Stonehouse - The beginnings of a Postcard

After creating the Union Street panorama collage shown in one of the posts below, I decided to develop it further.  Firstly I thought about the way in which the two sides of the road are quite different to each other as described previously.  I therefore decided to try and represent this spearation somehow.  The following is the first of the images I created to try and show this:

The overlay over the top of the image is the outline of the road map of Union Street and the surrounding area.  I thought this would be a good element to add as it demonstrates the areas beyond the image as well as what can already be seen. By doing this it occurred to me that the image I produced looked as if the bottom images were reflections in the top as if Union Street is actually a river reflecting its surounding environment. This kind of overlay however could also be read as some kind of fog or mist over the road or area.  To begin with I felt I should follow the reflective route of this image and so continued to develop the collage to look more like a river reflection.  This is shown below:

In this image the line of the road is better formed to follow the image, better highlighting the road running through the image.  Although this image is better than the previous image, it also looks more like a cloudy substance which links back to the fog idea mentioned earlier.  This links with the pollution possibility for the Stonehouse future postcard and so this could well be developed as part of this.

Whilst thinking about reflections and the structure of the images I have created it occurred to me that as well as looking reflective, the greyed out areas also look like shadows of the images above.  This made me realise that the future always holds 'shadows' of the past. For example there are often old walls left where new buildings have been built to provide 'character' or because it did not make sense to remove it.  This wall however may have been there for hundreds of years and so has a lot of history in conflict with the area around it.  This also applies to many other structures such as paving and protected buildings, as well as history being retained in the ground itself.  I find this a very interesting concept that actually in 100 years time, it may still be possible to see some parts of the current Stonehouse still hidden amongst a newly regenerated Stonehouse.

Stonehouse - 100 Years in the Future

The next task in Transforming Stonehouse is to create a postcard for the area resembling what the area would be like in 100 years time, or at least some time in the future. In order to be able to do this I felt I had to consider the possible ways in which an area changes over a long period of time, and in particular the possible dramatic changes that occur in the next 100 years linked to possibilities of global warming and other current issues.  The following is a list of these possibilities:

• Flooding - rising sea level
• Drought - both hot(arid) or cold(ice) possibilities
• Technological dependance - The world becomes completely digital
• Loss of light
• Loss of air
• Atmospherical pollution - smog, no oxygen, clouded cities, leads to loss of vision
• Radioactivity - wars or attempt at alternative energy
• Too much waste
• Ecofriendly civilisation - everything becomes 'green' e.g. travel, energy etc
• Technological advancement - scifi elements e.g. defying gravity, ALife, technology becomes organic

Being that the annotations my group made of the area are based on views, light, green/organic, and traffic the concept for the future should be based on a development of one or some of these, but possibly also on the development of better technologies as this is likely to be inevitable.

Stonehouse - boundary separation

Another aspect of both Stonehouse and Union Street that I find interesting is the lack of knowledge about the boundaries of the area.  Many people who travel down Union Street are unlikely to acknowledge the fact that they are travelling right through the heart of the Stonehouse region.  The joining of Stonehouse, Derriford and Plymouth into a single city i.e Plymouth, meant that the boundaries between the areas have become much more blurred.  Therefore those who travel down or up Union Street are more likely to understand the area to be Plymouth than Stonehouse, apart from perhaps those who live locally and have built up a history of the area via this.  Stonehouse being such an important area historically, and still an interesting and dyanamic location to this day should probably have more acknowledgement as a location than it is currently recieving.  This interests me in terms of improvements to the area, as it would be good to bring a stronger identity back to the area.  Below is a picture of a sculpture in California that acts as a signifier of the boundary between Beverly Hills and West Hollywood:

This sculpture, as well as being used to identify the boundary is also engaging as it draws the viewers eye upwards as you walk below it, and in doing so, allows for an optical illusion to occur in which the colour of the sky is altered at certain times of day.  Labelled the Empyrean Passage, Dan Corson the creator said:

"Empyrean Passage is reminiscent of both a theoretical black hole and portal into the celestial worlds ... The form is constructed like a giant hoop skirt and gracefully moves in the wind, creating a gossamer lighting effect overhead. While this project is an oculus to the heavens, more focus is usually paid to more terrestrial stars in this neighbourhood. "

The sculpture looks and acts almost like a pillar between the two locations and creates an "entrance gateway" that pedestrians are able to travel underneath, almost transporting them between the two worlds.

