Final Blog Post

The final drawings were plans, sections, elevations and perspectives.

In each of these I attempted to show specific things, but most importantly, I tried to show the building's relationship and communication with people, landscape, buildings, forms, etc.



In my plans I attempted to show its proximity with its surroundings and how it was that the crescent shape was informed. The crescent was a result of factoring in the grand stand, and allowing people to communicate between it and the grand stand. By showing its proximity to the forest and playground, I also attempted to justify its orientation and positioning on site. The plans were also an expression of the relationships that i found between rooms and what they were capable of doing by each other. This was a key factor in my design because the program of the building was a key point to be addressed in the brief.



The elevations were important in showing how it was that people could communicate in the building. Taking ideas from lectures, I heavily populated people the people's standing heights, viewpoints, activities and relationship with the surrounding trees. Also I attemped to show the relationship that was created by the building, by placing the cafe next to the open forest.



By using a different axis of view in my section perspectives, I tried to indicate the relationship between the building and the oval by its form. The wave-like form is a physical representation of the term "overlook." and would affect the experience of people walking through the building. I also attempted to show how the building form was related to the site. The concave shape of the roof and its split level walking area with the concave staircase, mirrors the descending slope of the site and expresses a relationship between the building shape and the site.



My interior perspectives shows explicitly the relationship and communication experienced by people within the building. I also attempted to explore the relationship that was drawn from the huge atrium which was a key design decision to encourage cross floor relationships and a sense of openess.




For this submission I made 2 models. 1 was a 1:100 model and the other was a 1:200 model. The 1:200 was to be fitted on the group site (WHICH FOR MY PRESENTATION WAS NOWHERE TO BE FOUND!) The 1:100 was a tool to show the interior program and its importance in the exploration of my project. The 1:200 model served 2 purposes. It was a mass model to show the atrium in a volumetric sense, and also showed how the building in context of the grand stand.
I also presented older models which were replaced by new models because (with ainslie’s help) they could be made neater and cleaner. The image of my 1:200 is with it fitted on the site model which I found later. I hope any viewers of this will then understand with greater clarity its position in the coogee area.

Project 3 - First Esquisse

This will be my FIRST esquisse of the final project.

Because my final project will be entirely handdrawn i opted to use sketchup to show my intended angles and perspectives. Once these were established, i used these in a series of images to show my layout.


















Sheet one will consist of 2 elevations. With these images i intend to show my building in its context with the surround buidlings, trees, playgound... etc.


















Sheet two consist of site plans, then building floor plans. I realise that this layout was a bit squashed but I felt that this would be an effective way to show the correspondence of plans.
AFTERTHOUGHTS: Like I suspected, these images were too cramped and I had forgotten a key architectural concept, the existance of architecture in its context. With particular the ground floor, I should have placed it in context with pathways, trees, seating areas.. etc.
This will however take away from my concept of continuity in plans. Will have to work on this.


















Sheet three consists of sections. Like sheet two, this is squashed, but the relationship between the cross sections and longitudinal section are established this way. (The cross section relates to the section of the longitudinal section below)
AFTERTHOUGHTS: Will put sections in context, and show how this relates particularly to the height of the surrounding buildings. I believe this will go well to show how the design was intended to show the building's low stature which allows other buildings, ie : rugby club, to see over it.

Blog Revamp

Just a note to any viewers;
I've just revamped my blog :)

EXC2

Exercise 2 to me was a chance to improve on the failures of exc1. Following suggestions from classmates, I changed my style of presentation in terms of format and structure of drawings.
Likewise, following suggestions from Ainslie, instead of colour, I experimented with grayscale drawings which would be able to show materiality as well as depth.
The outcome was an overall success. As seen clearly here, although the exc1 drawings were "bright" and "pretty", they were not as effective as showing key features of what I wanted to show.


1:200 sections
While drawing the sections, I felt that the actual reading of the drawings were hard. The building itself has an angled portion which can create confusions when studying the drawing. To offset this, I did three plans; a floor plan, a second floor plan, and a ground floor plan. With these as aid, I felt the 1:200 drawings were read much easier and improved the general structure of that A1 sheet.


1:20 detail
The 1:20 drawing took over two days to complete. The building shape only took two or so hours, but the rest was spent on rendering. Note the rendering is not a standard style. Instead of showing materials with their "standard drafting representations", I opted to show them in terms of their material "heaviness". Thus, the concrete is rendered with tightly hashed lines, the steel is rendered with a full bodied grey and the glass is only slightly rendered at section cuts. By doing this, I felt the drawings were given not only a sense of their materiality, but a sense of its structural weight on its site.

The 1:20 also showed the reasoning behind the shape of the structure. I played around with the effects that shapes and lines could have on the thoughts and activities of humans. The side that "overlooks", is only the shape of the window facade, but it creates an illusion that makes people think they are overlooking the field. The other side has a soft curve that creates a less "imposing" atmosphere on passers-by, and also allows a conversation between the oppostie rugby club and itself.

With reflection, the drawings still lacked a few things that I will deal with in the following submission. Most particularly, the plans were not placed in enough context with the surroundings, and although I presented my thoughts of "why" the building was designed like this, the drawing did not fully show these ideas. Also, for the final submission, I will be sure to also include a longitudinal section as my building would benefit from such a drawing.

