Smoking pit
Aesthetics of decay, worn-out remnants, decline post-industrial. Beautiful ruins. Fragments of the past.
Strong wexxx
Secondary focus old co-op
Cigarette buts, gum, litter
It's funny how the street is jammed with parked cars @ 5:30pm
Smell of carpets. Astroturf on sale - does it smell?
Limestone walling
Extrapersonnel is for rent - so there might be a NEW shop comeing
Paper, card, soft plastics - I think people missed the bin!
Tree on roof
Padlock
I was asked if I was OK!
Mortgage - home lenders
Slow Rick stopping to talk to shop keeper
Slowly walking couple - man helping older woman
Activity - people walking up and down the High Street
For Colab Dudley, I baked a model that ties into the final proposal. Food is a huge part of history and culture and part of Dudley’s history and culture is using what food there is available. Bread is cheap and easy to make, so is found in many traditional black country dishes. I foraged for edible plants in my garden and neighbourhood and built hanging baskets and islands to show in an abstract way how public space could be more productive and beautiful. They were a tasty treat and a sustainable model!
You can buy NEW clothes at Nico
Hoarding knot 18mm
People chatting & saying hi to someone passing in their car
876 Lounge - Music blasting reggae, smiley man gave me thumbs up: 'you alright?'
Rotten wooden wall
Opening takes advantage of another classic view
Weeds growing on pavement
Ferns growing in the drain pipe
Timeline of Dudley’s History with information on historic buildings and geological features of the High Street.
Dudley has a rich history by being know as a busy market town and being a capital for manufacturing.
The timeline emphasises the rapid change of the traditional industries in Dudley and how it has effected the High Street.
Things we wish we could tell you
Hair products
Surprising survival Little Barrel Pub
What's £5? The Pavement?
Industrial aesthetic functional utilitarian
Lots more trees
Shopping in groups, families / friends
Folklore or myths? Myth - that the High Street is just about shops - more homes likely to emerge.
Damp alley
Faint waft of scented police man and woman
Bright square lights
Abandoned cafe, broken furniture, hanging wires
Pizza = not homey
Water Collection
With this information I can begin to map out 1038m2 of miyawaki forests.
It is crucial that the forests do not use more water than stored as then the project isn’t zero carbon as it would require fresh water. It is important that the water collected is sufficient for this project to work. This data also provides the information to how much storage is required on the site.
Exposed brickwork where tiles have fallen off
Children at play
Not many smiles? People avoiding eye contact but curious as to what I'm doing...
Hardly any lighting -> scary
Religion
Rain washed streets
Good survivals
Pink shirt man in front of pink/red sign
Cast iron railings lost on south side
Car exhausts
Cigarette yuk! Saw it coming.
Fairy lights in window
PRODUCTIVE LANDSCAPE
To create a safe family friendly pedestrianised space on Dudley's high street. By changing up the landscape and introducing micro ecosystem on the high street we aim to improve the health and well-being for the planet as well as the people of Dudley.
["Pretty sure I witnessed a drug deal and shoplift"]
Old cinema - lack of culture - pigeon's world
Motif / sign above G.P. Footwear not seen before
Buddleia and ferns growing in the guttering reaching for the sky
Nico's style - a bit deco!
Car exhaust
Activity - people walking up and down the High Street
Soft plastic
Fellow detector friendly hello!
Kid on bike
Rubbish bags, drink bottles + cans, wooden cable spindle, but tidy'd up in a bucket 'Half-littering'?
Graveyard - decaying bodies, amongst ivy, holly, ragwort. Faded flowers, pile of broken stones
Old
Some good 18 + 19C facades but in poor condition
Unused little balconies
Friendliness outside the pub! copy
Tiny broken pipe / water fall, spraying people with water as they walk by
Tally - colours of people's tops (no umbrellas)
Smell of clothes on display
Shrewsbury Arms mates outside laughing. Work, play after.
