_Concept Devlopment _Material Texturisation and Pixelation.

I have recently been sketching ideas and developing thoughts of how I could reflect the sites position and surroundings in the design/form of the proposal. One of my more literal ideas is shown above, I have used a photo of green leaves on the site and used photoshop to digitally amend the image via a proccess of texturisation and pixelation.

Could I further develop these images into the buldings cladding or colour palet?

_Concept Development - Section through the front of Site:

_Concept Development - Section through length of Site:

_Functional Spa Zones

Following research into the different facilities which should provided within the scheme I have come to the conclusion that many spa's in the UK lack good quality relaxation space, an essential feature which is just as important as the number and quality of the facitilites offered through the spa.

_Design Restraints

Following a fairly in depth site anlysis it has become aparant that the site I have chosen has several limitations and constraints, I personally favor this over a site with few or no restraints...Many projects throughout my university eduction were very open with very few restraints with rergards to the site, although this is seen as seen as a good thing by many, i personally prefer to have a more relistic brief. Anyway back to my site...

The sites main constraints involve the location of graves and trees with TPO's and the ornate and listed buildings which the scheme hopes to include, additional restraints involve the slope and topography of the site and the limited access.. all in all.. the site is quite tricky!

_Theories of stress _what is stress

One of the connections I have researched is the link between stress and relaxation. Many busy professionals suffer from stress and these are the people who can afford to use such facilities as spa's.

Questions which I have started to question myself whilst researching stress and spa use in the Uk include the in balance in proportion between female and male spa- goers, why do more females go to spa's in the UK than males when this is not the case in other parts of the world.

I have carried out some research into stress and found the following interesting information at http://www.garysturt.free-online.co.uk/theostre.htm.


"Stress has been viewed in three ways:

-Stimulus
-Response
-Process.

Stimulus refers to stress, which can be categorised as emanating from three sources:
1)Catastrophic events, such as Tornadoes and earthquakes,
2)Major life events,
3)Chronic circumstances, such as living in crowded or noisy conditions.

Response refers to how somebody responds to a particular stress, for example sitting an examination. There are two components:
1)Physiological, heightened bodily arousal-your heart pounds, mouth goes dry your stomach feels tight and you perspire.
2)Psychological, involving behaviour, thought patterns, and emotions. Feeling nervous.

Process views stress as a series of interactions and adjustments between the person and the environment. These interactions and adjustments are called transactions. Stress is not seen as a stimulus or a response, but rather as a process. The person suffering stress is seen as an active agent who can influence the impact of a stressor through behavioural, cognitive and emotional strategies.

A good definition of stress would be that stress is the condition that results when the person/environment transactions lead the individual to perceive a discrepancy-whether real or not-between the demands of a situation and the resources of the persons biological, psychological, or social systems.

Success and failure in previous transactions would determine the amount of stress perceived."

Background Studies_Booklet Design

Last time I posted I apologised for the lack of updates, this time I really need to apologise as its really been quite a while!

During the last few weeks I've come up with a finalised design for my A3 booklet, Im designing the booklet in Photoshop in A3 format and I'm hopefully going to split the images into A4 pages and have it professionally printed before the Decemeber Hand in (or thinking about it, I may wait and have all my booklets printed together to form one huge book showing all my work from this final year at university?)

The booklet is going to have three sections:-

Section 01 -
Background information about Stress in the UK & its links to Relaxation and Spa's
Background information about Spa's and Spa design

Section 02
Site Location
Site History
Existing Buildings On The Site
Existing Materials in and about The Site#
History Timeline
Precidents - UK, Europe and Worldwide
Site Plan
Grave Locations,
Access issues, safety etc.

Section 03
Why the chosen site is suitable
Design Brief

The above left image shows one of my A3 sheets showing the existing buildings on site including the Non Conformist Chapel and the Registrars office. The above right image shows additional buildings on site including the Anglican Chapel and the entrance gates off Ecclesall Road. Please click on the images to see larger versions.