Bench Pictures

These images are some of the inspiration I used when thinking about the design of the bench.
As well as this I was aware of the recommended standard measurements that were generally employed in 'furniture design'. They suggest the most comfortable and safe positions for sitting.

Heartlands Bench CEC

For my CEC work placement with Kerrier council, I was asked to design a bench which potentially would end up inside the Heartlands Development alongside other artist commissions. I knew about the ‘call for submissions’ to artists back in December, but the projects were too big for me to consider applying for and as well as this I had a great interest in both sides of the commissioning process, from the artists perspective and also the commissioners.

The call for submissions sent out by KDC, contained about 7-8 commissions, all of which were to be placed within the new Heartlands Regeneration Project. The massive heritage of the heartlands site (being on of the most prominent tin mining areas of the region) meant that there was a huge amount of source material and history to draw from which could be fed back into the project.

Image taken from: Seams & Veins Artist-Maker Brief for Pool Village Commissions Dec 2008

Even before I had come to Falmouth, I had decided that one of the main focuses of the course for me would be to look into the mining history of the area, with a view to incorporating this subject into my research and finding ways that this could inspire work for me.

The title of my course is ‘Interior and Landscape Design’, and it is important to explore understand what this means to me. So far, the subjects which have interested me are things connected to public art, urban space, architecture, community, history… then things like anthropology, because that is a broad enough title to contain most other subject areas, and importantly the design process.

With this in mind, the Heartlands Project was a great way for me to experience a live ‘regeneration’ project that is focussed on the public realm, instead of a much more singular or individualistic approach, which is something I am more familiar with, this because my own experience is limited, and certainly does not extent to working on big projects as this.

So having known about the commissions since December I was really excited when after sending in my CV in the hope of getting some work experience KDC asked me to design a bench.

The council office’s role is concerned with the landscaping and upkeep of the Kerrier district area. Whilst at the offices, my role was to design a bench and also get involved in planning of public consultations, this meant putting together inspiration sheets which would have been used to stimulate discussion amongst local people about the kind of improvements or initatives that they would like to see put in place in the community. Alongside this I did a bit of illustrator work, this time information sheets for the local Dolcoath mine. At the time I was not familiar with AutoCAD, and because of this I could only put my designs onto paper.




Making the jump from drawing on paper and sketching my ideas down without really thinking about it, to drawing in a computer programme, was a bit of a challenge, and did feel like it wasn’t very worthwhile doing. But now I can at least open CAD without having a heart attack, and I would even say that I can successfully draw some lines.


The inspiration for the bench is taken from railway tracks found on the Robinson's Shaft site. The bench will be made from shaped rolled steel, and groves will be etched into the bench to create the impression of tracks. Placed underneath the bench for support is a piece of granite stone. Although I can see problems with the design, I do like the general idea. It is simple and I think that the railway track idea would not be lost on people. I am yet to find out KDC's opinion though.

If people are going to understand ideas and take them seriously then using a programme like AutoCAD enables for the expression of these ideas in a more universal language, and not only this but takes things from the ideas stage into a design stage, where ‘specifying’ materials and sizes take it that little bit closed to reality.




What remains in the heartlands site is a mish mash of old industrial buildings – mineshafts, big wheels, engine houses, all of which are in a state of semi ruin, contrasting this there is a huge area of wild flowers and green land, which over time has laid claim to the site(s) – hence the reason many of these areas have been designated ‘areas of outstanding natural beauty’

In the industrial age this land would have been an eyesore and dangerously polluted, but now is quite beautiful in a run down industrial kind of way. In the heartlands site one of the things that remain, amongst other equipment is railway tracks, wagon would have been laden with ore and these been used to move ore from place to place around the site

VIEWFINDER National Monuments Record english-heritage.org.co.uk

One of the things that drew my interest to the railway tracks was to do with how they were used. Basically transporting ore from one location to another, on land and also beneath in the mines. Although we usually associate mining with men, in fact women were employed by the mines on the surface and worked at separating the ore that had been removed from within the mines, these women were known as ‘Bal Maidens’. Typically women were not allowed in the mines because of the dangers involved, but experienced no less hardship than the men.