Broken windows blacked out
Loss of firm enclosure but still just about maintains the spatial flow
friendly surveillance of spiders in the top right corner of the lab - be nice!
Old and abandoned
Beautiful contrast between trees and town
Home makers - suppliers of furniture to crisis homes
Nature thriving through the cracks
Nowhere to sit?
![[What do you feel?] cold congestion - 211110 1730 Views.png](/images/processed/211110 1730 Views_thumb.webp)
[What do you feel?] cold congestion
Market people chatting under the shelter
Fast food (I'm hungry)
All along the High Street active store signs light up
Flats above shops
Rusty streaks running down the wall
Illuminated moon sign. Square coloured windows (Art Deco Aesthetic?)
Ladies' perfume
Burgers
Unused little balconies
General wind howl
Infrastructure - cladding falling off?
Friendly intro chat to Lorna!
In this picture from 1914 in Dudley, you can just make out my grandfather. He's the small boy with the cap running across Wolverhampton Street in the days when the trams were still running. Years later we worked out that this day was probably a defining moment in his life, the day he chose never to have a second thought or to be bullied by others. You can see him running. This is because he had stolen the ham you can see him carrying under his arm. This one action started a chain of events for my grandfather that would go on to dominate his formative years. Petty larceny, theft, criminal activity that would shape him, turn him into one of the most notorious villains in the Black Country.
When he died in 1972, this photograph turned up amongst his possessions, in a locked drawer of his bureau. We agreed amongst us that no one in the family had ever seen this photo before, curious as to its importance to him. On the back of the photo he had written the date and time, together with a brief note - "Me stealing ham from W.Smiths, butcher". He would have been 10 years old and this was perhaps his first, or at least one of his first criminal acts.
We have no idea who took the photograph or how he had come to have the original print in his possession, but it appears that it held some significance for him as he kept it all of his life locked away in his bureau drawer.
Coffee stirrer
Aftershave
Activity - people walking up and down the High Street
Faint perfume smell xxx?
Old shop sign
Layers of rotten board + weeds
Small tree growing next to wall, high up
Men standing on grass - connecting with extra space on High Street - relaxing / watching the traffic
Unused shop, spray painted numbers
Dank alley
TOO MUCH TRAFFIC! But the street must have vitality without it
Grime streaked windows
Together, dad feeding birds
Man with cigarette in a open reach van
Flowers in garden / trees
MORE WASTE SPACE - waste building materials, timber, pallets, carpets, furniture, glass
Beautiful architecture
Hum of engine + idling cars
Welcoming restaurants
Colourful bold words
Antibac smell!
Sash xxxx Cosmetics nice (best smell)
A lady waving to a child
Hear lots of traffic & music from cars "busy"
Beautiful flower display
Smell of baking - smells great together
Time waits for nothing... eco-system / interconnectedness / sonification / patterns / systems / vocalisation / chance / cause & effect
Christmas lights FESTIVE
Fags
A great place to linger if it wasn't caged in!!
Cast iron railings good survival
Traffic fumes yuk
[What can you hear?] breeze + meal
Damp day in summer
Why put a multi-storey car park with access from the narrowest street in the town?
A harmonic and diverse community ["Everyone I spoke to was nice"]
Rubble + stone
Time rebels deep in conversation!
Roller shutters
Adverts on lit, scrolling billboard - I find them rather cheesy. Consumption is cheesy!
Abundance of flowers welcoming everyone a "great night"!
Gentle flapping of purple bin liner hanging out of bin
100 kg very old romae has romd nom rals
Gutter drip by cash point
Smell of damp autumn evening everywhere
Section loss of firm original enclosure
A day out in Dudley
Time inside passes slow,
So we went out for the day,
My favourite place to go,
The high street in Dudley
I'm sure that you'd agree
It's not like any other town,
There is lots to do and see
And there's space to run around
There's a playground there
Just in the middle of the street
And fruit growing everywhere
The strawberries taste so sweet
There's lots of places for grown-ups
Where they like to chat and sit
They say 'hello ya right bab?'