(http://www.dezeen.com/2008/02/05/empyrean-passage-by-dan-corson/)

This sculpture is interesting as it is interactive as well as symbolic, and also very environmentally friendly.  Although most interesting at night, the Empyrean Passage also is functional in the day due to the added illusive effect on the inner edges of the rings.  This therefore allows for a very functional, engaging and effective addition to the environment whilst giving an invisible, yet important boundary, a physical representation.

Stonehouse - Union Street Photos

As a group we decided that our focus area will be around Union Street, the main road that cuts through the middle of the Stonehouse region.  We therefore went to Union Street and took photos of the area to better document what the location is like. Below is a straight forward collage of the photos I took in the order that they were taken from top left (first photo) to bottom right (last photo). To see a larger version of this image just click on it:

The aim of the photos was to document not only the area in general but also the areas which could be used as the improvement location as well as elements that characterised the area, such as graffiti and the Dance Academy building.  By putting these images in a temporal format like this it shows how the area changes as you travel through over a period time.  It also shows images that link together easily, such as those of the Dance Academy in the middle of the image.  This is to be expected being that one was taken not long after the other, but it did give me an idea to take the photos and collage them together to make an image of the entire road from start to finish, alike to a really long panorama of the area. In this way the focus of the collage would be the focus of the project, and the result may bring a better understanding of the area to the viewer than the one shown above.  The following is this collage:

To see a larger image click on the picture.   This image allows for the enitre length of Union Street to be in one image.  This also shows the difference between the two sides of the road as the near side has many different aspects to it while the far side of the road has very little.  Also the near side of the road is quite variable in the amount of regeneration.  Some sections had relatively new housing and flats while there is also a lot of buildings which are run down and dilapidated.  This demonstrates theres is quite a lot of regenerative conflict still in this area.  It is also interesting that most of the housing, not only on Union Street, but throughout Stonehouse, is on the near side of this image in the North section of Stonehouse.  Union street in some ways seems to cut the area in two, between residential and more commercial areas. 

IDAT 211 - Visual Perception

Visual perception outlines the ways in which we use visual cues to create meaning in the world.  These include paralax, focus, binocular, and monocular cues.  However our perception can easily be tricked, by subverting the normal rules assoctiated with how we percieve our world.  It is this, the amount of different ways in which we have challenged our visual perception that intrigues me most.  Usually refered to as optical illusions, these exceptions to the rules of perception occur both intentionally and unintentionally, either by means of creation for entertainment, or by conicidence.  For example many people use their artistic talents and also computing to create a wide range of optical illusions, which can require the viewer to either be active or passive in changing their perception.  This is intentional subversion.  However things such as the Charlie Chaplin mask experiment mentioned in the previous post, although set up for the video, may still occur with a mask in every day life.  This is therefore (mainly) an unintentional subversion.  Intentional subversion of our perception is much more common, due to the continuous creation of illusions for entertainment.  Below are a few examples of different types of illusion, both passive and active:

 Julian Beever street art shown from the correct and incorrect viewpoints (passive perception as long as you are in the right place)(http://blog.brains4all.com/brainblog/archives/globe.jpg)

(http://snapshotsofgod.com/images/magiceye.gif)A magic eye picture in which the viewer has to physically change the angle of their eyes to a parallel position in order to view the image (active).  This is both related to perception and to the way in which we physically see. Click on the image for a larger version, can you see the heart?

