...WELCOME TO THE HOUSE OF FUN.......

.....and at long last I have now started on my post-grad course , studying for an MA in Art and Design Direction at Manchester Metropolitan University . This was born out of - amongst other reasons - a degree of frustration arising from my career as a designer working in the Leisure Industry and the sheer amount of design work and information that never gets to see the light of day through circumstances entirely out of my control - there must be SOME way to release this energy , surely. So lets see.....................

I suppose that this is the work that started it all and got me thinking.................the site is 28 Oldham Street ,

Manchester and the location of Dry Bar for those of you who know the area - and know your history , The current owner had instructed us to work on converting the entire building ( the upper floors are currently derelict ) to a boutique hotel , 30 odd rooms or so , and themed around the music scene in Manchester , both past and present. Lots of scope , then .............so off we go , full of enthusiasm.

Except that some eighteen months down the road the clients throws all of his bricks out of the pram , aborts the scheme and refuses to pay us - in all probability because he hadn't realise what it was going to cost to build , although he had been told.........and so all the works sits in a drawer ........so much stored energy.

Working within the built environment , so many factors are entirely out of my control - the client / site / finance / bureaucracy - as in planning , building regs , fire officers , health and safety etc - and it occurred to me that I could investigate these sites in purely 2D / drawn form , and on my own terms. The proposal therefore would be to re-visit some of the sites that I have worked on in Manchester over the years ; outside of the real world parameters dictated by practicality , commerciality and the wherewithal or otherwise of clients, an alternative reality would then be constructed for these sites , investigated through the dynamics of architectural representation but with the opportunity to overlay texts , narrative , artworks and illustration to create the experience of an alternative reality.

Makes sense ? .....to me it does . Its a part-time course , over two years , so plenty of time to develop some interesting ideas .................so watch this space.

And a belated congratulation to Jonathan at http://www.artistictype.co.uk/ on finally getting his MA , checking out with a distinction . No pressure there , then..............