theCASTLE: Week 2

Week 2 started with discussion as well as reintroduction to what might be the process and outcomes of the Castle project this semester. The Castle is an unknown quantity, and we established that visits to the clients and some expanded conversation on what the brief entails, would be necessary for us to move forward.

Our first visit in the morning was to Student Works, a high school alternative which students can attend if they are not getting the most out of a conventional school experience. The students undertake every second week at the initiative, which teaches trade skills and helps them get ready for trade industry, administration and hospitality jobs when they leave. We had a tour around the workshop by one of the students Ange, who was happy to explain the jobs that occurred at all the different stations and how they liked or disliked certain jobs or activities. Furniture making and general joinery seemed very prevalent, but there were also metal working, packaging, glass blowing and a soon to be finished CAD room.

After our tour we discussed with the mentors of the students what their situation usually is. The students usually travel long distances to get to the centre, they often leave family and friends for the week and have difficulty finding appropriate accommodation, as bunking with friends is disruptive and unsettled and finding inexpensive units or rooms is hard to come by in Launceston. It was suggested, that what the students need is small homes away from home, that can be stationed in their place of training or work and that can be changed and adapted to their changing needs.

This visit to Student Works gave us a detailed insight into the reasons for The Castle and what kind of mindset we would have to get into to understand the users situations and need.

The next visit we went on was to Youth Futures, an emergency accommodation residence, where youth in trouble can go and ask for accommodation and job help. The NGO type residence has a team of amazingly committed staff who put in a great deal of effort and long hours of thankless work for Launceston. The Youth Futures building has six to seven rooms that can have guests in from a single night up to about six weeks, and from many different situations. Lisa who showed us round the building was a wonderfully funny and inspiring character who had quite an infectious zeal for her work. Lisa is particularly interested in what The Castle can do for kids with trouble at home in the period just before they get kicked out of home or have to leave for various reasons. A situation might be that other kids and visitors are crowding the home and all that is needed to stop a kid going onto the street is a room in the backyard and a bit of headspace.

Youth Futures is actually next to the School of Architecture and with such close proximity, an idea was proposed that some media would go from Architecture to Youth Futures to forge some ties between the two entities. This was proposed as one of the short term goals of the Habitation group, that are looking at such far ranging things as community contribution to The Castle project, spatial flexibility of small spaces and the physical and psychological impacts of living in small spaces. Neph, Mitch and I undertook the media exchange as a poster and comic combined project where Mitch made an A3 poster along the lines of ‘Need a bit more head space?’ and ‘Do you need your own space?’ and Neph and I proposed a comic where a young person was outside of their home, thinking through their options and they go and talk to a friend about it and they come up with ideas for an alternative house. Both the comic and the poster were presented, rather informally, to Lisa at Youth Futures later in the week and she then used them for promotion of The Castle within her wider circles.