Traditional optical illusion the composition of the image causes your eyes to see black dots where the white gaps are (passive)

(http://www.collegeboredom.com/images/opticalillusions/opticalillusions01_img_1.gif)

Young woman - old man optical illusion.  This requires the viewer to actually turn the image upside down to see the illusion occur (active) (http://www.yugzone.ru/optical_illusions/img/catPics_perevert.gif)

This therefore demonstrates the wide range of different illusions that exist and how they can be passive or active depending on their content.  All of these images work in some way due to the ways in which our perception functions along a set of rules which we have learnt from birth.  By knowing these rules and developing things that go against them we are able to test our own perception and find out more about the way we find meaning in objects.

Stonehouse - The map reformed

As well as having the annotated map in its orginal state, with its original meaning, it can also be rekeyed and edited to create a completely different approach to the content.  The following is my interpretation of the map beyond its original meaning:
The orange circles could represent areas that need improvement in cleanliness.  The larger circles could resemble places where there is a lot of rubbish, while smaller circles resemble less.  In terms of the purple lines, these annotations could resemble movement. The closer the lines are together the more movement there is, the darker lines resembling motored movement, while the lighter purple resembles organic movement.  For the green lines I would suggest that the darker more solid lines represent some kind of wind flow such as areas that are more windy.  Finally the black lines could resemble, pollution rather than traffic flow, as this is a byproduct of the traffic on the roads.
The images below are of the map after being redrawn to represent the information more directly.  This has also been influenced by some of the other interpretations I made above. The first image shows the notations with the original base map of the area, while the second is without this to remove the traditional reference points, and demonstrate the patterns and properties of the annotations. To see larger versions of these images click on them:

In terms of the key for this map the elements work as follows:

The green lines have stayed the same as the viewpoints and organic areas around the Stonehouse region as described in previous posts.  The purple swirls resemble the natural light,  and were drawn like this to resemble that light has a wave length and can be mapped in waves.  The dots of purple resemble the street lighting as these will create round circles of light at night and so it seemed fitting to resemble the artifical light spots using circles. The orange scribbles resemble green areas.  These were mapped as spiky areas as this resembles the look of grass which is linked to the concept of green areas.  Finally the black swirls are a new way of representing the traffic areas.  This annotation was made to also connotate the pollution aspects due to traffic congested areas.

This therefore demonstrates the careful consideration of how the map should be redesigned to better connotate the elements it represents, as well as improving the general look of the image. 

Stonehouse - Group Map

Below is the group map produced to map out different elements of the Stonehouse area.  The frist map shows the original Stonehouse road map, while the second shows the annotations without this input.  By removing the stereotypical map image it enables the annotations to become a map in themselves demonstrating a completely new representation of the area.

This map represents the following things:

The orange circles are green spaces, the light purple lines are natural light and the darker purple lines are street lights, the black lines represent traffic flow, and the green lines represent long distance views and organic areas.
Although each annotation has its own individual meaning, the map as a whole can be studied and interpreted also.  There are a number of things to note about this mapping of Stonehouse.  Firstly there are a number of locations which have fallen as the focus of the annotations.  These areas are around Victoria Park, the coastal areas around the Royal Williams Yard, and Union Street. It is interesting that these areas specifically stand out as this suggests that there is a hidden potential in these areas that has not yet been uncovered.  Union street is particularly interesting in this way, as rather than being a empty green space alike to the other two, it is actually the most commercial and populated section of Stonehouse.  This is because the area acts as a highway through Stonehouse into the centre of Plymouth, and so is constantly used by drivers and pedestrians alike.  Although it is no surprise that Union Street been highlighted in this way, it is interesting that it comes up against two spaces that are very different to itself.
Another interesting aspect of this map is that the areas that are the focus of the mapping are also areas of historical interest. Union Street has always been a major road in the area, and used to be the centre of nightlife both for military and civilian locals, as well as an area that has a history of problems with drugs and violence.  The area around the Royal Williams Yard has gone through a number of different transformations. This includes the major Navy usage in previous years including during the World Wars, and the regeneration in current years into apartment and business space.  Finally the Victoria Park area has an interesting history as its topography has been changed over time due to human intervention.  It was originally a lake like area linked to Stonehouse Creek which ran between the Stonehouse and Devonport regions.  When the lake, known as Deadlake, became stagnant and a health risk in 1887 action was begun to fill in the area, and this was completed in 1898. (http://www.plymouthdata.info/Parks,%20Victoria.htm). This is particularly interesting as a changing topographical history in such a small period of time is quite a unique aspect.
Overall therefore this map allows for some interesting discoveries about the Stonehouse region that looks beyond the normal interpretations to the more hidden aspects of the environment.

