresses the importance of “looking again” in relation to forms of architectural review, from the ambulatory glance to the in-depth reflection, through an array of examples including the “artefactual” and archi-fiction, manifesto, monograph and still and moving image. Revisiting the review encompasses notions of paper architecture, reconstruction, scale, weight and titles. It demonstrates how the review, the process of looking again, recovers the building or book itself and also, unavoidably, revisits the historical and political and personal narratives attached to it

Writing Alexandra Palace: plurivocity as a methods of cultural recovery of buildings

This thesis examines how writing can be used to retrieve what a building has lost, the layers of its cultural significance, through creative and critical consideration of past uses and current possibilities, to aid in its cultural recovery and contribute to the future use of its architecture. It posits a new means of recovery through ‘writing the building’, and develops this method of architecture writing for use in practice, education and re- search, and as a tool in the processes of regeneration. Alexandra Palace is the case study (1873; rebuilt 1875, 1988), and at time of writing, extensive redevelopment works are in process by Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios, following a masterplan by Farrells (2012). Research questions Can a building exist and have its life extended in words through recap- turing what it has lost or is missing there? How can language articulate the immaterial traces (of uses, users and their memories) within a building in order to reinvigorate it or direct/ redirect redevelopment? Can connections between architectural space and the interior land- scapes of its users be made manifest through writing? Methodology Plurivocity is part of an experimental approach to writing as methodology, developed as a means of responding to these research questions. As a method of writing the building, plurivocity is designed to respond to the building’s unique significance, to capture and represent different opinions and experiences, whether of the past or present, marginal or official. It is an imaginative method based on the factual that disrupts the categories of creative and critical writing so that each contributes to the other and then creates something different. Historiographical writing generated by the architecture in turn initiates and inspires critical, thematic and character-led writing. Using diverse materials from archival sources, interviews and chance conversations, the strands of writing respond to the building in its various iterations – the feedback loop of abduction of Grounded Theory. This feedback mechanism is a crucial element in the plurivocal model, its subject as well as method. Instrumentalising writing like this is in itself a form of reuse, a means of recovery, re-presenting (and representing), and demonstrates how imaginative writing might contribute to programming, and future uses in refurbishment of a building. The project also extends the temporal index of architecture writing to include the future. The building is alive with the voices of users, and the polyvocal form mirrors this, in order to revitalise the building, which has been destroyed, rebuilt or repurposed, even temporarily relocated. Ethnography The research follows ethnographic practice in gathering information and inspiration from site visits, observation and interviews. Constructing a se- ries of ‘characters’ brings more comprehensive sources into contention. Enabling users’ experience to be documented also helps to identify the unanticipated values a building provided, for greater understanding about the use that particular communities claim for public spaces or expect them to supply. Using Hans-Robert Jauss’s version of Reception Theory, interviewees include those involved in the current physical project, along with volunteers and users, who are embedded into the category of makers of the building. In these ways, this research and its outcome in writing practice establish another strand of architecture writing, one that suggests and emulates the building’s multiple and particular layers, creating and occupying a new cultural and historical space

AR 'scapes: Voices from the Concrete Barges presentation

Summary of AR project methodologies, findings and outcome

The retrospective analysis of Antarctic tracking data project

The Retrospective Analysis of Antarctic Tracking Data (RAATD) is a Scientific Committee for Antarctic Research project led jointly by the Expert Groups on Birds and Marine Mammals and Antarctic Biodiversity Informatics, and endorsed by the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources. RAATD consolidated tracking data for multiple species of Antarctic meso- and top-predators to identify Areas of Ecological Significance. These datasets and accompanying syntheses provide a greater understanding of fundamental ecosystem processes in the Southern Ocean, support modelling of predator distributions under future climate scenarios and create inputs that can be incorporated into decision making processes by management authorities. In this data paper, we present the compiled tracking data from research groups that have worked in the Antarctic since the 1990s. The data are publicly available through biodiversity.aq and the Ocean Biogeographic Information System. The archive includes tracking data from over 70 contributors across 12 national Antarctic programs, and includes data from 17 predator species, 4060 individual animals, and over 2.9 million observed locations

The retrospective analysis of Antarctic tracking data project

The Retrospective Analysis of Antarctic Tracking Data (RAATD) is a Scientific Committee for Antarctic Research project led jointly by the Expert Groups on Birds and Marine Mammals and Antarctic Biodiversity Informatics, and endorsed by the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources. RAATD consolidated tracking data for multiple species of Antarctic meso- and top-predators to identify Areas of Ecological Significance. These datasets and accompanying syntheses provide a greater understanding of fundamental ecosystem processes in the Southern Ocean, support modelling of predator distributions under future climate scenarios and create inputs that can be incorporated into decision making processes by management authorities. In this data paper, we present the compiled tracking data from research groups that have worked in the Antarctic since the 1990s. The data are publicly available through biodiversity.aq and the Ocean Biogeographic Information System. The archive includes tracking data from over 70 contributors across 12 national Antarctic programs, and includes data from 17 predator species, 4060 individual animals, and over 2.9 million observed locations.Supplementary Figure S1: Filtered location data (black) and tag deployment locations (red) for each species. Maps are Lambert Azimuthal projections extending from 90° S to 20° S.Supplementary Table S1: Names and coordinates of the major study sites in the Southern Ocean and on the Antarctic Continent where tracking devices were deployed on the selected species (indicated by their 4-letter codes in the last column).Online Table 1: Description of fields (column names) in the metadata and data files.Supranational committees and organisations including the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research Life Science Group and BirdLife International. National institutions and foundations, including but not limited to Argentina (Dirección Nacional del Antártico), Australia (Australian Antarctic program; Australian Research Council; Sea World Research and Rescue Foundation Inc., IMOS is a national collaborative research infrastructure, supported by the Australian Government and operated by a consortium of institutions as an unincorporated joint venture, with the University of Tasmania as Lead Agent), Belgium (Belgian Science Policy Office, EU Lifewatch ERIC), Brazil (Brazilian Antarctic Programme; Brazilian National Research Council (CNPq/MCTI) and CAPES), France (Agence Nationale de la Recherche; Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales; Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique; the French Foundation for Research on Biodiversity (FRB; www.fondationbiodiversite.fr) in the context of the CESAB project “RAATD”; Fondation Total; Institut Paul-Emile Victor; Programme Zone Atelier de Recherches sur l’Environnement Antarctique et Subantarctique; Terres Australes et Antarctiques Françaises), Germany (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, Hanse-Wissenschaftskolleg - Institute for Advanced Study), Italy (Italian National Antarctic Research Program; Ministry for Education University and Research), Japan (Japanese Antarctic Research Expedition; JSPS Kakenhi grant), Monaco (Fondation Prince Albert II de Monaco), New Zealand (Ministry for Primary Industries - BRAG; Pew Charitable Trusts), Norway (Norwegian Antarctic Research Expeditions; Norwegian Research Council), Portugal (Foundation for Science and Technology), South Africa (Department of Environmental Affairs; National Research Foundation; South African National Antarctic Programme), UK (Darwin Plus; Ecosystems Programme at the British Antarctic Survey; Natural Environment Research Council; WWF), and USA (U.S. AMLR Program of NOAA Fisheries; US Office of Polar Programs).http://www.nature.com/sdataam2021Mammal Research Institut

AR 'scapes: Voices from the Concrete Barges

Phase 1 of 3 visual mockup of Augmented Reality (AR) experience for visitors to the Concrete Barges, Rainham, Esse