STARTING POINT
The most successful project from the program so far was my book on storm porches - a unique architectural feature of Atlantic Canada. Not only was it well received, I really enjoyed the process of learning more about publishing and book layouts.
Susanna’s Phase One welcome video – key takeaways:
Identify areas of interest, key themes
What is your research question?
How might I…?
Who is this for?
What ethical considerations might I have to make?
What experts can I connect with?
INITIAL IDEAS
Houses I’ve been in – art installation investigating relationship to home
Invite participants to make a house, draw a layout of their childhood home
Visual language based on place
Series of books
Book of niche places
Workshop on memory – draw layouts, streets, places
Visual identity of Halifax, Nova Scotia > unique architecture and visual traits / visual memory of place
INITIAL RESEARCH
Cape Breton half houses. There’s a lot to dig in to around this topic; particularly loss of industry, but where I am not part of this community I would have to be very respectful and careful not step out of bounds as people still live in some of these homes.
How to cut a house in half
Many of the houses on the island are so-called company homes, built decades ago for coal and steel workers.
A lot of these buildings are duplexes, where one half is still lived in by a family, and the other is empty and boarded up.
Often the vacant half is demolished. The house is literally cut in half, and an internal wall converted to a weatherproof external one, leaving a family living in a free-standing 'half-house.'
The alternative is that the vacant house is simply left to fall into ruin, raising the risk that it takes the other half with it.
A filmmaker from Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia, Canada. His first short film THERE LIVED THE COLLIERS is a short 16mm experimental documentary about the wooden duplexes built one hundred and fifty years ago to house coal miners in his hometown.
A falling population has turned once-thriving neighbourhoods into ghost towns.
"What you're witnessing is a community just crumbling," says John White, a teacher in the area.
For many years, the island was supported by coal mining and steel production. As those industries have declined, so too has the area's economy, with the population falling nearly 20 per cent over the last 20 years.
With between 600 and 800 abandoned houses, the Cape Breton Regional Municipality has almost as many empty homes as Vancouver. About 40 per cent of houses sold last year went for less than $100,000, while there are pockets where homes have been valued at less than $10,000.
The population is also aging — nearly a quarter are seniors — and when White asks his students who has a parent working out west, he says as many as half raise a hand.
"It's actually heartbreaking for me, because this is my territory, this is where I grew up," he says.
LEARNINGS
I was really inspired by the video on design for social change, as this is an area I would like to explore further as a designer.
PRIMARY RESEARCH PLANNING
With my area of research being related to identity of place, architectural styles and history of Nova Scotia, a key element will be gathering primary research through the collection of visual data.
Inspired by the prolific work of the Bechers, I would like to capture visual data through photographic catalogues, and then grouped my similar features or patterns that may emerge.
By placing several cooling towers side by side something happened, something like tonal music; you don’t see what makes the objects different until you bring them together, so subtle are their differences.
Hilla Becher obituary, the Guardian
For my on-site data collection, I gave myself three objectives to determine what I should document and photograph:
- buildings that felt visually significant to Atlantic Canada
- places that brought forward an issue to be addressed
- homes that piqued my interest in detail or design
OTHER MASTERS PROJECTS
I also explored what other master of design students have been making to see how my project could sit among my peers.
