Some images taken during Growbox Site Visit with 2nd Yr Architecture Students UU

Growbox Site Visit with 2nd Yr Architecture Students UU

40 architecture students meet at UU foyer ready to brave the elements for the Growbox site visit to a carpark under the flyover at Corporation St. The brief, for GROW Community Garden is to design a sustainable, living structure on site.

The MAC & Dunbar link

We stop at the junction to take in the vista of The  MAC & Dunbar link noting how crossing the Dunbar link marks a threshold from the Cathedral Quarter or so called Cultural Quarter to a more industrial part of the city.

There are 4 lanes of traffic to negotiate so with a cautious chain of about 40 people , we decided to use the pedestrian crossing.

Fabric of anonymous spaces

We took in the almost invisible diversity of Great Patrick St. Beggs, plumbing supplies, Corporation St Dole office, Golden Thread Gallery, Robinson McIlwain Architects, Weights and Measures shop, United Optical prescription lens grinders, Flaxart Studios and Orchid artist studios all cheek by jowl.

Skate Park

The skate park has a gate that only lets one person in at a time. A snake of 40 people were not inconspicuous to the loan BMXer who was using the park when we came in. This concrete landscape is starting to look organic now through use and spray painting.

Acoustics

The acoustics as you pass under the underpass are of note, suddenly its actually quieter where the hum of traffic takes on the tones of a washing machine rather than the road or articulated lorries.

A Bountiful Site

We checked out the location of a DOE lock up where hard landscaping materials were stored. An array of paving slabs, kerb stones and brick stock were there a plenty. Buddleia managed to push its way out from under piles of gravel. There were also pockets of grasses peppered with shriveled doc, nettles and some tentative dandelions. Ragwort also made an appearance from under some  plastic bailing strips. A surprisingly diverse flora for such an un-green site and such a bleak time of year.

Threshold

Our proximity to water and the threshold between the city centre and Belfast’s more industrial docks is evident here. Old Sailortown is evidenced by Sinclair Seamen's church with its double entrance where you cross a second threshold into a courtyard. Direct Wine Shipments are wholesale traders marketing to passing vehicular traffic going over the flyover. Further down there are round metal plaques marking both the Greek and Norse consulates. Rounding the corner we take in the site of the former Liverpool Bar now site of the Stena Sealink car park. We also note Tombe St postal sorting office as we head along Donegall Quay. We are circling in on our site. The rain is starting to advance sideways.

Growbox Site

We arrive on site, shelter from the rain. Students check out the perimeter of the large site which takes in an area under the flyover flanked by two open bits of car park. We note the structure of the pillars which support the motorway and the think shafts of light that mark the convergence of various lanes. The site looks bleak in the foul weather but a pigeon flies by and we spot some ferns growing tenaciously between slabs of concrete cladding on one lane of flyover.

Shaft of light, last port of call

We head down a lane under a section of fly over that dips down to road level to meet the M2 towards Georges St. Its worth the detour to check out oddly truncated supporting pillars and broken street lights but the last wander in the rain is really made worth the detour for the strip of vegetation that grows in rubble as a result of a shaft of light from between two sections of flyover above. Its raining hard now, time to head back.

Growbox: 2pm Tues 29th Jan 2013 Meet at foyer of Art College All welcome

This walk is a site visit to M3 Underpass Corporation St Area in collaboration with architect and lecturer Mike McQueen & 2^nd yr BA Hons Architecture students from the University of Ulster, who are being asked to design a living building at this location.

Come along and explore the rich, diverse but often ignored and forgotten topography under the underpass. See how this very urban site can be seen as an active habitat with a diverse range of urban wildlife.

Join a future generation of young architects can use these ecosystems to tackle sustainable forms of social architecture in a marginalized city centre site.