Project 2: A Second Take

An escape for a young city girl to stargaze.

For this to be the case, her escape needs to be close to a city but far enough away so the city lights don't interfere with her ability to look at the stars. She needs somewhere to read her maps of the stars and to rest and to sleep as she will be there throughout the night. This is an activity that she will complete alone and so she doesn't want to interfere with her scenery or be interrupted by people or noise.

This brought me to decide on a place caled Godley Head just south of Christchurch. It is about a half an hour drive from Christchurch, a small city hence smaller amounts of lights, set on a grassy hill headland facing out into the ocean. It is only reachable by an very narrow one way street that runs along the edge of the large grass hills to reach a recreation area where the rest of the way must be done by foot. Hence this would also be a very quiet area at night.

Now Godley Head has remained untouched due to the WW1 and WW2 Heritage gun enplacements and batteries that remain there. These are mostly fairly submerged into the hills around the headland. There are also many subterrainian tunnels that are only visable above the land by the small air and light chimneys that sprout out of the ground.

My idea here is to create a structure that mimics the gun shelters in construction with space below for her to rest, sleep and read her star maps and an upper space from which she can use her telescope positioned where the gun should be to gaze at the stars.

Further consideration of this design left me unsure that stargazing was her main activity and that the space would be created for this. The gun shelters also got me thinking about soliders and the wives that were left behind from war. Hence this gave me an idea to draw on the negative aspect of the painting; her feeling lost, unhappy and upset of which I believed to be due to loss of a loved one. Hence I reconsidered my narrative.

An escape for a young widowed city girl awaiting the return of her soldier.

In this narrative she is still from the city alone looking for an escape just out of the city and secluded from people. She needs somewhere to rest, wait and write letters. She needs something that will allow her to look out into the ocean to see if the army is returning. Therefore I still want to include a lower space tucked into the hill with a place for her to rest and a desk for her to write letters to her loved one. This space should also include some sort of fire to keep her warm throughout the night. It would also include an upper space that mimiced the top of gun shelters but without the gun in replacement with a telescope. This would allow her to look out over the ocean by day in hope and search of the returnin fleet and up into the stars by night hoping and praying for her soldier to return.