Stonehouse - My Mapping

After considering all the different possibilites of what to map in Stonehouse and how to map it I chose to map both the viewpoints, and the organic areas within Stonehouse.  In terms of viewpoints my map focuses on my interpretation of the areas that have a view that continues for a distance, rather than being interupted by buildings or the topography.  The organic areas refers to any area with some organic matter such as trees, grass, a field etc.  The map that I have created uses two different drawing methods each with their own brush.  The viewpoints are represented by diagonal lines in a fan shape and the organic areas are respresented by wavy lines. My map is also in green as me and my group agreed that we should all use a different colour to enable a kind of separation between th drawings.  My map is as below:

Tomorrow this map will be taken along with the maps made by the rest of the people in my group around Stonehouse and annotated on there also.  The map we will take will have all of the mapping done my the group on it so that there is a mix of all different peoples interpretations of the area.  This map will also be posted onto this blog once I have all the different maps together from each of my group.

Stonehouse - Map Possibilities

Now that I have investigated a range of different ways in which other people have mapped areas I need to use this information and my own understanding of the project to both decide on one or more elements to map, and also the method by which I intend to map them.  Below is a list of all the different possibilities I can think of in terms of what can be mapped in the Stonehouse area:

• Population - can be separated into specific types e.g men, women, animals, plants etc
• Height - topography according to my own interpretation
• Light levels - daylight and shadow, artificial lighting
• Traffic - people traffic, popular routes, how busy areas are
• Hard/soft - material mapping of the area
• Organic/man-made - how much of the area is one or the other - relating to human impact on environment
• Sound levels - noisiness of a location
• Regeneration - level of rate of change in the area, has it been changed lots, or very little (temporal - over time), is it changing now?
• Economy - level of wealth throughout the area based on the people who live there
• Historical - importance of areas in terms of their historical context
• Litter - levels of cleanliness in the area
• Wind - wind flow strength throughout the area
• Heat levels - are there areas that are cooler or hotter?
• Hertzian space elements - levels of technology used in the area e.g. Bluetooth (will focus on later on in the year so currently not that viable)
• Commercialisation - Amount the area is used by businesses
• Surface quality - linked to regeneration and area usage, how used and worn are the surfaces?
• Age - linked to regeneration and history, how old does an area look in comparison to its surroundings?
• Views - what are the good viewpoints in the area?  places that have a distant horizon, and places where the horizon is intercepted by other objects, houses etc.
• Built up areas - areas of space that are overcrowded and full in comparison to areas that are left open.
• Communication and power - Main routes for overhead power and phone lines
• Use of energy - areas and routes where energy is used most e.g. houses, cars, businesses

There are also many different brush types available to me that I can use to create my map.  These are shown in the images above in line form, and in the shape of a circle (to view a larger version simply click on the image you wish to view). These images may also be useful in inspiring me as to how I intend to map any given element in terms of shape and line properties. This is because I may wish to use more than one type of vector shape in my mapping and so I use the different brush possibilities to explore that. I now need to use this information to decide upon what my map is going to be.

Stonehouse - Ideas on mapping

Today was the first workshop session on this Transforming Stonehouse module.  The first task for this project is to create individual maps of certain elements of the area, without visiting it, so that we can compare our own presumptions with what actually exists.  In order to create some mapping for the area I intend to investigate different drawings that have been done by others to create similar effects.  Below are some of the things that I have found:

This is an image of different peoples perception of where downtown is in Santa Barbara.  This is an interesting map of the area and applies to this project as it strays away from the factual boundaries of the area, and instead focuses on personal opinion.  To see a larger version of any of the images in this post just click on the picture.