S2 Design Studio Excercise 1

First off, I must confess exc1 was extremely hard for me to complete as I was still rather unsure of how to relate certain aspects of the site to the building design which I was to put forward. While I understood (and tried to show) how certain aspects of my site analysis were to affect my building design, i was unsure with the depth of these and how thin we could draw the line.

Was the process supposed to involve me understanding random aspects of the land then drawing the design from that..? Was I to design a building, then try to drag various aspects of the land (however farfetched they be) to satisfy the 5 words..? Or was it instead, a mixture of both?





The format of the two sheets gave me an opportunity to create, what I felt, to be the most easy-to-read form of presentation. With colour coding I could show what each kind of building represented, then with analysis the effected buildings would show up easily in the effects the respective studies.

From the drawings, you will find a collection of analytical images that demonstrate my understanding of the site. While some aspects of this analysis, for example the distance to water, the height necessary for water views for surrounding structures, areas of congestion for both vehicles and pedestrians, and the flow of water through the site were helpful in helping me designing the building, but some words like materiality really stumped me and I found it exceeding difficult to find a plausible relationship between the materials of the land and my design.




The site model was an interesting aspect of this project that enabled me to appreciate the site a considerable amount more. The scale my group was assigned was 1:1000, and this meant that the extent of contours were very vast. Because the other groups in our class were concentrating alot on the placement of buildings, we concentrated on the terrain. Note that a feature of our site model are the "smooth contours", created by layers of blade carved foam, then wrapped with rice paper. This process I thought was particularly creative and as you see, turned out exceptionally well.

Assignment 3: Newtown Gallery

Assignment 3 involved designing an art gallery and an apartment space on Newtown.
The main design feature of this gallery was the significant gallery area of the lower gallery, upper gallery and the outdoor gallery. By having this, the amount of artwork for presentation would be a significant number, and the continuation of space would mean less disconnection for viewers of art.

The area under the gallery space would be dedicated to the rest of the project requirements are are shown by the plans.

Following are a few selected illustrations and images of the model.


Selected illustrations


Site plan


Section showing progression from lower gallery to upper gallery.


Upper level plan depicting expansive upper gallery and outer display area.


Lower level plan with lower gallery and apartment space. Regarding the personal space, the top rooms from left to right are storage space (with angled door for easy entry and located centrally for extra security, the wall between it and the lower gallery also opens to allow for easy gallery entry for artwork). On its right is the kitchen which has a window to the back. Below these are the office, workspace and then bedroom with en-suite bathroom, both of which have windows.


Perspective of the interior procession from Lower Gallery to Upper Gallery and how light would penetrate the building from either side and from above.


Horizontally sectioned perspective which shows the personal living quarters in relation to the staircase.


Images of model


Front of model showing size of gallery relative to the buildings on either side.


Back of model showing bathroom and entry point for truck access.


Model in its 2 sections.

Assignment 2: Room of Thought

Assignment 2 involved selecting a 17th Century Dutch artwork or a drawing from the famous Hopper. The image I chose for my project was Summer Interior by Hopper.

After choosing the image we were to design a room (or a series of rooms) in which occupants could satisfy a hobby which was to be derived from studying the painting. The chosen hobby was thought. To design a room of thought that would effectively accomodate and stimulate thought, I studied the process of thought and how the body could comfortably proceed with this.

As a result, multiple sitting areas were designed and in place of a thought stimulant, reflected water onto the ceiling became the central feature of the structure.

Below are images which were chosen for this folio for assignment 2.


Plan of building, showing thick masonry walls to provide coolness in a heated desert enviroment (symbolic of "Summer Interior") which is the site of this building.


Section and Elevation of building, showing once again thick and dense wall structure.


An axonometric drawn with a section cut. Note the section cut was chosen to show the range of sitting places in the buiding to aford for all kinds of sitting postures and locations. In the thick walls a wide sitting position was provided so thought could be in connection with the outside world. Around the shallow pool seating allows for thought provoked by water reflections on cielling, and in the middle of the pool a shaded square meditative block was designed to allow for.. meditation.


Sketchup Image showing people sitting in various locations.


Model in 2 sections.


Model showing a range of seating locations.


Roof of model, showing glass on roof and how light would penetrate the structure and be cooled by the pool of water below.

Assignment 1 Venturi's Mother House

Assignment 1 involved the study and observation of various villas. After this was done, various parti and poche drawings of the building were done in conjunction with a model to show an understanding and appreciation of the buildings complexities and points of interest.

By looking at researched plans, it appeared as if the villa was not complicated, but it was only during the construction of the model was the complexity fully appreciated.

Below are a few images collected as the final brief suggests; a few selected drawings and images of the model.


A Few Selected Drawings:


Program (Experimented with colour on trace and the effects exceeded expectations as they contrasted with the yellow quite well and when overlayed over outline of building, showed effectively different usage of space.)



Geometry (2 partis showing geometry of building. The Mother House obviously involved alot of geometrical influences and the images show just some of the geometrical shapes that I found after studying plans and elevations)


Plan of Ground and 2nd Floors of the building, lined up to be understood easier.


Section of building, chosen to depict the central position of the chimney and how the staircase is specifically built around it.


Images of Model


Front of Model


Model in 2 Sections. (Note: Model Section is not straight cut due to specific instructions given to our class. Also, a straight cut would mean the chimney and staircase in its entirety could not be shown as it has been.


Stair/Chimney Section


Other Section


Model from the back, showing once again the section cut.

Gentlemen's Club

Gentlemen's Club (In Progress)