The Box Office

Briggate will become the tourist destination, with people coming to see the street performers, theatres and cultural aspects of the street and not just to go shopping. When people visit Briggate they will want a source of information to allow them to discover the most of the area.

This will be when they discover the Box Office.

The Box Office is intended to be an interactive source of information, a place to purchase cinema/theatre/gig tickets and a point where people can interact with each other. Tourists and locals will be able to find event and transport timetables at the touch of the screen.

The proposal will investigate what other resources the Box Office could include and types of architectural environments it could generate.

Briggate: The Destination- The Main Stage

Why?

Briggate is already a performance. However it lacks real definition and has no designated areas for performance and culture. Some cultural buildings remain but many have disappeared, whether it be down ginnels or demolishion, Briggate now needs to diversify to redress the balance and ensure a prosperous future.

Briggate has been the retail centre, a residential area and a thoroughfare. Now it needs to become the Destination

Why an improved dedicated performance destionation?

• The street needs to move beyond retail to survive. Economic slowdown is upon us and could cause the death of Briggate.
• Briggate needs to be the Destination, not a transitional space and needs to attract a broader audience, proving entertainment for everyone.
• Briggate needs shelter and seating areas to enable the audience to stay and enjoy the performance.
• Designated performance spaces are required for the street entertainers.

What does Briggate lack to become the Destination?

• Shelter
• Cultural bases
• Evening performances
• Entertainment for everyone
• Holding spaces for performance
• Connection between New Briggate and Lower Briggate where pubs, bars and theatres are.

Proposal: The theatre Destination,

Highlight the best of Briggate

How?

• Create shelter for performers and their audience
• Create performance space for different social groups
• Define performance spaces
• Add more culture to the street

Tutorial 21st October

We discussed our ideas for proposals in this tutorial.

Lindsay: A Box Office for Briggate. The idea originated from the vast amount of people that use Briggate already. With our performance idea this would create even more attraction and a need for an Information Centre/Booth on the street. The Booth could have mini pods located on different points on the street and include an interactive touch screen. Discussions also centred around using the pods could be a performance.

Robbie: Initial ideas were to create a space for use by carnival and festival parades. The next concept was centred around the Leeds Film Festival, a Booth for creating your own videos. Bob suggested looking at a Community Arts Space in Boston featured in Architecture weekly.

Claire: City Lights. A series of suspended structures to use light to hold people or highlight a particular activity. .Another student had been asked to turn on a light outside the Library as an art performance this was supposed to indicate how we can change our environment through light. Need to look at the work of Isamu Noguchi an artist who uses light, currently exhibited at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park.

Street Costume

Going from analysing the theatrical words we applied these to the street in a photo montage. The main things we have in this image is Costume, Interval space, Audience and The Gods as well as the continuing performance theme.

Father Duffy Square, Broadway

http://www.timessquarenyc.org/facts/newduffy.html

Great Quote

"The great function of the city is to encourage the greatest possible number of meetings, encounters and challenges between all persons, classes and groups, providing a stage upon which the drama of social life may be enacted with the actors taking their turns as spectators and the spectators as actors."

Lewis Mumford
The City in History 1961

Looking at Other Destination Streets

A series of slides to see why people visit other Destination Streets.

24 Hour Briggate (or at least longer than 9 hour)

We created this 'Broadway' image to show how Briggate might look, if evening entertainment took place actually on the street and not just down the ginnels and arcades.
Providing more lighting and an inviting environment to hold people in and not just a space to pass through. Have a couple of cinemas, theatres or small hotels on Briggate would extend its life past shoppers 6pm.

Tutorial 14th October 2008

During our group tutorial with Bob we discussed our definition and how we were moving on with the redefinition. The main points were to show the process and give reasoning and underpin all ideas.
Furthering our study in to comparing Briggate with other major destination streets was another point to progress the redefinition.
Discussions about the archigram approach to plug-in cities, lead to ideas around creating space on the roof tops or adding a parasite to the flat roofs.

Performance Related

Continuing with the performance definition, how can we redefine Briggate?



Our first step was to take several words that related to part of a theatre performance and each group member investigated how this could relate to Briggate. Returning back to the group we brainstormed these ideas:

Taking the theatre words, we mapped them on to Briggate and looked at for example how an interval space could benefit Briggate or adding costume to a building would improve the streets atmosphere:

Narrative

Throughout the day Briggate acts as a performance space, from the buskers, street sellers and charity workers to shoppers parading in the latest fashion. However as the sun goes down, it is as tough the curtains close and the street's vibrant atmosphere disappears for another day.

Define Briggate: Powerpoint Slides

Along with the previous posters, we produced and presented a slideshow to Define Briggate. The powerpoint in more analytical compared to the posters, but displays our group narrative in the final slide.

Define Briggate

Two A1 sheets defining Briggate within group work. The first is presented in an old style theatre poster, portraying the different types of people who perform on Briggate. The second is presented as a Billboard/Newspaper to enhance the 'performance' definition. It communicates the analysis of who uses Briggate and when, the cultural buildings and attributes of the performance street.

Group: Claire Dickson, Robbie Sampson and Lindsay Morris