Tuesday 3 November 2009

Day 33 - Tuesday 3rd November


Exhibition, Architecture Centre, Bristol.

Day 33 - Tuesday 3rd November

Day 33 - Tuesday 3rd November

Day 33 in the LoveEaston house.

Exhibition opening!

11am - Prue Chiles travels down from Sheffield to visit the housemates and Shanks and to attend the opening night of the LoveEaston exhibition. Whilst we wait for the document to be printed we all go for a trip around Bristol, seeing the climbing wall in a church, the eco town and the salvage yard.

6pm - Exhibition opens. It's a very successful event with a lot of people commenting positively on all the work that has been done over the past month.

9pm - Drive back to Sheffield!

Monday 2 November 2009

Day 32 - Monday 2nd November


Day 32 - Monday 2nd November

Day 32 in the LoveEaston house.

Fanzine is produced and printed for the exhibition. This shows the five 'big visions' and has been produced as something that can be taken home from the exhibition and as a way of disseminating the information back out into the Easton community.

Sunday 1 November 2009

Day 29-31 THE 'BIG VISIONS'







Day 29-31

Days 29 to 31 in the LoveEaston house.

The LoveEaston team finalise the layout and text of the document ready for printing in time for the exhibition on the 3rd Nov. Time is dedicated to setting up the exhibition, including making the lecturn and tables for models.

Thursday 29 October 2009

Day 28 - Thursday 29th October

Day 28 - Thursday 29th October







Day 28 - Thursday 29th October

Day 28 in the LoveEaston house.

'Visions' consultation and 'LoveJam' live music event!

Local musicians kindly gave their time to perform at the LoveJam fundraising event which was held in the outside back area of the cafe.

The images that had been produced over the previous week illustrating possible futures for sites in Easton were printed at a large scale and exhibited in the cafe for comment by those attending the event.

Wednesday 28 October 2009

Day 23-27

Exhibition planning

Day 23-27

Day 23-27

Day 23 to 27 in the LoveEaston house.

Housemates camp out in the cafe with their laptops and work, work, work! Arrangements are made for the live music event that is to be held on the 29th October, sketchup models are produced for the organisation of the exhibition at the Architecture Centre. The community-led regeneration document starts to come together, with each housemate taking on a section and producing the necessary images and text.

Friday 23 October 2009

Day 22 - Friday 23rd October



Day 22 - Friday 23rd October

Day 22 in the LoveEaston household.

10am - Two of the housemates visit the local recycling plant. Meet with Grant, the plant manager who gives a tour and answers questions about recycling in Bristol and more specific issues about rubbish in Easton.

2pm - Two the the housemates head back over to the local girls' school to finish the revitalising stapleton road workshop.

3pm - Phillipa Roe, surveyor for Bristol City Council meets with the housemates and Shanks at the LoveEaston cafe to judge the photo/art competition launched way back on Day 1. Three categories are judged; The best of Easton, the worst of Easton and the spirit of Easton.

4pm - The housemates run through the provisional contents and layout of the community-led regeneration document.

Day 22 - Friday 23rd October

Competition winners - The Spirit of Easton and The Worst of Easton




Thursday 22 October 2009

Day 21 - Thursday 22nd October




Day 21 - Thursday 22nd October

Day 21 in the Love Easton house.

8.30 am - Two members of ProjectEaston have an early start, heading over to one of the local schools to run a workshop with one of the year nine classes. The team brought photos of shops along stapleton road and instigate a painting and drawing session. The class are asked to design new signs for each shop, in the hope of brightening up the main thoroughfare.

9.45 am - Team all back together. Sit down to work out the document contents and layout, page by page. This is followed by an Indesign tutorial for those who haven't used the program before.

Tick Tock Tim heads out with a shopping list (50 items) for the exhibition. Never seen again.

Afternoon - ProjectEaston members work on various things for the document and exhibition.

4pm - Tick Tock arrives back and.... finally manages to rip a yellow pages in two! Blogger muses on whether the three previous days of trying to do this lessens the success somewhat.

5pm - Food fuddle banner is hoisted in the shop window and Bex sets about making a pumpkin suprise for the evening.

6pm - Fuddle begins! The evening is really successful, mainly due to the heroic marketing efforts of Poppy. A local shop owner donates much of the food and gave us a masterclass in Somali cooking.

Day 21 - Thursday 22nd October







Wednesday 21 October 2009

Day 20 - Wednesday 21st October






Day 20 - Wednesday 21st October




Day 20 - Wednesday 21st October

Day 20 in the LoveEaston house.

10am - A few housemates meet with Adrian Roper from Sustrans, in the cafe. He has brought along maps of the Easton area. These include areas showing the new 20mph limit, new Cycling City Infrastructure schemes and cycle routes. The group discuss the Cycling City initative and their plans for spending the money they had available to them. Potential future moves for further encouraging the use of bikes were discussed, along with ideas on how to improve the feeling of safety along the bath-bristol cycle route.

11.30am - Female contingent of the LoveEaston house head out to the local Pakistani womens group down the road. Photoshoped images of inital images were taken, along with precedents of possible other initatives. Issues of safety, rubbish and lack of entertainment facilities were discussed. They then treated us to a rather large and tasty curry lunch!

Afternoon - The LoveEaston household have a wander around Easton and take more comprehensive photos of areas we wish to look at further.

Evening - After dinner the housemates head out to Shanks' house for Beer and football. Sadly Chelsea win 4-0.

