Tag Archives: Spring

Week 17 – 12/03/18

WEEK 17, 12/03/18

This week was intended for a workshop on writing essays effectively; it hoped to cover the structure, the style, and how to use sources correctly. As I was unable to attend, I caught up using the essay writing tools signposted on the Roehampton Campus Project Moodle page.

For the first time, I properly started to refine my essay plan into something I felt would be useful in researching my topic. With the help of a friend’s peer-review, I was able to identify and appreciate what needed changing, like irrelvant and confused points such as historical legacy. Instead I have focused it on its archetectural functional role and arechetectual social role. Afterwards, I began writing my first draft, trying to structure the paragraphs comparatively within a coherant style. Given my new focus on the archetectural role of Grove House and its nearby surroundings, after focusing it from last week’s feedback, I have been able to keep this draft consistent, consise, and on topic. Adjusting to the Chicago referncing was tricky at first, but with the aid of the Moodle Chicago handbook, I was able to correctly insert footnotes and a bibiliogrpahy in the correctly formatted style.

Week 16 – 05/03/18

WEEK 16, 05/03/18

This week’s session was a short presentation of our incomplete projects, with peer discussion and criticism of the presented work.

As I have found finding particular scholarship on my question hard, I have exchanged this search for more general scholarship that is still applicable and relevant to the discussion. With this in mind, in prepration for the presentation I finalized my bilbliogrpahy with additions of library books on the housing development and gentry of Modern London, such as Weightman’s ‘The Making of Modern London’. To highlight the status of residents, I am using BBC film archives and musuem artefacts.

This presentation also was my first time showcasing my essay struture, which enabled a great opportunity to help improve showcasing more relevant information. It also helped to remould my question, especially after a tip was offered to narrow down my question with a clear approach. After this critique of my presentation, I decided to change my question to one concerning an archelogical approach, which also concerns the status of the residents in and surrounding Parkstead House: ‘To what extent has the architecture of Roehampton’s Parkstead House and its surrounding area changed under the influence of Georgian London compared to modern London?’

Week 15 – 19/02/18

WEEK 15, 19/02/18

This week was intended for tutorials to discuss progression of our work and give necessary feedback. However, as I was unable to make it, I did not do as was intended.

Instead, I finally decided against using Grove House within my research question, as the was more than enough discussion without it. This settled with my research question becoming: ‘To what extent has the role of Roehampton’s Parkstead House changed from being under the influence of Georgian London compared to modern London?’ From this, I was able to explore elements of social status and archetectural function in more depth. This resolved the issues of focused and limited discussion within the essay, allowing less less general of Georgian and Modern London and its estates. As a result, I exchanged the project idea of the Grove House exterior and interior handbook to one of a Parkstead one. With confidence I would stick to Parkstead House, I began compling image resources for the project from the Sir John Soane Musuem and British Musuem, as well as modern images of the site. I gathered more written resources of Georgian Estates architecture to use as factual references within the project, and began steching out the layout.

Week 14 – 29/01/18

WEEK 14, 29/01/18

This weekly session was comprised of a discussion of effective essay planning and source work. We had to bring our essay plans along at whatever stage of development, but unfortunately, I was sick. Instead, I comprised essay plan in the library sectioned into three parts: functionality, social factors, and historical relevance of the two buildings within their Georgian and Modern contexts. Using Moodle essay resources to help shape my essay, especially given being new to Chicago referencing.

Using the library, got out some books on Georgian London. However, I was only able to find two wholly relevant books, inlcuding by the authour Jane Gleeson, within the library for Georgian London life. None that particularly paid attention to Parkstead House or Grove House. It seemed worrying how reliant on online resources for information.

From doing this essay plan, I knew I either needed to cut out either Grove House or Parkstead House – or remove one section of the essay entirely. I left the decision undecided for the week, however leant more towards getting rid of Grove House, which proved more useless every week compared to the highly sourced and supported Parkstead House. However, my research question remained unaltered.

Week 13 – 22/01/18

WEEK 13, 22/01/18

For this session, we presented a short presentation on a vague outline of our question and project, and their necessary sources. I collected an accumulation of resources into a word document a rough bibliography for my chosen research topic, and presented it to our class for feedback and suggestions. Resources include the Heritage England catalogue of Grove House and Parkstead House. Such art sources include British Museum satirical cartoons, and artefacts alongside blueprints at the Sir John Soane Museum. While finding online resources was easy, finding scholarship online or within the library on this select topic was impossible seemingly.

I have not done much on my project or essay other than an initial amalgamation of sources, using the useful weblinks within the Moodle page. Such sources enlightened me on my mistakes and obstacles. Firstly, by accidentally mistaking Grove House for Parkstead House, I had misrepresented what I wanted to study. Secondly, using one house held too little source information. As a result, I got my facts correct and changed my essay question to: ‘To what extent has the role of Roehampton’s Grove House and Parkstead House changed from being under the influence of Georgian London compared to modern London?’

Week 12 – 15/01/18

This week, our introductory session to spring term was a short class discussion of our finalised essay questions and projects.

I have not done much on my project or essay other than an initial idea; I had not looked at or searched for any sources yet as I found it difficult finding available sources in the library that were relevant. My planning has been minimum, limited to a vague essay title and few bibliography picks, as I try to find accessible and cheap sources for my research question. I struggled a little with the lack of suggested articles or books offered within the source list, yet the week’s listed introductory reading provided a nice starting point to my research.

My research question, ‘How impactful was Roehampton’s Grove House within Georgian London compared to modern London?’, was criticised for its vagueness and limitedness. Because of this, I changed the question: ‘To what extent has the role of Roehampton’s Grove House changed under the influence of Georgian London compared to modern London?’ Within my creative project, I have only so far conceived of the idea of a small architectural handbook of Grove House, with interior and exterior.