Thursday, 12 January 2012

Supplementary Assessment - Exemplar analysis

PLANS

Riverlight - Richard Rogers

Silvercup West - Richard Rogers

 SECTIONS

Centre Pompidou - Richard Rogers
source - Richard Rogers - 'Architecture of the Future'

Jean Nouvel - The Guthrie Theatre
source - Jean Nouvel


After receiving the revised brief for this Supplementary Assessment I began first by perusing the internet in search of recognised projects of the listed Architects & firms.

My initial thoughts were that I would then narrow the search down to Architectural likeness based on the drawings & models that arose from the original search. I defined likeness in terms of the similarity between their work & mine, in regard to characteristics like materiality, function & presence.

After a while my direction was leaning strongly towards Richard Rogers & Jean Nouvel, with Norman Foster and Toyo Ito coming into question too.

Soon after I visited the library where I could further narrow my search.
I perused most of the available references in the library related to these individuals & quickly came to the conclusion that my initial idea of Rogers & Nouvel would suit my project nicely.
I chose the selected images from the internet for increased visual clarity but came accross them first in alternative sources.


Predominantly, what I admired most from these two were the consistent use of colour & activity expressed through their drawings. Both in plan & in section they were producing imaginatively interesting work. The use of colour assisted in allowing certain parts of the project to stand out in the drawing.

I tried emulating that in both plan and section. Moreso in my plan as I wanted to show both my project specifically whilst still providing context of the original Parliament plan.
My focus area is highly colourful whereas the remainder of my project blends into the original plan for additional contectual info without being too dominant.
The section is fashioned from the two sections equally. Aspects of the two were adopted and utilised & certainly creates the desired affect.

Thursday, 10 November 2011

Physical Model

A3 Parliament House model showing proposal in situ.



1:50 Model of Proposal - press conference layout shown



Project 2 - Internal views & External in-situ renders

Internal views

Committee Rooms (internal)




Casual seating on track system

The idea behind the track system was so that the users could determine how many
seats they wanted on the floor at any time. The door locker would house them & keep
them out of sight. This locker would also lower into the floor when not required.



Main Committee room views





External In-situ renders



Project 2 - Exemplars/Links

Stage & Internal space creation

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o8K2Jdue6NE&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cq-piwoUg5w&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fSk51GYquaw&feature=related

The image below is of the orchestra lift proposed for my project. This mechanism raises and lowers according to the configuration required by the users in question.

The main committee room has 4 layouts that can be configured that require a slightly different level plan.
They include:
1. MAIN COMMITTEE ROOM (ENTIRE ROOM)
2. GENERAL COMMITTEE ROOM (SPLIT ROOM)
3. PRESS CONFERENCE
4. THEATRE/PERFORMANCE.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yFXlsIreJ2Q

As another idea for high amounts of required public seating was to use a concertina seat system similar to the American bleecher stages that fold up to a fraction of the size.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D4KvucI_-RU&feature=related

The following video explains how the ceiling would function. Folding away into the generous ceiling space when not required (committee) or down when required (performance).

Construction/Framework philosophy & Skin

http://www.ruiz-geli.com/

The image below is a closer look at the external "skin" of the Cloud 9 building. It serves many functions to allow the building to run more efficiently.


The frame also functions extremely efficiently.


This image clearly demonstrates the use of 2 skin-like entities of the building. The inner skin acts like a traditional glazed wall system, however the external skin possesses more technological features. Like photovoltaics to collect solar power & a pillow system (lowest image) for creating a artifical fog for creating a less transparent facade.



Project 2 - Design Progression

Design Progression

My initial idea for the skin housing the committee rooms was to act almost like a UFO abducting someone. The net like structure would support a mechanical chord to lift & lower the committee rooms in the desired position in Parliament house. The chords were to run along cables part of the "net" (skin).

Next was something more of a robotic arm like a skill tester machine. A frame sitting beside PH (Parliament House) act as the skin & would support the weight of the shifting committee rooms with a conterweight. An interface would allow the user to plug the internal size requirements of the room & the robot arm would deliver the correct room to an empty space in a dedicated vacant PH room. Almost like the game battleship, the robot would determine the size and position of the remaining space in the room to position the committee block. The committee rooms themselves would similar to puzzle pieces whereby the same pieces could form any number of sized committee spaces.







I also thought about sphere rooms that lowered down for a more intimate committee experience.


Cedric Price's "play centre" & the pompidou centre were a couple of the inspirations behind the eventual shift to an exo-skeleton frame.
In my belief these construction types seem to look more temporary than other forms of construction & this supported my need for transparency both physically & idealogically.



I next thought that to allow my proposal to fit seemlessly into the current PH building, then it had to be mostly underground. The best way of doing this was to "core" existing segments from the existing building. Seeing as though I was concerned with the committee rooms, I believed the main committee room required a revamp & decided this was going to be my chief proposal aim.



The following document released by the PH itself relating to the current design requirements of the building.
I then attempted to achieve a novel design idea to update the committee rooms whilst still keeping to these design guidelines.



PH Level 1
PH Level 2 
I cant say what first inspired me to lift & lower the platforms of the committee room floors but nevertheless I thought this would provide the right amount of order & novelty for committee members to still feel comfortable carrying out their daily work.















The following plans were carefully deliberated on and were available by the last 1 or 2 studio sessions.
It showed one level of sub-committee rooms & a greater height ceiling main comm room above.
At this point in the design I was very interestd in seating arrangements. Tiered seating that would stack up to the ceiling, track seating for the smaller rooms, consertina fold-away seating, self folding seats and fixed seating were all ideas proposed for the design.




With a week or 2 until the presentation after consulting with Brett I altered my proposal scope of works to not only remove the existing main comm room but the entire committee sector. The area under focus then became roughly 3 x larger. The belief was that my proposal was requiring a more widespread impact on the current PH building.

The following came out of the subsequent days.