With event's month and various other things happening, I am so glad that I did as much work as I did in those three weeks around Easter!
Yesterday, I finally made a start on my digital model and am currently working on the first floor.
Yesterday was also tutorials and I feel that I am now ready to start really selling my idea. The design work it practically done and all that's left is to sort out the materiality and do some killer images. Looking at my sketch model from the outside reminded me of David Chipperfield's restoration of the Neues Museum in Berlin. And I think I can definitely take some inspiration from how he presented his idea. I am also planning to look at some of Peter Zumthor's work and how he uses stone to create some bold finishes on his buildings. This relates back to using classical buildings and theatre as precedents in my design. I think using stone on the extension will make a bold statement against the brickwork of the original theatre and having the grand staircase leading up to it will be similar to the ancient and classical theatres.
I feel like not much has actually been done this week in terms of working on this project - I've done plenty of other work in aid of getting all of it done a lot before the deadline!
Wednesday, I updated my sketch site model so that it shows the new intervention. I also extended the model so that it includes the whole of the site, including the community garden centre. Now that I have this, I can look at how I can link the two together.
I am going to do this by creating a communal space beneath the stairs up to the theatre entrance. I still need to work on this space on my plans which is probably something I will do today.
I also want to look at how I can use the space in front of the stairs, and give the stairs more function than just as a way to access the theatre. it was suggested that I make it into a outdoor performance space so to help me, I think I need to look at similar spaces and how they are defined from the rest of the site. At the moment, I feel that I could just leave it clear and explain that it is a performance space, with the stairs doubling up as seating for this space but it seems a bit like cheating so I am going to look into existing spaces.
I have been working on my technical drawings but having a lot of difficulty with the line weights of my drawings. I wanted to use them to distinguish the existing building from my intervention but it's not going so well. I will, however, persevere!
The task for this week was to work on the site analysis. Rather than doing this in small groups and all presenting the same thing, we did it as a studio group so we were split into small groups and given a different part of the analysis to work on. We would then present this and be able to share and use whatever analysis interested us.
My group's task was to look at Typology. This meant we were looking at theatres and similar buildings to help us understand how the public space works. While other group members looked at the theatre layout and other theatre layouts and public buildings, I opted to look at the evolution of the theatre from the Ancient Greeks to the Romans to the Globe Theatre in London. Looking at history of buildings fascinates me so reading up about how the first theatre came about in Athens was really interesting and I was then able to compare them all and see exactly why the theatre has developed the way it has. I was able to find lots of books about the Greek and Roman theatre and from them I could draw up plans and could see how even the modern day theatre holds similarities to the originals.
We were also tasked with each coming up with three urban artefacts from around the site and what we would do with them. The columns on the original facade of the Hippodrome caught my eye - as I mentioned in my previous entry. I would really like to do something with these as the are not only an interesting feature of the site but also link back into classical theatre - looking at theatres like the Opera House in Manchester etc.
With event's month and various other things happening, I am so glad that I did as much work as I did in those three weeks around Easter! 
