Heavy Water: a film for Chernobyl
"On April 26th, 1986, reactor four at Chernobyl nuclear power station explodes, sending an enormous radioactive cloud over Northern Ukraine and neighbouring Belarus. The danger is kept a secret from the rest of the world and the nearby population who go about their business as usual. May Day celebrations begin, children play and the residents of Pripyat marvel at the spectacular fire raging at the reactor. After three days, an area the size of England becomes contaminated with radioactive dust, creating a 'zone' of poisoned land.
Produced by Seventh Art Productions and based on Mario Petrucci's award-winning book-length poem, Heavy Water: a film for Chernobyl tells the story of the people who dealt with the disaster at ground-level: the fire-fighters, the soldiers, the 'liquidators', and their families."
(Seventh Art Productions)
'Heavy Water: a film for Chernobyl' (2007). Directed by David Bickerstaff and Phil Grabsky, Poetry by Mario Petrucci, 52 minutes
CONTRIBUTOR
Simon PerkinsSHARE
Wayfinding: the organization and communication of our dynamic relationship to space and the environment
"Wayfinding is the organization and communication of our dynamic relationship to space and the environment. Successful design to promote wayfinding allows people to: (1) determine their location within a setting, (2) determine their destination, and (3) develop a plan that will take them from their location to their destination. The design of wayfinding systems should include: (1) identifying and marking spaces, (2) grouping spaces, and (3) linking and organizing spaces through both architectural and graphic means."
(Center for Inclusive Design and Environmental Access, School of Architecture and Planning, University at Buffalo, The State University of New York)
CONTRIBUTOR
Simon PerkinsSHARE
Communitas: A Tree Structure of Urban Zones
"Communitas, Percival and Paul Goodman: Communitas is explicitly organised as a tree: it is first divided into four concentric major zones, the innermost being a commercial centre, the next a university, the third residential and medical, and the fourth open country. Each of these is further subdivided: the commercial centre is represented as a great cylindrical skyscraper, containing five layers: airport, administration, light manufacture, shopping and amusement; and, at the bottom, railroads, buses and mechanical services. The university is divided into eight sectors comprising natural history, zoos and aquariums, planetarium, science laboratories, plastic arts, music and drama. The third concentric ring is divided into neighbourhoods of 4000 people each, not consisting of individual houses, but of apartment blocks, each of these containing individual dwelling units. Finally, the open country is divided into three segments: forest preserves, agriculture and vacation lands. The overall organisation is a tree."
(Christopher Alexander, 1965)
Alexander, Christopher. 1965 'A city is not a tree' (Architectural Forum 122 - No. 1, pp. 58-61 and No. 2, pp. 58-62).
CONTRIBUTOR
The Constellations ProjectSHARE
Theory of The Dérive
"In a dérive [literally: "drifting"] one or more persons during a certain period drop their relations, their work and leisure activities, and all their other usual motives for movement and action, and let themselves be drawn by the attractions of the terrain and the encounters they find there. Chance is a less important factor in this activity than one might think: from a d?rive point of view cities have psychogeographical contours, with constant currents, fixed points and vortexes that strongly discourage entry into or exit from certain zones."
(Guy Debord, 1956)
CONTRIBUTOR
The Constellations ProjectSHARE
