Final Images FOTO 5005 Negotiated Assignment

Selection process

Edgar Martin - This is Not a House

After the collapse of the American sub-prime mortgage market, countless housing developments and projects across the States led to the almost overnight stoppage of construction on many sites across the country.

The collapse of Lehmans Brothers (the forth biggest investment bank in the USA) in the late 2000's led to what has become known as the global finanacial crisis (or the credit crunch in the UK).

Martins images show the fall out of this crisis and what effect it has had on the U.S. housing market.

Children's Play Area

It would seem that I'm not the only one venturing on to this site.  As can been seen from this BBC report, kids have also been 'playing' on the Donisthorpe factory site.

However, of all the time that I have been, I have never once seen a hypodermic needle, otherwise I would never have gone on to the site.

Changing Door Policy

 Every time I go to this site, what's boarded up and what isn't is changing, meaning that I can only gain access to certain areas.

This time, the area where the squat was before had been reboarded back up, but the other factory was still open.

As it was quite a rainy day, there was water pouring through the place, which made going tricky.  It also highlighted areas of flooring which weren't safe to go.

However, the concreate flooring of the fire escape is in good condition, so I was able to go in.

Mark Power

These pictures are taken from a selection of Mark Power's work but I feel they best represent the direction of the project that I am trying to acheive.

My personal favorite is of the car wasteland (Figure 1), taken from the series 26 Different Endings, in which Power has used a London A-Z and taken images of areas that fall just beyond this mapping area.

Also of interest is the series, Dome, which looks at the construction and completion of the ill fated Millenium Dome.



Figure 1

Figure 2

In the Neighbourhood

After a sojourn over the East period, I though it high time that I take some more pictures and start to get this project moving again.

I've visited the All Saints Road area again, but this time ventured into the larger of the two buildings that make up the Donisthorpe Factory.

Previously this had been totally boarded up but someone (not me, before you start pointing fingers) had broken down the front door.  The inside of this building is in a worse state than the other building and the floors are very rotten.  Fortunately, there is a concrete stairwell running up one side of the building, where the following pictures where taken.

On leaving the building, there were two gentlemen walking about who were from the council.  I had a quick chat with them about the area and what the council's proposals where for the whole All Saint Road area (see map page for details of the scale of the site).  They said they didn't have a clue and that they were there simply to put up some 'Danger, Keep Out' signs.

They didn't seem too fussed about me being there, so I carried on taking pictures.

Change in planning Laws

BBC News - Row deepens over English planning law changes
With an overhaul of the planning system (from a 1000 page document to a 50 page document), the balance has firmly been shifted in favour of developers rather than locals.
Whether this means that development on brownfield sites will be expedited or whether it leads a pathway for easier development on greenfield sites remains to be seen.

Upstairs, Downstairs

After a bit of a break, I decided, after visiting the Wolsey site further up the canal, I'd go back to the All Saints Road brown field site and take some more pictures.  The sun was out (which isn't exactly what I wanted as I think I want the end results to be quite moody), but it did mean that it wasn't too dark within.

This time, I brought a torch with me to see my way around the buildings.  The lovely folk who live on the ground floor have added some touching graffiti to spruce the place up,

However, they don't seem to bothered about using any other floors of this building, as you can see it is pretty much untouched.

Wolsey Factory Area

Having Tuesday afternoon off from Uni allowed me to get out and actually take some pictures for this project.  It was a lovely sunny afternoon (as you can see) so I thought I'd head down the canal, this time beyond Abbey Park.  This is an area of the city that I'm not very familiar with, but I was aware that next to the National Space Centre, there was an area of derelict land from the demolition of the Wolsey factory.  However, what I didn't know was the shear scale of the site in question.  This area, (which is divided into two distinct spaces constitutes and area that is at least twice the size of the All Saints Road area that I have focused on before.