Sam Baum writes about the design workshops

Over the past 3 weeks, I co-ran a series of workshops along with The Building Exploratory which investigated physical aspects of the buildings and surroundings of Bow Road. 

Working with year 10 students from Langdon Park school, I covered the concept of marketing and how we (as a team of young marketeers) can influence people. We then brainstormed positive words we could work with to sell Bow Road to the greater public.  I then showed them to 2 fashionable trends within the graphic design work, Pixel Graphics, covering artists like Eboy and Chuck Close and Typography, covering artists like Eine and Bob & Roberta Smith. 

Working with this new awareness we then visited Bow road itself and noted down 1 of 2 things: 1, all the typefaces we could see around the street, from road signs to shop signs and graffiti to billboards. 2, the exact layouts of the windows, noting down the sizes and spacing between panes in order to make a pixel grid canvas to work from.  By the end of session one we had numerous sketches of the type and windows of Bow Road.

I found that once the students eyes were open to the potential for design, that they suddenly became aware of the numbers of typefaces and window layouts around them. Something that before the session they would have overlooked but afterwards were fully conscious of.

In our second session we then worked with our findings and created one of two things. The first was a typographic pin and thread image and the second was a pixel - window picture. In both cases the students worked with words that they felt conveyed the positive aspects of Bow Road, such as Nature, Beauty, Multi, Historical, Tree and Unity. 

The students who worked in the typographic method wrote out their words, traced the corners and edges of their letters with pins and then weaved and wound different colours of thread around the pins to highlight their words.

The students who chose the pixel window route carefully drew out their grids of windows and then using collage, created colourful imagery and words with each window pane in their grid representing a single pixel.

This was really interesting to see in action, as both routes were technically and conceptually testing, but over the session, the students hard work began to pay off as 3D thread and pixel based representations of their ideas began to form. And the prospect of some of the work actually being show on a large scale on Bow Road was an exiting prospect for some students too.

The Start of the Young Peoples Programme

Over the last two weeks, The Peoples Archive Project has got off to a great start  with two workshops delivered at Langdon Park Secondary School, where 50 Art and Design GCSE students have begun exploring Bow Road. In the first workshop the students had the opportunity to work with a professional photographer – Will Robson-Scott – to learn new portraiture photography skills. They experimented with composition, linking people to the architectural environment, and the effect of different poses. The students have also worked with Graphic Designer Sam Baum of the company Studio Baum. With Sam the students explored marketing and design, before visiting Bow Road to explore the design and architectural features of the street. Students were surprised to find the enormous range of typographies visible along Bow Road, and also looked at the ways in which pixel graphics could be created from the window arrangements on different buildings along the street. Watch this space to see how they use their explorations to develop final pieces that celebrate Bow Road in the run up to the Olympics.

The Exploration Begins...

The Building Exploratory volunteers started exploring High Street 2012 over the summer. Read about Niamh’s experiences of High Street 2012 below, as she walked the length of the street taking photos of all the buildings for the Peoples' Favourite Buildings website (which you can access here!):

I began with the Whitechapel gallery and it was a good start. It really is a beautiful building and I noticed these panels above the doors on either side where it looks like the surface is flaking away.

The Royal London Hospital has stunning tile work on the front entrance. The Whitechapel Market is a feast for the eyes and ears between all the colours and sounds. The mosaics above the doors on the East London Mosque and Cultural Centre are beautiful.  All the buildings that surround The Ideas Store are reflected on its glass exterior and it makes a great photograph. The ships on either end of Trinity Green Almshouses and Chapel are very eye catching and quirky even though there are replicas. The originals are kept in the Museum of London. From here on the street becomes a lot quieter and there are less people and traffic.  It feels cooler too as there is more shade due to a lot more trees. The Queen Mary University Administrative Building has a very lush lawn; it made me want to have a picnic. Wickham’s Department store is so bizarre as it is broken in the middle by a closed shop but really interesting and forces you to look twice at it. Ocean Estate has a lot of scaffolding and the work seems to be moving at a quick pace. Genesis Cinema is a delightful little building. St Clements Hospital is now closed and unfortunately it’s difficult to see from the street as there are big trees hiding it away. The red gates however are very visible and enticing. Bow Road Police Station and Stables are a great contrast. The Police Station looks like any old police station until you turn the corner and see what used to be the housing quarters, a modern building that reminds me of a Spanish villa. The Former Town Hall has really interesting relief and I love that the end looks like a ship’s hull. Across the road is the Bow Bells Pub, a lovely shade of orange.

I finished with the Church of St Mary Stratford at Bow, and it was the perfect building to finish with. I love that it is hidden when in the street until you get to the gates and see a lovely long footpath leading to the front doors and an arch covered in greenery.