This new development of 64 Extra Care Apartments at Orchard Park, recently delivered in April this year by The Riverside Group is called ‘Harrison Park’, 100 years after Jack Harrison VC a former Hull FC Rugby League Star was killed at Oppy Wood, Arras, France in 1917 during the First World War.
Today – the 3rd May 2017 marks the day all four Hull Pals Battalions took part on the attack on Oppy Wood.
Friday 10th March 2017 – Final installation of the glazing vinyls at Harrison Park, Hull.
VGLhave done an amazing job – as ever – collaborating with me through detailed design / design for production / sampling / revisions / and final installation. A big thanks to them !
I have also been supported throughout the project by Andrew Knight of RKL Consultantswho developed and delivered the Arts Strategy for all three Extra Care Facilities being built in Hull.
Each element used in the design starts as an ink sketch or line drawing. These are often drawn over-sized and larger than they will appear in the artwork to scale. The individual images are then scanned and saved as high res. jpegs allowing me to import into Photoshop.
The following drafts were approved and signed off by the client team to develop into detailed design for production.
In the above draft artwork the optically clear vinyl, with no print colour is shown as black. This would appear as fully transparent glazing. The artwork presents various colour & opacity values, utilising print white techniques to great effect. VGLhave been excellent and creative collaborators on this project.
Below is a draft production file from VGL which shows – in tones of pink – the strength of opaque and translucent white which is printed in-between the colour layers.
The trick with all these proposals is to get the right proportion of printed cover, clear glazing and translucency. All very well on paper – but once installed, there are views beyond the glazing to consider too. The movement of traffic, activity of people and the ever changing weather. These all impact considerably on how the installed artwork can be read and appreciated, both from at distance and from up close.
Full scale printed samples are the next item on the list.
The Glazing Vinyl Artworks are presented as a series of abstract & figurative elements based upon a number of historic land maps, including the 1816 plan of Cottingham Common showing historic field patterns, each of which is annotated with the names of the individual landowner and /or tenant farmer.
The Inclosure Act of 1766 transformed this ill-drained common meadow and pasture, which was subject to seasonal flooding from the tidal River Hull, into a landscape of sluices, dykes, drains and ditches, the names of which, will be familiar to many of you now.
The 1886 hand drawn map of Coldharbour Farm, on North Carr Lane -now Orchard Park Road, in the collection of the Hull History Centre, shows the individual fields held by the tenant farmer, which were farmed until the new estate was built in 1963. This new building on Hall Road, part of the Orchard Park Estate, sits within the original boundary of the farm.
It is this historic landscape and community which provides a ‘frame’ of support and a visual reference for the artworks, reflecting the fact that there has been a continuous system of land & water management and farming, in turn supporting a community on this site since medieval times.
The artwork builds a bridge to the past and also acts as a threshold between the external and internal landscapes of the building. The outlines of plants, suggest those which may have grown in the waterways and fields of the area – Flowering Rush, Floating Pondweed,
Dyers Greenweed, Birds Foot Trefoil, Marsh Marigold, Cowslip, Common Daisy and Stinking Cranesbill. The Field Pattern geometry works as a scaffold device to hold these detailed drawings together, with its suggestion of green fields, ponds, clouds and textures.
The whole artwork is kept rigidly in place via the deep architectural window frames, which impose a vertical and horizontal symmetry to the view.
The use of areas of clear, transparent glazing is very much a part of the intention of the work, allowing views both from and into the building, whilst further animating and providing a backdrop of external colour and texture to illuminate and make visible, the cut-out detailing of the artwork.
The Field Pattern is further used to inspire and give form to a wall-hung cabinet, to be known as the Field Cabinet, which can be used as an ordinary bookshelf as well as a cabinet of curiosity containing references to the history and locality of the new building.
The new development at Orchard Park, due for completion in 2017 is to be called ‘Harrison Park’ , 100 years after Jack Harrison VC, a former Hull FC Rugby League Star was killed at Oppy Wood, Arras, France in 1917 during the First World War.
A Pinterest Board of research images about Orchard Park and its history, can be found here.This will be added to throughout the project.
Hull was awarded City of Culture 2017so there is much to celebrate in the lead up to this brilliant event for the city.
This is one of three developments in the City which Riverside are delivering concurrently. The other sites are Leads Road on the north Bransholme Estate and Hawthorne Avenue in West Hull. There is a substantial integrated arts strategy and programme, developed and being delivered by RKL Consultants. I am one of a number of artists who have been commissioned to respond to these sites. The other artists are: Jyll Bradley, Katayoun Dowlatshahi, Rona Smith, Tim Norris and Angus Ross.
“Riverside (one of the leading social housing providers in the UK), in partnership with Wates Living Space, is developing three new high quality extra care schemes within the city of Hull;
Harrison Park, Hall Road (65 apartments, 60 x 2bed, 5 x 1 bed)
Cecil Gardens, Hawthorn Avenue (95 apartments, 89 x 2 bed, 6 short stay)
Redwood Glades, Leads Road (156 apartments 60 x 2 bed, 96 x 1 bed))
The developments will be delivered under the PFI protocol. They will be high quality residential developments providing lifetime homes for adults who need some form of extra care and support. Riverside is committed to engaging the skills and imagination of artists in providing people with living environments which enhance their quality of life, stimulate their imagination and which contribute meaningfully to life of the community”.RKL Artist Project Brief.