Collabritive Project

Lucy, Alex and Aqilah's finished sketch of our final idea.

After bring all of the object together on the shelf and arranging them how we wanted them to be displayed we decided that we wanted the books to stand upright on one of the shelves, They didn't do this by themselves so I designed a bookend that would support them covered in mesh and made from plaster (concrete) to represent the area of focus in paradise circus. 

We met up at the school of art to discuss how were going to display the shelf. We played around with the books, letters, texture tiles and viles to see how it all looks together. We came across a problem as the books would not stand up right by themselves. I suggested that we need a book end to correct this problem. We all agreed on this idea and that it would be great if Jessica could make the book end as it relates to her task she was given (collecting books). 

Apart from that minor problem the meeting was a success. Everything seems to be on target for our final presentation. 

Casting - Chloe and Tatiana

Photographs - Chloe Barrett

We wanted to include some books to represent the old library so I looked into titles/theme that I felt were appropriate. Such as the architects that worked on both buildings, textures, Moss & brutalist architecture. 

Book list: 

John Madin by Alan Clawley, Published by English Heritage, 2011.

People, Place, Purpose: The world according to Mecanoo by Francine Houben,

Gathering Moss by Robin Wall Kimmerer

Introduction to Botany: Plants, People & the Environment by Linda Berg.

Birmingham northern relief road flora & fauna figures by Unknown.

However the library only permits books with yellow bands to leave the building so we ended up using the titles:

Lost Gardens by 

Birmingham By

After the presentation our current position as a group is that, we need to bring all of our individual ideas together in order to create a final design. From discussion we have all agreed to take Alex's book shelf design and we are going to develop it further by incorporating our own ideas of what we would like to be displayed on the shelf. 

So far we have decided to display books related to the textures we have discovered around the library, Textured tiles, letters 'PFC' and viles containing moss samples. We have split ourselves into sections so that each individual has a job to complete for the final presentation on 17/12/2014.

Tasks for each individual: 

Viles of moss samples and texture tiles - Myself and Tatiana

Concrete Shelf - Alex and Lucy 

Letters - Aquilah 

Books on related textures - Jessica

As a group we feared that displaying moss wouldn't be allowed at the MCC, as it could contaminate other objects on display. We spoke to Emily and she said that there should be no problem with displaying the moss samples because they will be contained inside the viles. 

Drawing by Lucy Martin.

After our presentation we had a Skype meeting and discussed how we wanted the design to look. Lucy took into account what we all envisioned and come up with this design. 

Although we felt the design was good, some of us felt that there was  too much going on and some of the ideas we wanted to incorporate such as the moss viles were lost. So we decided to simplify the idea by creating a concrete book shelf displaying books, letters, tiles and the moss samples inside viles. 

Book Case Inspiration