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Ideas

Articles that focus on architecture, material culture, maintenance, and learning how to appreciate what you already have. I strongly believe in sharing my process and putting things into practice—here you’ll also find concise summaries and analysis of books I’ve read. Written by Matt C Reynolds.

 

Articles & Ideas

I write about designing and living an intentional life. I strongly believe in putting things into practice and sharing my process along the way.

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Halifax Tactical Architecture

 

The Free Lab course is a condensed two week, post term course, that brings together a group of 10-15 people lead by at least one architect. It is designed to be a collaborative project, and in most cases includes a mix of undergraduate and graduate students. For this round, I am part of a group of 6 undergrad students, 3 graduate students, and a collaborative lead team of Architect Brad Pickard (Saskatchewan) and Intern Devin McCarthy of DSRA (Halifax).

The Halifax Tactical Architecture project is a temporary design+build intervention on the Halifax Citadel, and is an OPEN collaboration with Dalhousie Architecture. "HFX Tactical Architecture draws inspiration from the relatively recent movement of citizen-led interventions, more popularly know as tactical urbanism, which have sprung up across North America to improve local streets, neighbourhoods and urban spaces. A number of these projects were recently documented and celebrated in Spontaneous Interventions: Design Actions For the Common Good and on exhibit at the U.S. Pavilion at the 13th International Venice Architecture Biennale. 

The overall intent of the project is that, in the end, we will have created a network tactical architecture in the HRM, sparking conversations within the community around the specific nature of the interventions" (OPENPROJECTS.ca 2014). You can follow the project on twitter here: https://twitter.com/HFXtacticalArch

Today marked the end of the third day, so I thought I could close with some photographs of the design stage of the project.

Our site: the Halifax Citadel on the corner of Brunswick Street and Sackville Street.

Our site: the Halifax Citadel on the corner of Brunswick Street and Sackville Street.

The first day on the site.

The first day on the site.

We spent time walking the site to investigate all the pedestrian paths, both formal and informal (this path being the latter).

We spent time walking the site to investigate all the pedestrian paths, both formal and informal (this path being the latter).

This is what a set up looks like for a two week intensive design and build session!

This is what a set up looks like for a two week intensive design and build session!

This is a whiteboard drawing with 11 peoples ideas imposed on it... It's virtually illegible by the end of the day.

This is a whiteboard drawing with 11 peoples ideas imposed on it... It's virtually illegible by the end of the day.

At the end of today we lugged some of the mock up materials up to the site to check things out and talk more design.

At the end of today we lugged some of the mock up materials up to the site to check things out and talk more design.

That's the beginnings of the free lab. I'm excited to be part of team HFXTacticalArchitecture and very excited we have Brad and Devin heading it up. It's going to be an exciting project!

Follow the project here @HFXTacticalArch.

 
Design & BuildMatt Reynolds