Gathering - Laser Cutting

I want a open air bathing spa which has interlocking spaces (such as spaces made when observing noobs play in tetris) with the outside but must also not be exposed in terms of privacy. The interlocking spaces must be clearly established in the structure of the building. The spa does not have to be on the roof floor but it cannot be on the first floor.

The dominant material is concrete or stone, which should give similar appeal as the baths above.

Changing rooms and toilets are essentials to the facility.

The idea of a cantilevered spa is recommended but not compulsory

Peer Review 2 - Laser Cutting

Charlotte Farquharson - http://chuck--architecture.blogspot.com/

Charlotte's concept in the theme 'sustenance' looked upon the idea of water, and drew into the design of a mobile architecture where people go to collect water. The structure of the building is created from long pieces with jigsaw like joints which allows the building to be able to be disassembled and reassembled efficiently.

I enjoyed Charlotte's idea of having a public water collection space and how it brings back historical rituals of water collection from wells, into the present day scenario. Her design had ambitious forms which gave strong impressions of geometrical shapes, which I found fascinating.


Christopher Ford - http://archicris.blogspot.com/

Christopher's response to 'sustenance' looks at time where he focuses on the changing angles of light created through the different shapes of windows and the rotating gears. Christopher's structual focus is on the rotation of the doors within the octagonal building. His design brought out literal connotations of time such as in Alice in Wonderland.

I was impressed to see mechanics which Christopher used in his design. The door could be manually rotated by a handle sprouted from the gears above the roof. I believe Christopher could strengthen the relationship between time with sustenance in his design. Overall I was delighted with Christopher's design as I found it very visually and mechanically intriguing.


Bryton Pilling - http://brytondesign.blogspot.com/

Bryton's Design approach to 'sustenance' focused on open-source software, a type of software which allowed the user to shape it to whatever the need may be . Brtyon came forth with a design which a shelter, held by flexible  pillars where people could walk through and bend at will, hence altering the form of the shelter (yet could hold its form when untouched). He also cleverly used lasercutting to create symmetrical hexagonal holes into his shelter, which resulted in creating flexible properties. I thought that it was a brilliant idea, particularly how the character of open source software complimented with character of the architectural design.

my sustenance...?

The air we breathe.

To choose air as my a sustenance may sound generic, but it is something we cannot go without for 6 minutes.

I found designing an architectural sustenance for air was quite difficult, due to its natural invisible character, 

so I looked at air from a different approach (other than the physical), to something which we so heavily rely on and take for granted... 

We pollute the air and cut down trees, which are the very lungs of our planet, and we replace it with concrete or farm land. From this perspective I began to visualize the future for our planet when clean air becomes scarce...

BRIDGE

I came up with the idea of creating a eco-green pedestrian walkway across Beach Road, reflecting its form from the shape of human lungs to convey the idea of nature to be the lungs of the earth.

My initial sketch of my bridge did not strike the idea of lungs vividly, as it posed to be more of the typical bridge  with greenery as the main facade, than the concept of lungs.

Here I developed my bridge to compose of a more organic form using curves which follow a familiar lung like structure. My tutor, suggested to have more vein like cross joints, rather than the chess board pattern. Initially I was stubborn to their advice, hence even ignored it, however after thinking through my tutors pep talk on architecture I realized  that I should be aiming to push myself to face greater challenges and as a student of architecture. I went away and developed my structure to reflect the veins of lungs.

Here is my finalized design with the vein like structures, found in lungs. It was time to start making the 1:1 model.

I used dell to hold up my vein facade.

Left: drill
Right: counter sink drill

I decided to make the veins a facade for the bridge and have the greenery below it.

 

Alas, my final 1:1 model.

MATRIX 2

SUSTENANCE

'Sustenance' is the theme for our second workshop. We were asked to create augmented reality drawings to present and develop our own ideas of 'sustenance' through the "pencil vs camera" style of Ben Heine

Ben Heine example 1

Ben Heine example 2

http://www.benheine.com/pencilvscamera.html

MATRIX

The matrix took me a while to figure out and draw... but its finally done.

Surprisingly, it actually does give a lot of useful, compressed info on an architectural element.

Peer Review 1 - Augmented Reality & 1:1 Model Detail

Having our work crit'd by our fellow class mates is quite a different experience. We got to discuss our projects from a more 'student-student' perspective that differs from crit's with our tutors.