And then Tarra a bit.
There is no need to in
When it's black over bill's mother
Because should the rain begin
The canopy is the perfect cover
The grown-ups pick the veggies
And call come get some grub
We jump down from our climbing trees
And head over to the food hub
We get the buz back home for tea
And get it down our wazzin
I look back on the day with glee
My Dudley town is bostin.
Fresh air
1 bench being used - lots unused?
Small slow sway of sign on street
Faded, peeling shop signs, grey, blue + red
E-cigarette
Dudley High Street is not only inhabited by human beings, but also by animals. Looking back on the formation of most cities, we can see the common attraction of urban landscapes to humans and and wild animals. I used recycled corrugated paper to make this creative painting. It shows the causal relationship between climate change and animals’ loss of habitat and forced into urban life when human beings are developing cities. It highlights the importance of protecting the environment while developing Dudley High Street in the future.
Empty shop
Public ash tray
Interesting design above shops - what is it?
Fag smoke
Noisy BMW exhaust
Good details survive
Green pockets overlooked by passersby?
Brutalism
Water pouring from broken downpipe
Wet grass smell
Tonnes of historic connections! Lord of Dudley Castle -> St Thomas' -> Dudley Priory
Paving stones
Only two people sitting on benches at this time
Activity - people walking up and down the High Street
Maybe there are new cars
Friendliness inside the pub!
Tiny shrub on top of church
Till noise from convenience store
Waft of damp grass
Caritas (charity)
There are ghosts here so I am told... Exposed, weathered concrete
A random yellow (!) traffic cone on the pavement
Language
The House of God!
New sofa
Cheap modern infill
Smell of baking - smells great together
Tiny acts of random kindness like picking up a dropped pen for someone else
[What do you notice if you imagine you are a worm / a bird / somebody else?] weed under bench, rusting lamppost, vehicles, business
Lingered here chatting to the shop keeper!
Calm, relax, serenity, togetherness
Space escapes thro' set back corner splay for traffic sightline has spoilt the street intimacy
Zoe - visitors economy - fellow detectorist from council
All of the shops are connected
This gift was created to highlight different points in the social spaces on the high street. Aspects that we can improve on and celebrate. One point found was to incorporate more green spaces to improve health and wellbeing. The other to celebrate the textures and embossings in Dudley’s early ironworking. These ornaments were created by melting sweets and printing patterns onto them.
Happy playing football
Moment of silence - no people / cars (seconds)
Smell of a clean Euro-6 bus engine
Tiny patches of grass under bench
YOW AM / DUDLEY Signs
Small graffiti
Man xxxxxx with ciggy
Flats above shops
Bank - good principal focus for view down
Secondary focus old cinema
Fountain comes into view
Activity - people walking up and down the High Street.
Waste of space? Building in decay. Timber, signage, falling apart.
Another e-cig
Loss or original building line enclosure too much horizontality
Balcony!
Jamaican music - lively (more smiley people in this area?!)
Bostin building - Decay of commerce - quality of life.
A nice smell I cannot pin down
Faded paint on strandboard
Chaii - escape, light, calm
New barriers
Activity - people walking up and down the High Street
Good granite curbs (but not local stone)
Flap (gentle) of covers on crowd barriers
Land lords residents
Peeling paint on beautiful old windows
Activity - people walking up and down the High Street
Young man in overpowering aftershave
Street scale patchwork
Investigating Facade Damage will highlight where the repair needs to be undertaken.
It is creating an irregular pattern of repair that evolves.
Only intervene when necessary; this proposal will not ‘repair what does not need fixing’ as it appreciates there could be a negative effect on an already declining high street.
Repairs will be constructed with the materials grown on the street as part of the Macro-scale intervention.
