Finals!

It’s hard tobelieve that it’s nearly the end of design for semester 2. It was a roller coaster of a time. This has been my progress throughout the past two weeks..

1. My plan zoom series
(both plan and sectional zoom series were drawn on tracing paper, lightly pasted onto brown paper and compiled too form a notebook that would enable the critiques to quickly flip through to gain a better understanding of the placement of my weave building contextually)

^ 1:500 scale

^1:200 scale

^1:100 scale

^1:20 scale (showing the deatil of the threshold. I liked it, so I made a model of this too (; )

2. My sectional zoom series
(roberta gave me a good idea, that is to collage the actual site images into the backgroundof the sectional series. I personally think this turned out pretty well..)

^1:500 scale

^1:200 scale

^1:100 scale

^1:20 scale

3. My Weave Building at a 1:100 scale model

^next to the neighbouring buildings (covered)

^ basement being exposed

^same model (but i like it soo much, just had to slit in another pic [; )

^

actual sunlight on the building

^detail of the roof (my favourite part)

^the ‘glass’ roof which often goes unnoticed. The reason behind this roof is to enable maximum amount of natural light into the building because there are tall buildings around it, hence the easiest way to allow sunlight through is from the roof. This would also cut the electricity and heating costs.

4. 1:20 scale model of the threshold
I made this model to show how the door would bulge out of the skin of the building almost like a blister. The sad part of it is that it didn’t turn out exactly as I wanted it to, but out of the 2 model I made, this model best showed the effect I was looking for.

^the model

5. Skin experimentation process
I tried out 7 different types of weaved materials to find out which material gave thhe best and efficient intensity of light into the building. The first set of images was if the building did not have a skin/ or had a glass skin, followed by 6 other materials and the last one is weaved paper.

^this was really time consuming, but it allowed me to appreciate how the thickness, transparency and tightness of the weaves in the respective materials created different light effects in the building. Using the knowledge i gained here, I was able to manipulate the weave paper to allow different intensities of light to enter the building to cater for the different functions of the building.

6. My awesome matrix

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Pumped for my final crit now. A little nervous, but confident at the same time. I’ve come this far, not going to give up now! 😉

My final set up for the crit today afternoon. fingers crossed so that everything goes well 🙂

Till the next post (not sure when that would be), Chao!

Blogging time!

Now that both advertising and history is out of the way, its back to focusing on design! Finally something that doesnt involve too much fancy vocabulary-or does it?

Well apart from being hectic this next two weeks have the potential to be fun and interesting. I like the freedom that we are given this time to explore our own ideas in any way we please (well I guess not ‘complete’ freedom, but freedom is freedom nonetheless). This is why I got into architecture in the first place- to do my own thang! ;p

But freedom has its flaws too..I currently don’t know exactly what to do, so as any uni student would say, “it’s google-time!”

Currently I’m obsessed with fluid organic architecture because I’m kind of sick of geometrical, faceted, heavily glazed ‘contemporary’ buildings. It’s everywhere-well almost. So I googled some images, and also got some from our laser cutting FB page that really inspired me.

^ By Heatherwick

^Guy’s Hospital by Heatherwick

^Swiss pavilion in Venice

^ Slowpoke cafe

^Kiss by Z-A Studio

^Chamber Music Hall by Zaha Hadid

Of course there are more images, but I don’t want to just throw a whole load of images on my blog. Well, these images have given me a clearer idea on what I’m going to improve on in my building.

The general idea of my building at the start of the 6th week was fluidity, (so was my week 1 idea) so I thought I’d stick with this idea. I designed a fluid outer skin in workshop 3 and in workshop 4 I designed a fluid interior of one of the levels in that building. In line with these ideas, I thought I can merger the interior and exterior in one fluid architecture. It sounds cool to me now, but I guess I have to discuss with the tutors tomorrow and get their opinion.

Another idea that I was also considering was the intensity of light entering the building. But, I think that could be the effect that can be gained from the manipulation of the extterior and interior. So maybe that could just be a secondary adaptation.

For this I have to experiment with materials for the senses that I want to manipulate. Ok, now it sounds like there’s lots to think about and do..hmm..

But anyway, better to start early right? So here are some of the materials I’ve considered (they are organic materials of course):

^recycling! cardboard boxes

^recycling again! cool as idea

^timber if im not mistaken. but it looks alot like corrigated cardboard. that would be a good material for the interior because it’s recycling as well as allowing light to pass through.

^timber. I like the curved roof. subtle, but effective.

^CDs! okay its not organic, but atleast its recycling and super COOL!

That’s all for tonight’s blog. Till next time, Chao!

Peer Review

This week my group had to review the Secondlife workshop group.

Chris Ford
archicris.blogspot.com

The gifting idea behind his project was the gift of extra space. He based his design on a crate, portable and can me moved around easily according to the owner. The outdoor spaces could be extended for warmer seasons to allow the occupants to have extra space. It was a very simple building made of concrete and glass. Its good for avatars in second life, but perhaps not so safe for reality. the thing that i liked the most was the moving louvres. It somehow just gave the whole building extra life- from my point of view anyway.

Elena Lochor-Ward
elenatecture.blogspot.com

Her idea of gifting was giving back to the public. Her design was very geometric and the glass facade gave it a very futuristic and modern look. The balcony was quite big and had promising views. What interested me was how the design had changed from her original idea due to the limitations of Second Life. However I think it actually worked to her advantage because the outcome was attractive.

Sooin Chae

 Sooin wasn’t present on the crit and I haven’t got her blog address, so can’t blog about her at the moment.

Chao!