Donna Lee - http://digitalcarnival2011.blogspot.com/search?updated-max=2011-08-11T14%3A06%3A00-07%3A00&max-results=7

Donna's response to 'waking-up' focused on creating a space for privacy, which I found interesting because her design was extruded from an existing building. However she had trees partially surrounding her design which complimented with her theme of privacy. Her design included checked facade which allowed light to come through without actual exposure of what was inside. Both Donna's augmented reality drawing and 1:1 model was done very well.


Chih-Hsuan Cheng (Yolie) - (link not found)

Yolie looked into 'waking-up' on water which I thought was a brilliant idea. Her design was located on the water of Mahuhukiterangi Reserve (near Vector Arena). Her 1:1 model was a transparent plastic mold of rocks (located at water-level) which one can massage their feet upon and experience the coolness of the water. Her design was focused on an experience which I believe was a unique approach.


Chirag Jindal - http://cjindaldesign2.blogspot.com/

Chirag's design was looked upon 'waking-up' at Mahuhukiterangi Reserve, on top of an art monument piece (shaped as a hammock). Chirag created a composition of entangled metal 'vines' which was used as abstract louvers to allow for just the "right amount of sunlight to seep through". Chirag's idea was inspired when research upon shadow puppets and he me the different shadow/light effects created from his 1:1 model. I found Chirag's idea very intriguing particularly the forms created from his design model.

Waking Up in Second Life :D

Finally finished my model in second life.

Here I began modeling a sculpt-map in 3ds max for a bed

A Memorable Moment: Discussion & crit with Ian

Today we had quite an interesting discussion with Ian which enlightened us a bit more on the idea of "waking up". We each made a hand sketch of a memorable moment in our past on a plain A4 paper and pinned them all against a wall. Some people were called out to share about their memorable moments. Ian asked the people sharing questions which went beyond the superficial such as... "how did this impact you?", "how would you reflect on this event now?". With these questions, Ian wanted us to realise that all these moments shape us into who we are today and that after these events, our way of thought may differ from before. Ian explained that "waking up" can be a change of the way we think, the way we interpret things, the way we question things, the way we react to things (realisation?... these could all be considered a form of 'waking up'.

In my hand sketch, I drew the time when i fractured my ankle when attempting to do something stupid (for ego)  while playing basketball. Through this event I realised how my childish and foolish actions lead to painful memories of months of being stuck in a moon boot... which meant that I couldn't play basketball during that time. From this memory I realised how the pain of having the freedom to be able to actively play basketball taken away was much more taunting than the initial physical pains of fracturing the bone. I realised that I loved this freedom and it was something which I did not realise I treasured so much.

"Guys, we are just gonna [casually] cut up our models"

Today I almost shed tears while we were instructed to cut up our models in order to create a group collaboration of sections. It was tough. Very tough. There was great hesitation among our group on who was to cut their model first and so I bit my tongue and took out the craft knife... to cut the buildings, then the band saw... to cut the wooden base of the model...

I have to say it got easier once we began cutting.

I believe it was for the greater good of the group to collaborate our sections, as it gave a much greater model which had synergies and much greater variety in concepts and modelling styles in the collaboration model.

Modelling time...

After much discussion with Anthony and Roberta, we decided that 'shadows' was a good concept to base our section models on and so Jeanny and I began modelling...

We created 3d shadows using a black mesh which I thought fitted quite well with our modelling intentions. Our buildings were made from cardboard pieces stuck on  polystyrene foam shapes. We restricted ourselves with our colour use as we wanted to focus on the 'impacts of shadows', hence our buildings were spray painted a manual grey (black and white spray-paint combo).

Here is our finished works...

Section line decided!

After considerable amount of observation, Jeanny and I finally decided on the section line which we were to base our models on.

Overshadowing thoughts ...literally

During a morning site visit, I was walking down Beach Rd and felt an uneasy chill, which contradicted the weather at the time as it was cloudless and sunny. I soon realized that the entire Beach Rd was shadowed over by the new apartments and hotels (which were on the north east side). I was quite astonished at how the shadows of these high risers could impact the entire atmosphere of Beach Rd. I thought to myself that the developers would of been either quite oblivious and crude in their decisions and consequences of placing  these buildings where they stood. I believe they could of planned it out better... not that I had a better alternative approach to what they could of done... but I decided to create an architectural statement/raise an awareness on the consequences of overshadowing high-rises in the sectional model that was due the following week.

Site photos

Teaming up with Jeanny, we walked through our triangular site to look for desirable place for our section to cut through.