Rotten window frames, cracked plaster
Decaying paint / wall above shops
Spill out
Car radio
LED lights in window
NEW broom at A&M
Faint smell of barbers
Slooow peeling of cladding on 1st + 2nd storeys of bldg
Bottle tops
Pile of bird seed on pavement makes me smile as I know there are signs near here saying don't feed the birds
Tiny litter signs
Broken tile edge
Barber
lack of responsibility - Rubbish / mattress. Door
Mossy algae on wall below the windows
LED lights in window
My gift focused on the issue that I found most prevalent in my research, which was the lack of nightlife and social entertainment on Dudley High Street. I created an abstract storyboard that highlights the gap on the High Street. This model can be packed away and used at different events. It can also be used as a puppet show. People can add their own contributions to the High Street. The storyboard was made out of recycled materials. This puts emphasis on looking after our environment.
Explore The History Of Site Voids - This will provide an opportunity to reimplement these to allow vertical green corridors to occur.
Explore Vacant Buildings - To avoid damaging an already deteriorating high street, I aim only to take over vacant plots.
Investigate the opportunity for Miyawaki planting - understand the conditions required to grow a sustainable material source on-site, including ground, water, and space conditions.
It takes over a building that leads directly to an open space where a community hub is the centre of the thesis, offering education, community engagement and material celebration.
Barbers shop. I like that smell.
Girl's perfume
People chatting / laughing with one another "gossip"
I was asked about what I was doing [asked them what they think is beautiful] Old lamp posts giving the town some character
Tiny random acts of kindness like picking up blown away posters
New T-shirt
Vile aftershave
Road - kerb bricks
Land lords residents
Woman waiting
Baked goods mmm....
Rust
Slow car 11, faster car 9, faster van 1
Church
QR Code William Hill
[What can you see?] Cars, xmas decor, shops
Lingering can be done outside cafes + shops if chairs are there
New matress
Tiny dog yap! woof!
Up high buddleia + fern waving in gentle breeze
Davo Turkish Hairstyles - Laughs, ginger beer, smiles
Big old building
Funny logo vinyl on window for Caspian Pizza
Top floor - Represents social decay + the action in response
What smells I didn't I get - rubbish, old fashioned food shops, dog shit / damp dogs, pub smells
Break light red glow
Top Church spire focal point
Peeling layers of paint grey, blue, red, green layers of the past revealing themselves...
The themes I investigated were the Connections, Movement, Routes and Ways. My gift explores those themes through a figurative expression hidden within the structure of the dreamcatcher, allowing for a flexible interpretation by the audience, and to aid the imagination.
The structure of the dreamcatcher symbolizes the relationship between the destination and the journey the user undertakes, but while it highlights the importance of the destination, placing it in the centre as the biggest piece, it emphasizes the significance of the journey over the destination in the ratio of one big element vs many small elements.
This can be relevant to the High Street, if the connections are thought of beyond the transport means, and can relate to anything from the layout of the landscape of the High Street, to the interactions between the users.
The web symbolizes the connections between the pieces, plotting the blue foam pieces around the different lengths of the thread, off the centre where the destination piece is plotted. This is meant to show how the connections can be made in various ways and that there is no set order or pattern, meaning that the movement is individual and the connections are adaptable.
The blue foam pieces can be viewed as points or highlights of the journey, or they can represent different ways of getting to, and from the centre, suggesting that the journey doesn’t end with the destination.
Another way in which the web can be interpreted is that the small foam pieces are the destinations, the thread is the connection between them and the big piece symbolizes the decision making.
Nature thriving through the cracks
Fag smoke
Slow car reversing into bay where I am sitting
Limestone kerbs in Vicar St
Infrastructure - cladding falling off?
Great sculpture
Alley-waste - glass - furniture - plastic bags
Drains
(*imagining*) two Christmas spirited robins joining in with the festivities of the street, singing along with your Christmas joys.
Trad ground materials + patterns
The classic Dudley view up to spire of Top Church