This project is set on a small allotment belonging to Tony set within his cousin's garden which has been in his family for 300 years. The intervention is sited as part of the entrance sequence across the lawn between the steps and the gate. The main context of an allotment is time - the seasons, the length of the day, the time spent working there and how this fits in with the other events of the day. The intention of the proposal is to articulate this context more explicitly.
The calendar consists of a mechanism attached to a simple pergola which scratches marks into the lawn. There are two sorts of mark. The first is an abstract representation of the year in terms of the length of daylight each day. The length of daylight is scored to scale into the grass each day. The mechanism is therefore always located at the present time on the present day within its representation of the year. The second sort of mark is made into the ground whenever some activity is recorded on the allotment (the movement of tools within the allotment would be recorded by fixing RF tags to them). The mark is made at the appropriate place in the calendar for the appropriate amount of time - and therefore of the appropriate length. The mark making would be proportional to the vigor of the activity on the allotment - digging it over creating a deeper mark than doing some watering. This records the activities on the allotment within the context of the seasons and the length of the day. Because the mark making of the calendar occurs simultaneously with the activity on the allotment the link would be clearly discernable.
Over several years the calendar would generate a palimpsest as older marks fade and new ones are made. Perhaps patterns would emerge, perhaps not; either way the recorded event is placed within the context not just of time, seasons and daylight but also of similar events.
drawings: http://picasaweb.google.com/bensweeting/AllotmentCallendar2007#
see also: 'Communication in Design, Communication in Architecture: A Project for an Allotment Calendar' in Communicating (by) Design, Proceedings of the colloquim 'Communicating (by) Design' at Sint-Lucas Brussels from 15th-17th April 2009. Chalmers University of Technology & School of Architecture Sint-Lucas, pp. 539-543, 2009.
