Portfolio Part 2 Project 2001 Amanda WardleAndrew Roberts University for the Creative Arts | UK An instinctive interpretation and re-interpretation of the mood of the site and its contextual conditions is prevalent throughout my portfolio of work; a sensitivity towards the nature of each place is an invitation to become a part, for a time, of its beauty and sometimes hidden gritty reality. The stillness of Hampstead Heath's Pond No. 1 informs the serenity of the architecture of the Museum of Contemporary Glass Art proposed for the site. It is a setting for pause and reflection, escape and poetic reverie, at the threshold between the city and nature. The architecture is still, but its ethereal quality is borne out of its transparent and translucent materials. The building is not only animated by the changing light of day and night and the seasons, but by its inhabitants and, more succinctly, by the glass art and sculpture itself. These jewels are tantalisingly obscured, yet revealed, to a wider audience, in the same manner that Hampsted Heath is obscured and then unveiled along the approach from Hampstead Heath station. The building is a canvas upon which the life around it and within it is projected. My proposal for Margate's Turner Centre results from an investigation into the dramatic nature of the sea, the quick thrill of Dreamland's rollercoaster, and the motorbike culture that is attracted to seafront arcades. The Turner Centre's architecture is active, and activates its user, induces movement and demands experience to encourage its understanding. The building and the site are concerned with seeing, moving and feeling the site in unconventional ways. Its experience is a corporeal and physical reality, its ambition: to activate its urban surroundings. As a learner motorcyclist, I set out to expose myself to the site and to the Kent coastline in the spirit with which J.M.W. Turner alleged to have been tied to the mast of a ship in a storm to experience the scene in his painting 'Snow Storm - Steam Boat off a Harbour's Mouth ....'. Amanda's work shows an immense range and depth of study. She has made films, experimented with glass etching techniques, explored the concept of speed in paintings; all in addition to her architectural project work which is thoughtful and intellectually robust. Each endeavour is supported by a wealth of research: background investigations, analysis and creative thinking. Amanda's portfolio exemplifies the benefits that architecture students can gain from the art and design environment within which the School of Architecture is situated.