Awww!

It sucks that my animation does not have music! After a long thought process on what song to choose and finally finding one that suits my animation, YouTube decides to go and mute my animation! Oh well..I gues I can only resolve this issue witht he help of someone who knows how to.. Pretty crappy really.. hmmm

Well anyway, the audiotrack I chose was ‘You make me feel’ by Cobra Starship feat Sabi.

Till I finally get it sorted out, Chao!

='(

Stop animation testing

This fortnight we will be doing stop animation. We have to rennovate the previous building that we designed. This time it isfocused on the interior. its self explanatory really. Here’s the final:

Enjoy!

Gifting!

GIFTS! That is definately among one of the words that I just love to hear! This workhsop that we have to work in for the next two weeks will be revolving around this concept or idea. The stop animation workshop looks pretty tedious in terms of having to constantly take pictures of each development stage of your design process. But, from the projects that I saw and reviewed last week, I’m pretty excited to get stuck into it.

In the spirit of gifting, here’s my gift:
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DVYmgadVcQA)

This is an advertisement that makes us realise that we are lucky enough to be given the gift of sight and how often we take it for granted. At the same time it portrays how blind children can still have fun with colous during the festival of Holi.

“Holi embodies all the festivity, liveliness and exuberance of Spring season. The cheerful faces smeared with colors and flower extracts look not much different from the blooming blossoms. The fragrance and the romanticism of the season touch all hearts. It is the festival of letting go of what has already passed and awaken the hopes and strengthen our ties with our friends and loved ones. Holi is a festival of pranks. Particularly the youth go around the villages and communities, playing colors and pranks, shouting ‘Bura Na Mano, Holi Hai!’ (Don’t be angry, it’s Holi!).”

Chao!

Peer Reviews!

Last week I still reviewed my peers in Group 1. Their workshop for that week was stop motion animation. I reviewed 3 people as usual. But unfortunately I critiqued the wrong person, because I misread the table- yes, I’m human, I make mistakes. And I only realised this towards the end, which left me no time to critique the actual person I was supposed to crit. I’m sorry!

Moving on though the Three people I peer reviewed were:

Emma Mannion
(blog address: http://emmasarchitectureworld.tumblr.com)

(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=06-C8gP73Mc&feature=youtube_gdata)

The thing that struck me first about her A1 sheet was the colour. It was not very bright or bold, but its sublity gave it a hint of professionalism. Her idea was about how spaces intergrated with each other and she started of with a simple idea of a building wedged between two already existing buildings.

The site proposed for the building was at a very awkward angle/position. I think this problematic fact worked in her advantage because it gave her building a more sophisticated and capturing design.

 The green wall in the centre of the interior was very much like the living wall in Westpac centre near Britomart. It was very aesthetically appealing. All in all the interior was well integrated and designed to suit its purpose.

Amrita Kaur

(blog address: http://akau694.blogspot.com)

(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WwV5qC-RfrM)

Her design was similar to the previous in terms of the shape. It was also shaped like a ‘wedge’ but her reason for that differs slightly. She wanted to incorporate the existing building’s curve into her design.

Her A1 sheet was well organised and colour coded- which really allowed us to see the different designs. the spaces in her building was designed to cater for 5 different personnels and that mainly informed her design.

Her animation was even better. I liked the way she used an arrow to point to where her ideas were going. Also, her introduction was very nice and her  choice of music was appropriate.

Chih-Hsuan Cheng

(blog address: iridenscencey.blogspot.com )

Her design idea was inspired from her previous project-from the laser cutting workshop. Her design evolved a lot from her initial idea. The thing I like the most was the movable walls in the interior that allowed all the different occupants in the building to interact with each other effortlessly. It also allowed spaces to be privatised and sheltered from the rest.

Her A1 sheet of paper was attractive and very much like a sketchbook. she also spilt paint on it and drew over it, which made it looks more attractive. Diidn’t get to see her video, si I have no comments on that.

Chao!

Final Finished Model

No pictures to post yet as I don’t have my model with me at the moment, so will post them as soon as I get my model back =)

Assembling the Building

Although I cut the pieces of Mdf to be precise to the exact design I want, I still managed to play around with different arrangements. Supprisingly, I found an arrangement that I liked-that was not the original design- and the pieces still fitted together. Perfect.

^– The left over pieces.

The next step was to design the roof of the building. The design was inspired by these two awesome architectures.

^–Chanel Mobile Art Pavilion.

^– Martin Luther Church.

It was difficult to show the design of the roof on the sectional model because it kept flopping over. Futhermore I used paper for the skin and paper doesn’t hold its shape for long. However after meddling with it for some time, I managed to make it work. Haven’t taken pictures yet but will upload them soon.

^– Complete design of the building can be seen more clearly from the matrix sheet.

^– Floor plans of each level drawn on tracing paper and layered on top of each other.

That’s all for this wee hour of the morning. Chao!

The Building Skin

Whilst changing the idea to laser cut the floors instead of the skin, this meant I have a new design problem- what do I do with the skin now? The weaving (which was just a coincidence and not part of the intended design) was a good idea, so I stuck with it.

It had tiny holes in it which allowed light through and gave a satisfying effect. I loosened the weave a little to allow more light in.

Looking at images of my past projects, my ‘air’ project played on the similar concept of lights and shadows.

^– Air project from semester 1

Then I used tracing paper to weave too to create different intensities of light to enter the building.

^– Weaving allows the paper to curve/curl on its own.

I thought about this a little further and realised that this works as windows and an open atrium roof ceiling would provide sufficient lighting for the building-so no need for windows!