WEEK 2 - Technology, Society and Placemaking

Imagine residents and current possible visitors in Pomona - how can you help them as an architectural designer?

Locals are in need of nothing specific, they seem to be quite content with the accessibility of their town and it's necessities. They also don’t want anything too modern to take away from Pomona’s history, understandably. They have no other needs as they have everything at arms length at the moment. For instance, there is no need for a gym, the town isn't overly keen on 'full on' exercise like a big city, just generally keeping fit with access to the park and its facilities. A gym wouldn’t be the best communal node as not many of the community would attend, and visitors wouldn’t go to Pomona to go to the gym - more of a relaxing trip to admire the history, culture and arts. They admire the history of the town, like museum but need a more interactive ‘timeline’ of events.

Ideas discussed in Lecture 2:  

Needs to be a public space but an enclosed space

Offer opportunities for residents and visitors

Encourages others to join, even if they’re familiar with the town

Consideration of people who may not want to take part - could always look from afar

A new encounter, a new art form in the town of Pomona 

Discussions from the tutorial:  

Economic Sensibilities

Interpreting plans

Thinking about ideas from a different perspective, remember it's the first stage in your design

Cube activity: use of colours to detect other 'cubes' inside the cube

With all the ideas that were diagrammed, the 'timeline' or history space kept coming back as a great idea for the town - maybe they don't 'need' it but they would still appreciate it.

Reading: Prefabricating architecture - Stephen Kieran & James Timberlake

Discusses that however our revolution is changing, architecture has sometimes failed to connect well with the community if not proposed properly.  It discusses that we need to satisfy the wants and needs from the community. This is a brilliant example for what we are looking for in Pomona, we can come up with as many ideas as we want but we need to keep in mind what the community of Pomona might NEED or want, otherwise the space won't be functional for the town. More thought and analysis needs to go into the research of what to design for such an old town.