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Blue Tit leaving Nestworks Block at the Union Street Urban Orchard.  Photo: Peter Thomas

The adapted readymades, fashioned from a standard Lignacite block, were the first prototypes installed for the 2010 London Festival of Architecture, so its fitting that they were also the first to be occupied.

Commissioned by the Architecture Foundation as a permanent legacy for the festival, Nestworks feature in the ‘Union Street Urban Orchard Book : A Case Study of Creative Interim Use’ which will be available from The Architecture Foundation website and at the book launch tonight.

We discovered that the standard hollow block used to build some of London’s most celebrated architecture is made from concrete bulked with recycled woodshavings, a material that when used in nestboxes is proven to fledge more young than any other.

Synergistically the interior block dimensions are text book size for house sparrows, radically in decline in the area. Other species designed for are blue tits, great tits, starlings, wrens, robins and blackbirds.

A website, www.urbanbirds.net,  launches on Valentine’s Day to allow nesting activity to be tracked by families and bird lovers across the area. Nestworks is a public project and a people’s project, commissioned by the Architecture Foundation as a permanent legacy for the London Festival of Architecture.

The architecture and landscaping is an extension and embodiment of Creede and the very visible spirit that has created it.  The attitude and spirit of the mountain settlers was, and continues to be, unique.  Local architecture reflects the values and sensibilities of its people, and this is particularly visible in places somewhat off the beaten track, where people have had to wrestle with available raw materials to survive and to make their livelihoods.

51% studios are using the same kind of thinking that’s been used for well over 100 years in this valley, using the local site conditions and materials in frank ways that reflect awareness of their inherent attributes.

Green roofs have significant benefits both for the public/community and for the individual building owner. Primary public benefits include controlling stormwater runoff, improving water quality and improving air quality. The most significant benefits of green roofs for building owners are reductions in building operating costs, significantly longer roof life and lower life-cycle costs for the roof, and increased property value.

The green roof serves as a filter to reduce pollutants in the water and also to lower the temperature of the water that is eventually returned to the watershed.

Although a green roof initially costs more than a conventional roof — $10 to $20 per square foot for a green roof versus $5 to $10 per square foot for a conventional roof — they more than make up for that difference over time. Green roofs extend the lifespan of the roof membrane significantly by protecting it from sunlight and temperature variations. As a result, green roofs can conservatively be expected to last two to three times longer than a conventional roof. Experience with green roofs in Germany shows that 40+ and 50+ life spans for green roofs should be expected.

Because of their insulating properties, green roofs reduce the heating and cooling costs for buildings by at least 10 to 15 percent. A Canadian study showed that a 6-inch extensive green roof can reduce heat gains by 95 percent.

On the banks of Willow Creek, green roofs will also improve the aesthetic quality of the buildings, to soften them and integrate with the native prairie landscape, using desert plants which need low or no maintenance.

The steel structure of the indoor arena however quickly becomes expensive if asked to take on a sod roof in addition to snowloading. Structures that carry load through pure tension (hanging) require  a fraction of the material required by bending structures such as beams or trusses and provide an efficient way of carrying an extensive green roof in addition to non-uniform snow loads.

The design is responsive, site specific and provocative: informed by ornithological derives with Peter Holden, locally celebrated for initiating the annual peregrine falcon public views at Tate Modern. The project was commissioned by the Architecture Foundation, and takes its inspiration from Witherford Watson Mann’s Bankside Urban Forest Strategy.

Nestworks 1 2 3 are a direct response to the festival’s theme of exchange: of knowledge, habitat, materials. We discovered that the standard hollow block used to build some of London’s most celebrated architecture is made from concrete with 55% recycled woodpulp, a material that when used in nestboxes is proven to fledge more young than any other. Synergistically the interior block dimensions are text book sizes for house sparrows, radically in decline in the area. Other species designed for are blue tits, great tits, starlings, wrens, robins and blackbirds.