“By 1800, there were 2,000 or more females employed in the Cornish mines, and at least 6,000
by 1851. Between 1720 and 1920, there were probably more than 80,000 females working in all
of the mine related industries in Devon and Cornwall”

Bal Maidens Cornwall and Devon

english-heritage.org.co.uk

Reading the statistics associated with the mining industry and more specifically the mortality rate, you begin to realise how dramatic and hard the miners existence would have been. There is a report that was written in 1842 by Dr Charles Barham who was a mine surgeon. In the report is a series of interviews that take place between himself and some of the Bal Maidens who worked at the mine. He describes their state of health and circumstances, each example makes for scary reading.

Jane Jewell, 21 years old (Truro, March 31st 1841)

She has worked a fortnight at Consols but found she could not continue. She
has always found the ‘bal’ (mine) disagreed with her which she attributed chiefly
to the mundic water. The smell made her sick when the water was warm. Her
father is a miner at Consols and is in a declining state, and is about 50 years of age.”

Children's Employment Commission Report of 1842 Interviews with Bal Maidens from Cornwall and Devon

The Industrial Railway Record No. 19 - p242-245 © June 1968

Although the land will have changed dramatically since the 1840’s the diagram above explains how the railways will have been used to move the ore from one location to another within the mine.

Photos of Milan

It would have been great to get more photos of the show but because it was so massive I didn't get to look round the whole thing. The crowds were huge and I found myself being swept along, everyone there was walking around like they were in a fashion show - including myself, but then Milan is kind of a fashion show, so it was no surprise really, besides the point I was not there to see fashion I was there to see design!! 'Zona Tortona' the area which the (satellite) show was being held in was very characterful, lots of thin windy little allies, a bit like a labyrinth, if you blinked your eye, you'd get lost.

There were some memorable moments, the lights from Selux arrived late which was really annoying, they were delivered to the wrong address then lost in the middle of the busiest city in Europe, eventually when we got hold of them John Miller and I tried to put them up in the middle of the show, we got electrocuted and both of us sprang from the floor and screamed - I don't think John Miller did actually, after this we sheepishly hid them, then Andy put them up the next day.

Whilst walking around with my camera, just an innocent bystander, I got told off by a designer for taking photos of his work - kind of made me laugh as is was a bit naff. Apparently Mr Visachi was spotted outside his shop in Milan with lots of models draped prettily over him.

Got very drunk on free Campari, which initially I drank from a latex cup (!) and it tasted rank, I thought I'd been poisoned, then realised that is actually the taste of Campari, so carried on drinking, it began to taste okay after that.

The camp-site was massive with a full compliment of farm yard animals, goats, horses, chickens, sheep. It filled from five or ten tents when we arrived, to tents as far as the eye could see by the time I left. The Dumo Cathedral was one of the places I really wanted to see before leaving and was determined to visit, it was not disappointing. I got right onto the roof and could see the whole of Milan from above - beautiful.

Then on my last day at the train station arriving just a minute too late I missed the link train the the airport because the ticket machine had broken. This meant that I missed check-in, omg, I thought I would be stranded in Milan, not such a bad fate, but I kind of wanted to get back home. From the train I had to get a taxi to the airport with two others who had also missed the check-in, it was like something out of a movie, telling the taxi driver go as fast as he could, holding on to the seats with white knuckles, we got the airport and the woman who I was in the taxi with gave the driver a 100 euro note, and went charging off for the plane. After letting John know I was going to be late I had to convince security that they should let me through, eventually having run across the whole length of the airport, with my bag on my shoulder, I got to the check-in desk, and the plane was on the tarmac being taxied off, well not quite. That was a first, so nearly missing the plane, sort of funny in hindsight (not).




Zona Tortona, show area.

Chairs made from pulped recycled paper

Some sausage dogs

A home in minature - kind of holiday home, but really compact

Some tiles that I became transfixed by.

This area was just outside the exhibition space we were in, it was build up from nothing over a three day period and by the end it was like a minature street with houses.

The university on the stand next to us.

