all organs are made from photographs i took of the real corresponding human tissues under the microscope - click the lungs below for a closer look

isotype ii

housing, food, bills, childcare

first basic attempts in illustrator, part of my animation

in the mood to reminisce

self-destructive business rat gorging himself on the economy

cryogenically frozen business rats: please thaw out after the recession

tweaked

all of these characters below (minus the bankers) represent only the lowest income decile of the overall sections of the population they are from. each character = 100,000 people and the numbers have been rounded to the nearest 100,000. although these are the poorest people in the country, the lowest five income deciles are all below average in terms of income

note: the pregnant woman is now a symbol for a single mum as i thought that they are probably worse off in general

demographics

not to scale yet

number of workers in financial services in London = 333,162 = 0.005% of entire U.K. population

. number of adults of retirement age in U.K. = 20% = 12,358,400

. number of live births in U.K. (2009) = 698,323

. number of disabled people in U.K. (working/not working) = 19%/9.5% = 11,740,480/5,870,240

. number of under 16's in U.K. = 20% = 12,358,400

averages calculated from U.K. population for 2009 (61,792,000), percentages from Office for National Statistics website, Disabled Living Foundation website and the City of London website

isotype i

isotype is the name of the picture language invented by otto neurath that aimed to transform complex statistics into self-explanatory pictographs made up of signs and symbols. one of his examples below + more info and pics here

here's my own take on that idea that i'm probably going to make into some kind of infographic.

the City banker...

the old age pensioner...

the pregnant woman...

the disabled person...

and the child

the winners and losers of the emergency budget and the forthcoming spending review

show

box

so here is the final piece which i worked slavishly over! although i wasn't able to completely finish the model to the standard i wanted with the communal garden in the centre

overall i have mixed feelings about this, whilst the brutalist features of the building definitely sum up for me what a lot of big estates feel like, i don't feel like i've really made a success of the interior walls or roof. unfortunately this only really became obvious once i'd finished the blocks

anonymity

this is one of the worst things about brutalist architecture and high rises in general

basic sketch of what the final brutalist/victorian building is going to look like. it's a cluster of four corner buildings centred around a communal garden which will be kept private by four large gates that join the blocks together. it will have a harsh concrete exterior with an unexpected redbrick internal façade with balconies overlooking the garden. from the outside the building resembles any other concrete block but at a closer glance through the gates the inner beauty of the building and its landscape can be glimpsed

i feel like perhaps i've crammed too many ideas (as usual) into one here but essentially the main aim is to create a private retreat from the restless inner city, just like a victorian terraced garden square and combine it with the positive social concepts behind many brutalist housing estates

beginning of a new design for a hybrid brutalist tower block/victorian terraced house

taking the best principles of both architectural styles to find a new middle-ground architecture; a balance between form, function and affordability with the aim in mind to create an imaginary type of socialist housing that redistributes the best and worst of London's architectural heritage equally amongst its residents

+ awesome illustrations atwww.evoltaste.com

soulless

robin hood gardens

trellick tower

another brutalist design, don't think this turned out as good as the first set of towers though

terraces

map

an idea for a final piece. it's a map of old (pre-industrial revolution) London, central and greater London, the outer metropolitan area, the south east and the greater south east. the idea is to show the expansion (past, present and future) of a city into a mega-city/region in the form of a pop-up map which also illustrates the architectural changes

mix

some initial tests in photoshop, not sure what i think, kind of obvious but a start

barbican

clearer

for the moment i'm looking at contrasts in architectural styles, like the Victorian redbrick houses of Hampstead and Maida Vale versus the brutalist (social housing) estates of Robin Hood Gardens, Trellick Tower and the soon to be demolished Elephant & Castle Heygate Estate

i hope to capture some of what it might feel like to live in these very different types of buildings and using elements of the two (which are generally either loved or loathed) combine them to create a more balanced type of housing for everybody

new project ii

new work for the self-defined project. i'm working around the idea of buildings for densely populated cities