Ariel Chesley

This sketchbook follows the design process for the Umbrella Building, a historic reuse project in Belfast City Centre. Starting from urban-scale ideas to connect pop-up businesses through a network on the currently under-utilised high street, the sketches illustrate ideas of massing, materiality and structure in order to envision reuse at multiple scales: from the scale of the building facade to the scale of shipping containers. Exploring interfaces between public and private, permanent and temporary, natural and industrial, the Umbrella Building becomes a space that both serves the public through its vibrant, nature-centred ground floor courtyard as well as the locals through a pop-up creative community.