A Bird Hide
This project was a foray into developing a narrative-led architecture. It started with a transect walk through Oxford, down the River Thames. Along the route, I collected items that might have been missed by others: interesting stickers, marks of human interaction, grafitti, and various flowers. From these I created this Transect Collage, which itemises and arranges these pieces so I can draw links between them and start to develop themes. I employed various techniques, one of which included poetry.
From the initial transect and site exploration, I developed different narratives. This started with multiple visits to the site and photography and sketching of various elements. A collage was then produced, condensing these findings into an image. At the same time I worked on finding stories from the site. I made several short films of rubbish floating in the water and set them to music and a reading of the poem ‘The Rainy Day’ by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. What was at first just a bottle floating in the river now had meaning and emotion and was something else.
Part 1:
The user is invited to sit within the Bird Hide, a wooden structure that sits in the river and obscures the human form from those pesky, flighty birds. A small seat is provided for weary feet. The Hide is accessed by means of a timber bridge that stretches into the stream, and allows the user to imagine that they are sitting on the water.
Part 2:
At the head of the mill race, a small, hinged grating has been constructed to collect the detritus and treasure that floats down the stream. Pulling a cord within the Hide opens this grating and releases the build-up down the mill race, straight in front of the waiting twitcher.
A multitude of experiences is available:
- you may become overwhelmed at the sight of a Twix wrapper
- a Ribena bottle may bob serenely, reminding you of the first time you swam in the ocean
- you may become depressed at the sight of all this rubbish polluting such a beautiful stream
- or you may be really lucky and release a fish into the path of a watchful heron
The final structure is a timber construction that sits in the river. A short walkway juts out into the stream, and the bird hide itself sits on pilings driven into the stream bed. It is angled so as the view the outflow of the mill race.
