![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
My day at Cliffe
Spent the hottest day in the year so far travelling in the east of England, taking photos of the site (mostly marshlands) for the group project. I really don't know what the hell we can propose to build on that site... nobody is going to care about the following, but here we go anyway:
The location. South of river Thames: build along the river for a view, but you'll be facing north (ie dark!), and the river's pretty foggy there. Even if you can look across, all you'll see are ugly buildings or factories.
Have some tiny towns and villages around, most of which have 1 pub and 1 church as their main gathering places. Needless to say they won't be happy with us building anything there at all. Who can we attract to buy houses/offices/land if the surrounding neighbourhood is poor?
The waters. Huge lakes from old quarries in the west, and next to them there's a concrete+aggregate factory... which we didn't know is there. Have no idea about the water quality. Factory is in operation, looks kinda new.
Then there are the birds. It's a National Nature Reserve and Special Site of Scientific Interest since the birds love going there and people go bird watching...
And don't forget the transport. There one dual carriageway, and then just a big bunch of country lanes and dirt tracks. The nearest train station is 8km away. There's 1 railtrack being used for goods frieght. Gotta propose our own transport network if we develop there. Must attract people from the nearest towns in Gravesend and Rochester, and maybe Southend-on-Sea which is the other side of the river. Must encourage use of public transport.
The ground conditions... build on marshes in the west = expensive ground treatment, or build on clay-on-chalk towards the east, which are slightly higher ground with slopes. And clay slopes = landslips, which must be taken care of. Land has been flooded in 1950s, now have flood defenses, which I'm not sure will be sufficient after we build something nearby.
The size: we've got up to 26 square km to play around with. That's over twice the size of Heathrow. To put it into context, the other team is designing a sustainable village with 1000 homes, and their site is just 2 square km large. Although I don't have to use all 26 square km, it's very hard to decide on the site boundaries when there are none...
Final thoughts: avoid the bloody birds, avoid the factory (so can't use lakes). Do medium or low-density housing with golf-course, commercial and retail nearby. Propose transport network... need railway station and possibly a ferry service. Check ground conditions and the bloody flood defenses. Must attempt to hype up the area. If building on marshlands, do loads of dredging and use the material (if uncontaminated) to do landscaping. If contaminated, find a way to treat it or dump it, which will cost massive amounts of money.
Consider what to build there and the building methods. Calculate suitable foundations. Estimate the cost and time of everything.
Conclusion: I'm not even a civil engineer yet. And I'm no bloody architect, or town planner, or quantity surveyor. Why the hell am I doing this project???
The location. South of river Thames: build along the river for a view, but you'll be facing north (ie dark!), and the river's pretty foggy there. Even if you can look across, all you'll see are ugly buildings or factories.
Have some tiny towns and villages around, most of which have 1 pub and 1 church as their main gathering places. Needless to say they won't be happy with us building anything there at all. Who can we attract to buy houses/offices/land if the surrounding neighbourhood is poor?
The waters. Huge lakes from old quarries in the west, and next to them there's a concrete+aggregate factory... which we didn't know is there. Have no idea about the water quality. Factory is in operation, looks kinda new.
Then there are the birds. It's a National Nature Reserve and Special Site of Scientific Interest since the birds love going there and people go bird watching...
And don't forget the transport. There one dual carriageway, and then just a big bunch of country lanes and dirt tracks. The nearest train station is 8km away. There's 1 railtrack being used for goods frieght. Gotta propose our own transport network if we develop there. Must attract people from the nearest towns in Gravesend and Rochester, and maybe Southend-on-Sea which is the other side of the river. Must encourage use of public transport.
The ground conditions... build on marshes in the west = expensive ground treatment, or build on clay-on-chalk towards the east, which are slightly higher ground with slopes. And clay slopes = landslips, which must be taken care of. Land has been flooded in 1950s, now have flood defenses, which I'm not sure will be sufficient after we build something nearby.
The size: we've got up to 26 square km to play around with. That's over twice the size of Heathrow. To put it into context, the other team is designing a sustainable village with 1000 homes, and their site is just 2 square km large. Although I don't have to use all 26 square km, it's very hard to decide on the site boundaries when there are none...
Final thoughts: avoid the bloody birds, avoid the factory (so can't use lakes). Do medium or low-density housing with golf-course, commercial and retail nearby. Propose transport network... need railway station and possibly a ferry service. Check ground conditions and the bloody flood defenses. Must attempt to hype up the area. If building on marshlands, do loads of dredging and use the material (if uncontaminated) to do landscaping. If contaminated, find a way to treat it or dump it, which will cost massive amounts of money.
Consider what to build there and the building methods. Calculate suitable foundations. Estimate the cost and time of everything.
Conclusion: I'm not even a civil engineer yet. And I'm no bloody architect, or town planner, or quantity surveyor. Why the hell am I doing this project???