Tuesday 20 October 2009

Day 19 - Tuesday 20th October

9am - Rat update: Blocked them in by putting suitcases and bins in front of cupboard doors and gaps between kitchen appliances. Heard them in the night trying to force their way in, thankfully their plans were thwarted!

Housemates set about working in the cafe. Tick Tock Tim and Kathy head over for a meeting with the Architecture Centre about the exhibition layout.

11am - Landlord brings over a anti-rat sonar, which we've got high hopes for.

12.30pm - Tick Tock and AJ hit the scrapyard for modelling equipment, come back with a cardboard box-load, and trivial pursuit, all for only £4!

Afternoon - Housemates work whilst Shanks mans the cafe. Various people come in for a tea and a chat throughout the day.

6pm - The community land trust have booked out the space for a talk in the evening. Housemates attempt to work quietly, more or less successfully.

Sunday 18 October 2009

Day 18 - Monday 19th October

6am - Housemates are awoken by a rat infestation! 6 rats partying in the kitchen whilst housemates cower underneath the covers.

9am - LoveEaston house thoroughly searched for holes. Many many are found, too many to cover in fact. Vote on whether to go for the humane trap or poison. Decide to try the traps and then kill the buggers if they don't take the hint. AJ sets about trying to source a shotgun.

10am - Housemates sit down with some party tunes to work. A model extraordinaire is in the making, as well as collages, updates on the blog and the pre-requisite sending of emails.

Lunch!

1pm - Afternoon carries on much the same as the morning. The battle of wits between housemates and the wireless internet dongle finally won by housemates (via a call to 3G technical support.) - Wonder whether the phone bill can go on expenses?

6pm - Visit by Sandro, video artist. He shows us his Easton by night viral.

Day 17 - Sunday 18th October

LoveEaston housmates settle down for a day in front of the laptops. Research includes possible precedents, emails are sent and collages are produced. All whilst multi-taskingly watching a range of movies. Get us!

Saturday 17 October 2009

Day 16 - Saturday 17th October




Day 16 - Saturday 17th October

The LoveEaston housemates take an extended tour around Easton, taking in St. Mark's road and the Thali Cafe. A trip to see the nearby eco-village is planned for later in the week.

Friday 16 October 2009

Day 15 - Friday 16th October

Day 15 - Friday 16th October








Day 15 - Friday 16th October

Day 15 in the LoveEaston House - Prue Chiles visits the housemates!

10.30 am - meeting with Jonathan Platt, an architect for GLP. He brings energy and sustainability expertise to the table and we quizz him on relevant factors affecting our potential plans.

12.00 am - Prue Chiles and one ProjectEaston member arrive, appropriately enough, in the University's hybrid Prius.

13.00pm - Meeting with Jonathan wraps up and we meet with Geoff a senior Architect who works as a community engagement adviser. Prue, the housemates and Geoff have a very enlightening conversation on the difficulties of practicing in a community-led fashion within normative architectural practice. He expresses desire to attend the Architecture Centre exhibition on the 4th November and we promise to send him an invite.

14.00pm - The housemates and Shanks give Prue a mini tour of Easton. Discussions take place around possible concepts for future planning initiatives.

Lunch!

15.30pm - Meeting back at the cafe on the moves of the LoveEaston housemates over the next three weeks. Decide that there is a lot to do, but that we are in a good position and our plans are given a go ahead.

Evening - Visit Mr. Wolf's for dinner and live music. Plenty of skanking ensues.

Thursday 15 October 2009

Day 10-14

Many lectures, seminars and dissertations bring us back to Sheffield. Tim, aka. Tick Tock has been laser cutting our model for 8 hours straight. Everyone has been pulling materials together whilst attending daytime lectures. We are all missing the LoveEaston quirky pad and the funny shower...

An advance contingent of ProjectEaston return to Bristol where its all happening again at our community hub. A Somali Fusion Food Fiesta attempts to bring the community together over food.

Saturday 10 October 2009

Day 9 - Saturday 10th October

Day 9 in the LoveEaston House. Design Workshop.

A very successful workshop today with a helping hand from the Department Lounge architects. In the morning after the introduction we split up into seven groups to visit an identified site and to explore in the workshop. We spent an hour at each site and did lots of brainstorming and generated many ideas. To prepare for the end of the day presentation we drew and made physical models. Some local residents even nearly cried with the joy of potential project proposals.

Day 9- Saturday 10th October



































Friday 9 October 2009

Day 8- Friday 9th October

Day 8 in the LoveEaston House. Workshop Preparation.

The group went out around the potential sites of Easton for the design workshop tomorrow.
By night we went to an event which can be classed as work and social. The judging panel will give all the money paid for drinks on the night to an applicant winner. So the idea is the more we drink the more we win. We didn't win, but we still have the LoveEaston spirit and an hangover in the morning haha.

About Us

My photo
Local residents and architects have taken the initiative to find out what their community wants during a month-long intensive consultation this October. The aim is to create a shared vision for Easton’s future which will then be developed into a strategic, community-led regeneration document that reflects local people’s aspirations. This urban regeneration document will clearly set out residents’ visions and will not only give the community more power at the planning stage but will also be invaluable for developers and the local authority. The ProjectEaston team is based out of the LoveEaston cafe on Stapleton Rd for the duration of the project and the outcomes will be exhibited at the Bristol Architecture Centre from the 3rd November. Come along!