A new Polling Station

Belle Isle Branch library, Belle Isle Meanwood Community Cenre, Meanwood

Wetherby St James, C of E Primary School, Wetherby

Calton Primary School, Calton

Otley Civic Centre, Otley, Warfedale

Seacroft Library, Seacroft

Sisterhood Room, Methodist School Room, Lofthouse Portable building, land adjoining, Bancrost towers, Seacroft

Venerable Bede Parish Church, Bramley Dance Studio, Bramley Baths, Bramley

Harewood Village Hall, Harewood Old Halfway House Pub, Robin Hood, Wakefield

Exisitng polling stations in Leeds

Can the architecture of voting be re-thought to make this vital democratic act an engaging social and spatial ritual?

My last vote

examples from accross the world

What a mobile polling station could be

Papua New Guinee

Norway

Jerusalem

Description of my last vote

Arthington village hall stands as an anonymous single story structure, replete with pitched roof and white rendered walls. Its entrance faces onto the car-park, its windows too high for the passer by to look into from the busy Poole to Harewood stretch of the A659. The hall is one of 367 polling stations in the Leeds constituency, and part of a division of 33 wards for the General Election. The signage exclaims ‘POLLING BOOTH’ and ‘WAY IN’, the lettering is clean, alert and upright, optimistic but in no nonsense instructive manner, the spaces between letters make each one stand out creating a clear instruction to act. The car-park is empty, I am on foot and make my way inside, I am greeted by the presiding officer and her assistant sitting at a collapsible table, I register, then take the ballot paper and enter one of the wooden booths. After crossing a box from a list of unknown candidates, for parties I am familiar with, I fold and post the ballot paper into a plastic ballot box. I ask the women if it has been busy today, they remark on the weather. I notice the curtains and leave.

12.5 Ecterior Grade Plywood Shire Timber yard, Cross Green industiral estate, Leeds

Southampton Docks

Port of Tanjung Pelepas, Malaysia

Plywood Factory, Sibu, Malaysia

Malaysian Tropical Forrest

Tracing the global journey of the plywood

Making every voting booth (the stage for the democratic act) involves a supply chain of global capitalism

Machining the logs into ply

Making the plywood Voting Booth in the workshop

Trade and Democracy

Birmingham grew during the early industiral revolution as a centre for making and inovation - The Jewellery quarter and the Soho area of the city were central to the growth of UK manufacturing at the end of the 18th century , utilising a new and exstensive canal network, and the local specialisim in steam power and engineering.

Major links between trade, workers rights, civic pride and democracy were developed in Birmingham during the Victorian period.

Notably Joseph Chamberlain - A Birmingham screw manufacturer became one of Britains most influential 19th century politicians.

Birmingham, the city of 1000 trades correspondingly became a centre for workers rights, civic pride and democracyA Local link between trade and democracy

Gold Gold Bar Jewellery smiths workstation in the Jewellery Quarter Musuem

Boulton and Watt Soho Manufactury, Birmingham 1800, a worldleader in steam engine technological and engineering development.

Mathew Boulton, Candle Vase Mathew Boulton, Candle Vase, dimantled into its many complexelements

Global distribution of products made at Boulton’s Birmingham steam powered mint. Chart showing where vistors to Boulton and Watt Manufactury came from at the end of the 18th Century

Joseph Chamberlain

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Arrive Birmingham New Street Station

Walking from Birmingham New Street station to the site, out of the city centre towards the Jewellery Quarter

Pedestrian bridge accross dual carriageway

Encounter with the site - Brindley House and the BT tower

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Existing movement through site

1. Access to the site from street level on Lionel Street over an exisitng building with a carpark on its roof.

2. Access from Newhall Road along the tow path

3. Potential access to the site from the side road running parralell with the canal

4. The canal towpath runs under Ludgate Hill

5. Access from Ludgate Hill

6. Boat access along the canal

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Illustration shows the site without Brindley House and the BT Tower

Birmingham

Canals and waterways

Site as central node in communications and transport network

Birmingham

Motorways and trunk roads

Birmingham

Rail network

Road link to M6 Motorway

Rail link nearby

BT tower links to satalite communicationshh

Pedestrian bridge to City centre

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William Hogarth, 1755 Chairing the member. Oil on canvas, Sir John Soane’s Museum, London

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Office for electoral events team

Courtyard 1

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1. The courtyard to the left of the building is utilised for events in the run up to elections, including parties canvassing for votes, speakers corners, and media interviews. There is space at the rear of the courtyard for media and events tents.

2. The canal is vital to the life of the building. It is accesable from the street and becomes an inhabited public space, for canvassing and events. Each pollitical party might have a boat moored on the canal.

Run up to the election, showing courtyard use and utilisation of the canal 1:200

Two tier registration

Initial registration takes place at the front of the building, the two tier registration system, (the final check takes place just before the voting booths) is akin to checking in for a flight. It allows voters to quickly ‘check in’ before 10pm, enabling them to wander around the building, or if busy que to vote until midnight. This new two tier system will avoid any people being stuck in a que to register at 10pm and therfor unable to vote, as happened at the 2010 general election.

Initial registration

1:20 detail of Registration

Key moment 5/7 following the path

Store for Electoral Sundries

Hundreds of objects are collected by the presiding officers the evening before an election.

Events office of Electoral Commission

1:200 Plans

Debatte chamber

Gangways for counitng ballots

First floor

Ground floor

Top down view

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polling booths

exit stairs

un-covered ramp up

lift access

lift access

ballot boxelectoral official

workshops

events office

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public toilet public toilet

areas reserved for Media and event tents

voting promenade route

canal

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to the jewellery quarter

Workers zone between buildings

fold out candidate information panels

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Showing deliveries of ballot boxes from polling stations accross the West Midlands after the Polling Stations have closed 1:200

main road networks

marked off pedestrian area

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workshop rooms become counting and sorting areastrolley takes ballot boxes to the liftand up to levels in main counting wall

vans and cars arrive with

ballot boxes

unloading

work zone - no pedestrian access

electoralofficialsdirect traffic and pedestrians

registrationof deliveries

1. Registration desks

2. Choice of short route, or longer procession

3. View and walk past the counting wall showing every Birmingham polling station, and the 59 electoral candidate

4. Bridge under Brindley house, utilising existing canal concrete structures

1

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Showing key eleciton day moments 1:200

9

5. View up the steps (and option to take lift)

6. Conversation moment, looking over the city

7. Fold out information boards with info about canditates

8. Crossing between the two buildings

9. Final document check by electoral official

10. Enclosed, quiet, and non distracting place in which voting takes place.

11. Placing the ballot in the vessel top, back out in the open.

12. Descending through building two to the entrance courtyard

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