To Start

Beginning this month will be the final semester of a two year Masters of Architecture degree I have been undertaking at the University of Liverpool.

This semester is solely dedicated to a singular piece of work - the Architectural Thesis Project.
This blog will follow the course of this thesis that I am undertaking with James Perry, the ups and downs and trials and tribulations.

I will attempt to keep this blog up to date with the latest work, research and developments which we make, and along the way post in links to related information and other blogs.

I have a further blog - Image-A-Day - which features an image created by myself, daily, throughout the year.  Whilst this has, in the past, been less that successful (!), with renewed vigour I will aim to keep this up to date as well throughout this process.  Between them, they should show a snapshot of life as an architecture student in 2012.

Prior to this semester, we were required to submit our initial musings on our subject to the course staff in order to 'bid' for tutors.
I will go into more detail in the future, but as follows is that bid document...

 Our proposal centres on questioning and evaluating  

the widely acknowledged  romanticised view of the countryside

 It followed to choose a location which has been well documented

and contained both idyllic locations and areas of deprivation

 Exploring the history of the area to find what skill and trades may have

been lost, and what they have been replaced with

 Questioning the long-term sustainability of any future economy

 Searching out the root of the idyll that is well represented

and re-interpreting this for a modern society

 Where the landscape is still romanticised but in an ever increasingly

mediated form

 Alongside this is the problems of rural decline

a loss of jobs

and the myriad of social and mental issues this can create in a community

 Our proposal follows the course of 'Adventure Therapy'

and experiences with the wilderness

 Aiming towards isolating social conditions and responding to them

by a return to a more idyllic age

 Within an ever changing landscape

But yet one with a permanence, unchallenged by human occupation

This has left us with a wide field to work from - it is hoped that we will narrow down the question and the location of our intervention, the nature of what we intend to achieve or even investigate within the next couple of weeks.