Nestworks 1 2 3 is a legacy project delivered with support from Peter Holden, the Architecture Foundation, Riverford Organic and Lignacite.

Maps showing locations of the Nestworks, some of which are hidden, will available in the Orchard at Union Street from June 19th, or to download.

A related birdwalk and a new talk by Peter and Andy Holden will take place on Saturday 3rd and Sunday  4^{th July}.  Peregrine viewings at the Tate are daily from 12 noon to 7pm, 17 July to 12 September 2010.

Phase 1, which included remediation, relocation of willows and the outdoor arena, is complete and has affored the community of Creede a safe, beautiful and windfree place to rope and ride.

For upcoming events and news, do also take a look at the MCFA’s newly launched website: www.upperriogrande.org

The birdboxes will be deployed as part of the London Festival of Architecture in June 2010.

‘Drawing on the City – A walk through history’ is an architectural and sculptural project of seven installations conceived as a route through the changing landscape of  Barcelona and St Adria. The route and installations make visible again the cultural heritage and experiences of the people of Barcelona, which has sometimes been overlaid, sometimes forgotten, sometimes displaced …

The new structures embed collective memory and imagery in the cityscape, bringing a continuous and present sense of history to the city by pointing to the real and developing landscape it contains.

Along the route visitors and local residents are able to see and understand the cityscape, becoming aware of essential historical structures and newly developing urban plans.

The work is an active and engaging series of dialogues around the role of the city in the making of communities and individual experience. A positive role is created for both the sculptural scenarios and the audience/participants.

Drawing on the City was exhibited in the Caixa Forum during the summer of 2008. For more information, please see Hannah Collins’ website.

The House of Doors sits at a meeting place between the land and the sea, and makes reference to the sea as a first point of contact for many of the cities early migrants. Floating pale like a ghost, from the moment the first light illuminates the sea to the lower light of the evening, the House of Doors evokes two distinct moments in time: a memory of using doors to build his house in 1962 recounted by a former resident of Somorrostro and a photograph of a home built from 16 wooden doors, taken by Hannah Collins in 2003. The small pontoon tempts swimmers out to use it as a meeting place. For those not swimming it provides a resonant image seen from the shore.

The Portal is the site of the intersection between Cerda’s diagonal, the Tramvia and Avinguda Litoral. It is also a node in a series of walkable and cycable loops linking Barcelona, Barceloneta and Poble Nou with San Adria and Badalona. The portal is an orientation map for the overall project, an extension of the tram platform worked in coloured enamels with each of the seven installations colour coded and linked into the fabric of the city. The portal entices you to explore the neighbourhood, to venture deeper…

In San Adria,at a thriving Tuesday market below the freeway local bird keepers meet to compare, exchange or trade their birds. The Singing bird wall is set in a quiet spot under trees near one of the entrances to the market.

The diverse areas around la Mina were, until recently, home to many horses, kept in backyards and on a horse farm on waste ground. Horses formed an integral way of life in the area and were used to pull recycling carts, for transport and for trade. Recent changes have seen the horses disappear. A place of horses is a happening/event that sees the horses return to la Mina, and is inspired by the work of Muybridge and Asger Jorn at Albisola. A series of identical concrete panels will bear the immaculate detailed evidence of a horse-run through specially prepared troughs on the rivers edge. Once dry they will be tilted and lifted into position on the adjacent retaining wall to form a permanent sculpture.

During the Summer the ground surface of Paseo Cameron is covered in the extraordinary drawing of the children of la Mina. By night-time often the whole plaza of over 200 metres is covered by drawings which are replaced by renewed activity the next day as the drawings fade and are walked off the Plaza. The Wall of Dreams is located in a local cultural centre. It is made from ceramic tiles, various shades of gold in colour which carry imprints of the childrens’ chalk drawings.

Pavilion is a collection of green structures dedicated to providing a series of amenities within the park. It is sited on the raised ground beneath the trees to create a series of discreet spaces which can be open to the sky, shaded by the tree canopy in summer, or in the winter sun.