(http://www.girardin.org/fabien/presentations/girardin_momo_bcn_lbs.pdf)

Another way of mapping a city is through looking at populated areas.  A Blackberry and iPhone application, CitySense does just that.  This uses GPS data to show the busiest places in a particular area and represents this using heat spot imagery, demonstrating the existence of a large number of people as shown in the image on the right. (http://www.technologyreview.com/communications/22286/?a=f) This allows users to find out the most popular places to go in their area.  Although this software continues to use an average road map of an area, it is also mapping population on top of this, a mapping system that could be used in this project.

The usage of space in Stonehouse is important in undertanding all the factors that make up the character of Stonehouse today.  The way in which spaces are used can explain whether the area is rich, poor, greenbelt, brownfield, or redevelopment sites.  Mapping this could therefore be beneficial in understanding the Stonehouse area and choosing a specific area to focus on.  By mapping these things the tradtional road map imagery is taken away and the focus falls on more dynamic elements.  This is demonstrated in the image on the left (http://nexthotmarket.com/library/mapping.jpg). In this map of a location the focus is on the usage of the area, and the roads, although included are less obvious to the reader.  This therefore creates a completely different perspective of the area.

There are many other ways of mapping a city and many other elements that can be mapped.  http://www.intelligentagent.com/archive/Vol6_No2_interactive_city_sant.htm shows a number of different and interesting ways of mapping the environment, which both follow conventional and non-conventiona lines, the main aim being to step away from the necessity of using a traditional grid/road map, and discover other more specific and dynamic ways of mapping the area.

IDAT 204 - The Proposal

Org-ant

Org-ant is a digital organism project that focuses on the relationship between humans and ants, and also highlights the existence of social organisms over that of physical organisms. The term organism is often considered as refering to physical beings, such as germs and animals, where a living system made out of cells works as an independant being.  However organisms can also be viewed in a social sense, such as that of the government, in which a group take on individual roles whilst working together, alike to cells, to keep an organisation running.  Ants alike to humans work as a team to reach particular goals, and so in doing so, act much like a social organism, whilst being organisms themselves.  Ants are therefore a good design on which to base a digital social organism.

The design of the Org-ant project environment will be influenced both by the habitat of ants and the habitat of humans.  Ant farms demonstrate the tunnelling system used by ants, as shown above.  These are an ants travel routes, alike to that of our roads, and so the design of the project will be a cross between and ant farm, and a road system. This is demonstrated on the left.  The background colour is blue, as an influence from the ant farms, and because this will be a functional colour in terms of multi-platform use such as mobiles.

In terms of the ants themselves, in order to keep the ant-human relationship strong, the ants will be drawn in 1D as dots.  This allows the user to have their own interpretation of the species of the Org-ant, rather than a pre-designed image. To give an impression of what this will be like below is a prototype animation:

In terms of interactivity there are four concepts that we intend to encorporate. These are listed below:

1. Food - The user will be able to put an apple within the highways, which the ants will eat their way through when they come across it.  This resembles the need for food that all organisms share including humans and ants.
2. Money - In order to reinforce the human-ant relationship the user will be able to place money onto the highways which will cause the ants to swarm towards it.  This is because human society relies on money and stores it, in the same way ants store the food they find.
3. Walls - The user will be able to place walls onto the highways to re-direct the ants.  This will demonstrate the intelligent behaviour of the ants and ant activity.
4. Microphone - The user will be able to place an image of a microphone into the environment which, when in contact with the microphone, will cause the ant to say something to the user.  This will heighten interactivity as the program will be interacting with the user, as well as the user interacting with the program.  This demonstrates the need for communication in human society, and the two way interaction emphasises the link between humans and ants.

The interface for this organism will be the main screen area as shown above plus a bar at the bottom of the program which contains the four elements listed.  The user will be able to click and drag each item from the bar to the highways, enabling them to place the objects anywhere within the highways.  The user will only be able to put one of each item into the environment at one time to ensure good functionality.  Once any of the items has been used it will disappear and the user can put another of that item into the environment. This is demonstrated in the video below:



The images used for the interactive elements of the interface are going to be 3D.  This is so that there is a feeling of putting something real into something digital, almost as if it is being passed through the screen into the environment.
The product itself will be programmed in Flash using Actionscript 3 and the images will be created using 3D Studio Max for the 3D images and Illustrator for the 2D images.
This concludes the Org-ant Proposal.  The next stage is to begin production of the digital organism for presentation on the 3rd Nov.

