A new semester means there's a new project and i'm always eager to find out what it is before we get straight into it. I had to go home early and due to the little excursion to Paris i was able to get my information quick and easy! Yes, it felt good, very good indeed! We were able to choose between two sites. One being the Humber Ferry and another being Spurn point, based not too far away from our university, both sites had different solutions.
The Humber Ferry was to reintroduce a passenger foot ferry from Corporation Pier in Hull that connects to the Railway Pier in New Holland across the River Humber, which will encourage the reconnection of communities towards the river Humber especially for the City of culture 2017.
However, Spurn Point is completely different. After, the tidal disaster on the 5th December which saw the deterioration of Spurn Head, The Yorkshire Trust had to think about relocating and move further inland rather than on the sand and shingles that it is currently on. More and more, Spurn Point is being eroded as the North Sea and strong force of prevailing winds are taking one side whilst the other side is being taken by the Holderness River. Two years ago, i visited Spurn Point and the change from then is extremely drastic to what it is now. The sand dunes that were used to protect the paths for both drivers and visitors had completely withered away. The land was more or less covered with sand so you could no longer see the concrete used for the floor and parts of brick and concrete slabs lay with the tide. As the weather gets worse and more floods are becoming prominent each year, Spurn head has not got long till it gets cast as it's own island and then completely cut off for good.
I loved the idea that we were able to pick the site we wanted and after visiting the two different sites i was extremely challenged by Spurn Point. As it has so much water running through the land it will be challenging to think about what design methods are best and what sustainable materials and construction will benefit from this also. Already the site itself must be 1.2 metres off the ground and we aren't solely looking at the relationship between the people and the buildings but also that of the wildlife and habitats that surround the site.
At the moment, because both the pedestrian and visitor paths have been breached, we weren't able to go as far as the lighthouse which was used to store weapons. When the military called it home back in the early 1800s Spurn played an important as a great defence of Britain in the Cold War, World War I and II and the Napoleonic wars.
When looking at a site architecturally one of the few things you have to be on the lookout for vegetation, materials and habitats as these are very key in the influence of your design. For instance, Spurn is overwhelmed with Marram grass which is great for the colonisation of other plants as it stabilises coastal sand dunes, which are used as not only a defence for the cold breeze from the North Sea, but can also help determine changes in the beach profile due to erosion. 
I now have ten weeks to muster up a site analysis, final design and model. Sounds easy but it's not. Architects never seem to sleep.
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