Latest
New Forest, UK: We were asked a week or so ago to go and talk about our approach to design at a conference in the New Forest. The usual last minute ‘oh dear what shall we speak about’ discussion took place. Then, after 10 minutes, a watercolour and a quick flick through the book closest [...]
Portsmouth, UK: The Government announced yesterday that they would be creating 47,000 new jobs for young people between 18-24. As Chair of City Growth Portsmouth, Carl Leroy-Smith attended the announcement in Portsmouth by Pensions minister Angela Eagle. The scheme will pay young people a minimum wage for a 24 hour week over a 6 month [...]
PORTSMOUTH, UK: Deer Park Alpha’s Carl Leroy-Smith spoke to the Royal Society of Arts (RSA) in Portsmouth at the Royal Naval Club & Royal Albert Yacht Club on Monday 30 March 2009.
Carl gave the talk on a vision for Portsmouth that connects communities and focuses on making a liveable city. He used John Ruskin’s five ‘life’ [...]
A student from Solent University sent DPA director, Carl Leroy-Smith some questions to answer. We thought we would publish the Q&As here:
What or who inspired you to study Architecture?
I always loved designing things and drawing. When I was about 12 my parents bought a house that required complete renovation and meant they had to [...]
BANBURY, UK: Our definition of Urban Design has been quoted in the Banbury Civic Society’s newsletter. You can view it here. Next stop the LA Times.
Projects
Portsmouth, UK: Last year we developed this proposal for a new football stadium and cultural buildings in the centre of Portsmouth. The idea came from a discussion with local planners, so we cannot take credit for the whole idea. However we thought we would do a montage to illustrate the proposal which has been put to the [...]
Southsea, UK: This July we put together three proposals for the Pyramids Centre in Southsea. Our first effort was to cover the broken glass with the largest community mural in Europe at a cost of £30,000 including design, production and installation. We made this proposal to the city council off our own back.
We then had [...]
Portsmouth, UK: We have been working with Admiral Lord Nelson School on a project through the Creative Partnerships programme.
A group Year 9 students spent the summer term 2009 exploring their school and city through a series of lessons that asked them to consider how the school and city worked and did not work. Using mapping, [...]
Portsmouth, UK: This is our recent proposal for illuminating the entrance to Portsmouth City Centre.
Light Rain: A shower of light greets motorists as they enter the centre of Portsmouth. Like gentle fireworks, a wave of light passes through the LED strips. All the strips are randomly timed and as a whole seem to produce a rain [...]
Deer Park Alpha are working in partnership with the Design Commission for Wales (DCFW) on a project called Know Your Place.
Know Your Place is a pilot project of five workshops across Wales all about sense of place, how design effects how a place works and ask citizens to think about and articulate what they value [...]
Opinion
Over the past month or so we have attended a whole host of events where the creative economy has been hailed as the saviour of the nation. However, quite apart from the fact that the creative sector is seen by just about every region in the developed world as its saviour, we are worried that there [...]
PORTSMOUTH, UK: We filmed this lovely sunrise on the way into work on Monday morning. It is 5 mins long but very beautiful, even on a crappy Nokia phone. Must go HD.
The Beatles masterpiece Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band took 129 days to make. That’s four months and they spent 700 hours on the job over that period, which ran from December 1966 to April 1967. Just shows what one can do in a short space of time if one puts ones mind to it. [...]
SOUTHAMPTON, UK: Deer Park Alpha Director, Carl Leroy-Smith attended the Cabinet public meeting on Monday. The meeting, held in Southampton, was one of the latest ministerial “away days”. This Guradian link gives a pretty good overview of the meeting attended by around 150 people from from across the South East Region. Carl sat on a table [...]
PORTSMOUTH, UK: Our ‘The Route’ project featured in Portsmouth’s local paper The News on 18 October 2008. A most excellent article written by David Hurley gives a good and positive overview of the project. You can download a high resolution (6MB) version here
Our book ‘Where we live…..’ has been out for about six-months now. We have had some amazing feedback via the official feedback web form. A selction of readers comments are below:
“A CLEARLY SET OUT AND WELL WRITTEN BOOK”
“IT IS OUTWARDLY APPEALING AND INWARDLY ENGAGING”
“With all the many urban design publications around, its nice to [...]