IDAT211 - Channel 4, an example

#bdat Whilst considering the concept of perception and cognition and the way in which our perception can be utilised, I began to try and think of examples that demonstrated these concepts other than those shown to us in the lecture.  It occured to me that the Channel 4 idents are very much relevant to this as they are designed to utilise our perception in order to give the channel an identity.  An example of the idents is shown below:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGsKP7lJUdQ

This is similar to the Charlie Chaplin mask optical illusion shown here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QbKw0_v2clo

At a very specific point in time the 4 is seen in the image and then instantly disappears because of the angle that viewer sees the image from.  This demonstrates the discovery and loss of meaning in the image.  This and the other channel 4 adverts have been built specifically to have this effect in which the ident is not understood until a certain point and then the meaning is lost again.  By doing this the ident keeps the viewers attention and ensures other information such as that of the voiceover is also recieved.

IDAT 211 - Cognition and Perception

The first project that we have to do as part of our IDAT211 module is all to do with cognition and perception.  The brief is to create a 60 second video that deals in some way with this topic.  The video will be screened in the Immersive Theatre in Plymouth University, a dome like building that uses a fish eye lens to create an immersive experience for its viewers.  This section of my IDAT blog will act as my workbook for this module encorporating different designs, ideas and theory that will be part of creating the final film.
Perception and cognition are very important to us as human beings as it allows us to understand the world around us.  However not all parts of this are perfect and this allows for our perception in a number of cases to be tricked into seeing something beyond what is really there.  These optical illusions come in a range of different forms and play a major part in a project such as this, in which perception is explored.  This ability to see beyond images and objects and define meaning fom them can be utilised to our own advantage, and this is where most optical illusions originate; they are created to utilise this ability.  Being able to utilise it in this way will also be vital in creating an effective video for this module.

IDAT 204 - Concept Ideas

After deciding on a general idea of the Org-ant for our project, yesterday Sara and I got together to try to get some more detailed ideas of what our project aimed to do.  We knew that we wanted to design a product that would show a group of ants working as an organism rather than just a single creature.  In researching this concept I found a number of examples that have previously been made relating to this concept of a virtual ant farm.  Two examples are listed below:

http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-9913568-1.html

http://www.geocities.com/chamonate/hormigas/antfarm/ (zip file needs to be downloaded)

I was not surprised at this result as the ant concept is used a lot in computing, such as in Langton's ant.  This therefore meant we needed to find a way of producing an ant farm that would be individual and have more depth than those previously designed. After researching into ants Sara found the video below:

This gave us an idea as we could use the product to cross over the lives of human and ants, therefore creating an ant-human interactive environment that had not been looked at before.  This meant we could encorporate elements of human lives into an ant built environment such as an ant farm.  The following was a page of ideas we drew up yesterday including GUI design and functionality:

(to see a larger version click on the image)

From these designs we decided on a few key points that we wanted to encorporate. The main elements that we have currently settled on are listed below:

• Underground ant environment
• Interactive element - placement of walls: this will prevent the ants from using a tunnel and so they will have to build/change to a different tunnel.  This is key to demonstrating the intelligent behaviour required as part of this project
• Interactive element - Placement of a microphone(image) into the environment: This will cause one of the ants to interact back to the user with an item of speech, demonstrating commuication.  This is an interesting element as the interactivity then works both ways
• Interactive element - food:  Placement of food such as an apple into the area will attract ants and the food will then be eaten, unblocking the path and demonstrating the need for food that all organisms share
• Interactive element - Placement of money: Money is very important to human society so money objects will be included and will cause the ants to swarm towards it.
• 3D objects in a 2D/1D environment -  the interactive elements will look 3D to make it seem like elements from reality are being placed into the virtual ant farm environment
• The ants will either be 1D dots or simplistic 2D elements that detract away from the specific imagery of ants, allowing the human-ant connection to be more easily recognised

 

These elements we hope to be able to encorporate into the final product.  We now need to refine our designs and settle on a final proposal, after which we will start building the product.

