Sasha Hanslip Ward

I am Sasha Hanslip Ward I have just completed my Foundation in Art and Design. I plan to study Architecture next year and so this year I really wanted to experiment with new processes and challenge myself to think and work in new ways.

During the first National Lockdown before arriving at UCA I became interested in exploring and understanding the make-up of different environments. I enjoyed exploring Canterbury and its surrounding areas which was very different from where I had grown up before in London. Throughout my Foundation I incorporated and developed these interests in my work.

For my Final Major Project I wanted to understand how architects and urban planners design infrastructure and cities to allow people to travel from one destination to another. I researched a wide range of topics around this idea and experimented with new processes such casting and laser cutting to develop my final outcome which were a series of buildings or bridge designs intended for a science fiction type setting in the future.

In my research I was really fascinated by the idea of raised walkways connecting buildings together acting as separate transport system for pedestrians. This idea had become popular in the 1950s and 60s with architects and such as Le Corbusier creating plans for future cities where pedestrians and traffic would be separated. At the time these ideas were often envisaged by the public as science fiction which encouraged me to take my ideas to this level and allowed to challenge my creativity, creating designs that structurally wouldn’t work in real life.

In my research I was also able to find examples of where these raised walkways had been built and used. Minneapolis in the USA and London. Just after the blitz the newer buildings that were being built were connected into a network for pedestrians to navigate around central London with the Barbican being a part of this system. Unfortunately, not much remains as there were gaps in the network due listed buildings not being able to be knocked down and people wanting to take the least path of resistance which was often the streets down below. I was also inspired by more present day architects such Steven Holl who designed the Linked Hybrid building in Beijing in 2009 which were a series of buildings connected together that was designed like mini city within a city similar to the Barbican in London which was considered in my outcome.

Another part of my research was understanding the basic types of bridges using shapes created by bridges (using bridges found in Canterbury), such as arches or triangles to aid in the design development for my outcomes by making models using these shapes. I used Photoshop to create visualisations of these designs to show how they could be used in a fantasy environment. If you want to understand more about this project you can visit my Flickr page which is named Sasha Hanslip Ward and I have attached a pdf with more information.