Guerrilla Gardening

Guerrilla Gardening involves transforming a piece of otherwise unused land into a garden. The concept originates from travelling or displaced communities who cultivated areas for food. The term was coined more recently, in the USA by the Green Guerillas community group, who began in the 1970's by throwing sunflower seeds into abandoned lots.

Although historically the movement was politically motivated, today its rising popularity seems to come from an increased awareness of climate change and threats to environmental stability. It is also a way for individuals to be active in their local communities, working to improve social cohesion and the local environment.

See an example of Guerrilla Gardening activity within Cheltenham.

Drainage and Waterways

 Cheltenham is built over the River Chelt, one of the main tributaries of the River Severn. Its location means it is used as the local area's main depository for surface water. This causes massive rises in the water level,  from 0.34m to 2.17m, especially in the winter months.

See below a picture of the drainage solutions on the pedestrian footpath next to the river, and the flood defence put in place to help cope with the excess water.

 

Spring Bubs .3

  Over the winter, I prepared a bulb lasagna. We saw the crocuses bloom in March, the tulips in April and now its May we can see the first signs of the Alliums.

This last addition to the bulb lasagna should achieve a far higher ultimate height of the bulbs included and has a globe-shaped flower head, which contrasts with the cup form of the Crocus and Tulips.

Sections

A focus on drawing sections in AutoCAD, as seen in the image below:

Drawing sections of a design helps refine the final design and communicates how it should be constructed on site. The further use of varying line weights and hatching will aid its clarity and effectiveness as a communicative document.

AutoCAD Fonts

Using AutoCAD, I found that the default fonts available are fundamental and not visually appealing. This caused issues when compiling documents with Adobe Indesign as the fonts would always be difficult to match. However, after playing around with the program, I was able to find the Text Editor Formatting Panel. This allows me to choose from a variety of fonts that are readily available in other software, creating presentations with good flow and formatting. 

AutoCAD Fonts and Annotation

Over the past few weeks, I have been practising my AutoCAD skills to complete a Hardworks General Arrangement Plan.

Throughout this process, I have been learning how to use different tools in the program to make my drawings clearer and quicker to produce.

The image above was created with the Array and Offset tools. I used the Array tool to ensure equal spacing between the proposed trees and the offset tool to create various avenues that fit within the surrounding landscape.

AutoCAD Layouts

 Using AutoCAD to quickly create keys for hatched plans. Using the Array tool to ensure my boxes were equally spaced for a visually appealing and informative piece of work.

Other annotation was created using the Text, Polyline and Hatch tools.