Proposed designs and ideas for a new housing development in High Wycombe. The project requirement was to create places to meet and discover for the residential community. High Wycombe has a rich history in chair making (especially the Windsor chair) and lace making. Working with a local primary school, the children were engaged in the discovery and learning about their region. Classes in creating artworks, making chairs out of cardboard and creative writing produced material that was used and interpreted in the design proposal. One of the outcomes was a print-on-demand publication which illustrated the work of and with the school.
The work included elements such as giant wooden cubes that have the children’s poems and narrative expressions carved and enamelled into them. Also wayfinding elements to draw the community along trails throughout the grounds. Brass rubbings are suggested to create ecology trails – one of local indigenous species footprints and one showing tree identification and information. Tall wooden meeting totems and bollards would complement the scheme using community artworks, wayfinding and sustainable messaging, which could be carried through to other street furniture.
Commissioned by Futurecity for St James
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