IDAT204 - A Digital Organism

For the first of three IDAT204 projects our task is to create a Digital Organism that is interactive and can be run on any platform.  The project is a pairs project and so I will be working with Sara Barber(http://sara4barber.wordpress.com/).  Firstly lets define the concept of organism:

1. "a form of life composed of mutually interdependent parts that maintain various vital processes."
2. "a form of life considered as an entity; an animal, plant, fungus, protistan, or moneran."
3. "any organized body or system conceived of as analogous to a living being: the governmental organism."
4. "any complex thing or system having properties and functions determined not only by the properties and relations of its individual parts, but by the character of the whole that they compose and by the relations of the parts to the whole."

(http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/organism)

My partner was away for the initial concept lesson and so I began the ideas process. With these concepts in mind I considered different types of organisms that we could make.  I listed a large number of different animals but also wanted to try and approach the more social aspect of an organism, such as that in definition 3.  I thought this would be a more individual approach to take and so tried to keep this in my thoughts as well. It occurred to me that ants act as both individual organisms in the physical sense, but also work together as a single body alike to that of the government as suggested in definition 3.  This choice of animal therefore covered all the concepts and so I settled for that.  I then had to invent a name for the organism that my partner and I would create and so chose the title Org-ant as this summed up the aim and the product together -  to create and organism, which in our case is ants. I next took this idea to my partner who agreed that it was a good concept and so the next step was to investigate both the conceptual and technological sides to the project.

Stonehouse - A history

The area currently known as Stonehouse in Plymouth began as East Stonehouse prior to the conjuction with Devonport and Plymouth in 1914 which became the Plymouth we know now.   The suburb began as a fishing village placed between the two larger towns of Devonport and Plymouth and due to the introduction of the Navy hospital and depots has grown in prosperity and popularity.  The most major historical event of the Stonehouse region was the destruction cause during the Plymouth blitz to the area.  Due to the major naval involvement in the area Plymouth and its surroundings were heavily targetted and much of the area was lost.  Since then the area has slowly been regenerating and now consists of both poorer and richer communities with the richer becoming the more dominant society. This is having a major effect on both the economy and general character of the area which was previously known to be an overly poor community.  The city council has been a major aid in regenerating the area and continues to put money into projects that will help it to improve.  The Parish Church restoration was recently completed in 2007 and many more plans have been created since then for the regeneration of the area.  The main aims documented for the council between 2006 and 2021 cover 7 different areas of the Stonehouse region, including developing areas such as the Royal Williams Yard, Union Street and the Docks.  This shows the amount of work there still is to do is very extensive.  For more information see the city council links below:

Action Plan: http://www.plymouth.gov.uk/millbay_aap_4web.pdf

Action Plan Map: http://www.plymouth.gov.uk/millbay_aap_map_277x410_4web.pdf

The topography of the Stonehouse area has also changed over time.  During the existence of the East Stonehouse region the area was separated from Devonport via a lake area known as Mill Lake or Stonehouse Lake.  Part of this area is now a grassy plain known as Victoria Park.  This is therefore a very different area to what it used to be when the lake still existed.   Below is an image when the lake existed. Click on the image to view a larger version. Compare this image with the one in the introduction below, where Victoria Park is shown.

(http://www.cyber-heritage.co.uk/maps/mayflower.htm)

This short overview shows that there are many different areas that can be studied around Stonehouse, not only physically but also socially and economically.  Changes over time are also very important to the area and these are continuing to occur which will be an important factor to consider during the project.

References:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stonehouse,_Plymouth

http://www.oldtowns.co.uk/Devon/stonehouse.htm

http://www.thisisplymouth.co.uk/news/Walking-history/article-771604-detail/article.html

http://www.plymouth.gov.uk/homepage/environmentandplanning/planning/planningpolicy/ldf/aaps/ldfmillbaystonehouseaap/millbayandstonehousesubmitted.htm