A brief introduction to our next 4 week project. I will be posting more about it soon.

Location: Soho, London
Program: To be determined

The site is really interesting. Just read some of the history

History
Ӣ Soho was grazing farmland until 1536
Ӣ The name Soho first appears in the 17th century
Ӣ Bricklayer Richard Frith in 1677 began its development.
Ӣ In 1698 William III granted the Crown freehold of most of this area to William, Earl of Portland.
Ӣ Earls of Leicester and Portland to develop the land on the grand scale of neighboring Bloomsbury, Marylebone and Mayfair, immigrants, such as French Huguenots, settled in the area, and it never became a fashionable area for the rich.
Ӣ Soho's charm and character that it has been neglected and undeveloped and allowed to run a little wild and rough and cosmopolitan.
Ӣ mid 1800s all respectable families had moved away and prostitutes, music halls and small theatres had moved in.
Ӣ early part of the 1900s there was a healthy mix of foreign nationals opening cheap eating houses and it became a fashionable place to eat for intellectuals, writers and artists.
Ӣ 1930s -1960s, the pubs of Soho were packed every night with drunken writers, poets and artists, many of whom never sobered up enough to become successful; and it was also during this period that the great Soho pub landlords established themselves.

Current
Ӣ many record shops in the area
Ӣ home of London's main gay village
Ӣ Heart of Britain's sex industry for at least 50 years.

Future
Ӣ Valentines Day 2006, a new campaign was launched to drive business back into the heart of Soho London. The campaign, called I Love Soho
Ӣ part of a program to further encourage the development of the area as a centre for media and technology industries
Ӣ centre of the independent film and video industry as well as the television and film post-production industry
Ӣ Soho is such a varied and cosmopolitan area that in much of it the sex industry is not at all evident; the idea that it is wholly a red light district is now very out of date

Here are the preliminary studies of the site.
First, What does the area need? The program is up to us, so an indepth analysis of the surrounding context is in order.

Next, What are the imediate conditions affecting the site?


My partner and I have started to diagram the evolution of the site ito explore the thick history of the site. Now the site is only used as a small carpark for Guys and Dolls with most of the site left just a shell of an old building that once existed. This prime location in Soho has been under the maginfying glass of officials for redevelopment for quite some time. Many architects have bid on a project here. So we are given the same problem. What to do with the site?



And the most interesting thing about the site - Soho Parish School wedged between strip-clubs. As you can see in the picture...the children at school with a woman trying to lure visitors into a club.







Next: Further Exploration of the history of the site from 1560 - present.