Initial sketches of internal projector installation.

Our Site Analysis sheet shows the differences between the Cornerhouse's and HOME's position within Manchester, its accessibility and the way it sits with the surrounding buildings. Throughout this project I have felt that although HOME has some very valuable facilities, it lacks the connection with Manchester that the Cornerhouse does. As well as lacking in character, and style.

In preparation for tomorrow's presentation and hand in, we have created a site analysis sheet and a proposal sheet. We have created diagrams, plans and perspectives to illustrate our ideas (as discussed with our year 5 group leaders as the best imaged to create to sell our idea). I believe that these images successfully show how we imagined our scheme to be and help give a sense of the atmosphere we wished to create with our installation.

After creating floor plans, and developing our ideas further with the internal and external projection installation, we presented our proposal to Jim Chapman. He really enjoyed the idea of using the Cornerhouse as a space for artistic installation and exhibition as he believes that HOME does not have the space, or the character, to be able to do this itself. (He had also personally requested for the two top floors of the carpark located next to HOME to be used for this purpose, as he really believes the area now lacks this type of space with the closure of the Cornerhouse.) I found speaking to Jim really helpful as he had a lot of expert knowledge of the area and gave a lot of insight and ideas which I had not thought of before. For the presentation on Friday, my group must work on creating our sheets and most importantly an internal and external perspective to portray the scheme.

Today, after discussions with one of the leaders of the Cornerhouse protection campaign, we have decided to go forward with our idea of a projection installation. Myself, and Laura, wish to draw attention to the character and warmth that the Cornerhouse had with its previous program by keeping the current state of the building and adding an exhibition of projections within the rooms that show images and videos of the building when it was in use (such as with the precedent image attached to this blog post). On the exterior of the building we will also show images of the building deteriorating and being demolished to show the people of Manchester what could happen to the loved building. This installation will hopefully show the lack of character of the new HOME building and potentially restore the Cornerhouse to its previous program and glory.

On our site visit today I sketched and photographed the Cornerhouse and the surrounding areas, in order to begin to think of new programs for the building. What I noticed most about the building was the difference between the street level appearance and the floors above. Due to the grey cladding, the lower section of the building looked much newer than the rest. I had not noticed this before when passing by, it was only once I began studying it that it caught my attention.
Also visiting the newly built HOME building I noticed a stark contrast between the warm character of the Cornerhouse to the cold, new HOME building. There is little atmosphere to this building and I much prefer the Cornerhouse. This led me to start thinking of possibly creating an installation within the building which acts as a protest to the opening of HOME and the closing of the Cornerhouse.

Today in the introduction to our event we discussed the different types of re-use/rescue such as installation, insertion and intervention as discussed in 'Re-readings' by Sally Stone. In groups of 4's we then found case studies which showed one of these types of re-use/rescue. Our group picked Dresden's Military Museum which had a bold, politically motivated extension added (insertion). This was useful to begin thinking of different techniques we could use in our Cornerhouse projects.