Another university with a fantastic hi-tech stand and atouch screen computer

Doors to Dumo Cathedral, the legs are polished I assume people touch them for good luck

Carol in the Cathedral

Patrick and Carol

Patrick with pigeons landing on him

A ceramic bowl, sandblasted

Students sewing t-shirts through the show

Our stand at the private view

Campari and latex cups

Another university stand

Hobbie horse
Horse sculptures

Mannequin model sitting at table

Tea/Coffee pot - 946 euros

Metal workshop

Zona Tortona bycicles

Champagne boxes

Adidas trainers

Amazing leather seats made from what look like quilts

Bench design

Dumo Cathedral

CEC Work Placement - Kerrier District Council, Heartlands Project

My CEC work placement that took place with Kerrier District Council at Camborne was really good. The experience for me worked on many levels and I felt that I learned a huge amount. This was not only actual learning but also to do with experiencing the environment.

The office was a mix of people, engineers to project manager, a department manager and of course landscape architects. The whole group worked in unison and there was an interdependency that existed between them, as much as they hated to admit this. Because the council is in flux, lots of the offices have been moved around, and new alliances have been formed amongst colleagues. So the current situation (of about a year) works to the benefit of all, now stepping just a few yards across the office instead of communicating through endless reams of emails.

On my arrival I was met by Cathy Lowe, Landscape Architect. Cathy quickly took me off to the Heartlands Site, where she gave me a guided tour of the surroundings, explaining the way that the land would have looked when the mines were all working.

The Heartlands site is basically centrally located to all of the mines within Camborne. If you do a mine search of the area on the WHS, you will discover that there are as many as 2000 mine shafts within a five mile radius, many of which were left abandoned and forgotten about only to be later discovered by builders, and terrified walkers.

The picture below shows the vast amount of mines shafts located within Cornwall, all of the yellow dots are mine shafts.

http://mapping.cornwall.gov.uk/website/whs/viewer.htm

The Robinsons shaft area is home to one of the largest mines in Cornwall with a depth of the shafts being an astounding 735 fathoms or 3000m or 2 ½ miles deep (fathom = 5’9’ feet, traditionally a fathom is used as a sea measurement, but here adopted by the miners as the standard length measurement).

Next to the Robinsons Shaft site there is another mine which sits just about a quarter of a mile away, this mine is called South Crofty, this is the only working mine that exists in Cornwall today. All of the seams of tin have been mined over the hundreds of years that Cornwall played host to the largest mining industry in the world, the only reason that South Crofty remains is that the price of tin has risen in recent years, which makes the job of mining the remaining tin a profitable task.

When I went round Camborne with Cathy she drove up to South Crofty Mine and told me to look at the perimeter wall – to better explain, beneath is a quote taken from a blog; ‘The Unbearable Oddness of Stevyn Colgan’ ( accessed on the 24th June 2009) it is a bit of a cheat but this perfectly describes what I saw.

"The closure (of South Crofty) was marked by some poignant graffiti. There is a story that the local police caught the daubers just as they were adding the final question mark. The officers read the graffiti, sighed sadly, got back in their car and drove slowly away. And what was written? Two lines from the chorus of Cornish Lads, a modern folk song written by local lad Roger Bryant:

‘Cornish lads are fishermen and Cornish lads are miners too, But
when the fish and tine are gone, what are the Cornish boys to do?’

http://stevyncolgan.blogspot.com/2007_12_01_archive.html

Crofty has just re-opened for business and, as long as the price of tin remains high, has the potential for another 80 years of production. But such is the fragile nature of the industry that I'm not hopeful, sadly. There will always be cheaper labour elsewhere."

The writing was faint on the wall, just about decernable, but the memory no doubt still is strong. There is so much to take in and so many things to think about, the strong roots of the past clashing with needs of the present.

The Heartlands area spans Redruth Pool and Camborne. Big lottery funding of £22 million was won by ‘CPR Regeneration’, (a partnership of Kerrier District Council and South West Regional Development Agency) using this money CPR aim to change the face the area, by creating a series of multi functional spaces, a ‘new’ meeting area with lakes, sculptures and an outdoor theatre, to name some of the changes planned. Intentionally re-presenting the historical identity of Redruth Pool and Camborne back to the people in a way that brings inspiration for the future.

This image shows the area of Camborne, Redruth and Pool, alongside the proposed plans for the Heartlands project, the new designed area will join the three villages.