Assignment 1_Project Matrix

Assignment 1_Project Matrix

Jiayu Li

Z5027232

1. Site Model

Scale: 1:2000

Material: Walnut wood, Cherry wood, Plastic, White Paint

Technique: CNC, 3D Printing, Bend Saw.
Hrs: 10hrs
Budget: 150aud

Architectural Precedent

Reference

Made by:    Bran Arifin and James Choe

Project:     #LA

URL:        http://www.bransuwandrei.com/academic-work#/apotheosis/

 The precedent I found is a site model of Los Angles city by Bran Arifin and James Choe. It is made of walnut wood painted into white colour representing the broader city view and cherry wood to highlight the selected site and surrounding blocks. White 3D printed project building and organic shape bridges are plugged in among the site. It is trying to discuss the question of how to make a city a viable host of housing an overdense population like Los Angles. In responding, the designer tried to consider the city in a three-dimensional canvas instead of a two dimensional one.   Therefore, the project takes a quarter mile radius of the city as a testing site and according to rigorous analysis, 6 floating vortexes like towers connected by pedestrian bridges were designed. These buildings are attached to the existing buildings to provide elevated links for public circulation. Therefore, the site model base was made into two different colours to foreground the centre testing site which is within the coverage of the projects’ circulation. The model has weakened the comparison between the ground and building groups since in this project the existing building groups are considered as vertical detention adding to the ground and work together as a 3D canvas for the project. In this case, the 3D printed designed building and bridges can be emphasised through its colour and abstract form. 

Selected Design Element 

I tried to understand why the precedent model has a pleasant visual effect and transfers valuable information and I think that is based on its consistency of masses and materiality, and its contrast of colour and shape. First of all, the heavy mass made by dense walnut and cherry timber gives the audience a feeling of quality and richness. Then the focus will transfer to the contrast between the immediate site and the outer surrounding since the outer shape is square and painted white but the inner site is circle and is left the original colour and texture of timber. By manipulating the colours, materials and shapes, the more important parts are naturally highlighted which is the central circle. In addition to the use of these elements, some of the information in the model is subtly hidden or weakened. For example, all the buildings are integrated with the land and the street. In this way, the traffic network and the land occupation of the building are not obvious. The focus will be on the density and three-dimensional space of the entire city. For the site model, this model fully integrates the existing site attributes with its own design concepts for these design elements, thereby presenting the site characteristics from a higher perspective.

Key Concept Reflected in the Design Studio

The key concept for this model will be focused on the spacial relationship between building and its surrounding environment and show how the designed building be knitted into the urban fabric. I would like to take the model making concept from the example above and bring into my own site in Sydney Waterloo. These two projects share the same issue of the urban condition under the pressure of increasing population and density. The site coverage for the two cases are also similar: 1/4 mile or around 1/2 km, so the number and density of the existing buildings on site will be approximately the same as the precedent model has. My design studio project is within a larger masterplan containing around 10 blocks and I would like to highlight the masterplan to differentiate it from the outer surroundings. To achieve that, the precedent’s approach of using two colours will be ideal, which has a clear and clean visual effect and efficient in presenting the information. My project is a mixed-used market plus urban farm, which is featured with several green towers, so taking the precedent model as a reference, I will model my project building the same colour as the outer surrounding but in different material and through a different technique, in order to make the focal point on my project.  The precedent has a series of buildings as a holistic design. Mine is a single compact building, but I would like to make it removable and do a series testing building to show the process of my design.

Geometrical Description of the Shape  

The overall exterior of the site model will be a square box and the immediate site will be a circle right at the centre of the square. Buildings will be made according to their real dimension and with dominant features of the exterior look. Streets will be represented by carving in the ground material and according to their realistic width and shape. Software like Google earth and Cadmapper can be useful to provide satellite topography and building data on the computer. The square box will cover 1 km square of Waterloo which will be 50 cm under 1to 2000 scale. The inner circle covering the whole masterplan of Waterloo Estate will be 600m in real scale which equals to 30 cm under 1 to 2000 scale. So my selected site (around 120 m x 130 m rectangular shape) will be around 6 cm by 6 cm in the model. The average level height is around 4 m, so in the model is about 2mm, and 10 levels building height is around 2 cm. The natural height difference of my site is around 8 m, which equals to 4mm in the model. I would like the thickness of the model base to be less than 6mm.

2. Concept Model

Scale: 1:100

Material: Clear Acrylic, Plastic, Real plants

Technique: laser cut, 3D printing.
Hrs: 5hrs
Budget: 70aud

Architectural Precedent

Reference

Designer:     Sou Fujimoto

Project:     Benetto Building

URL:        http://www.mottimes.com/cht/article_detail.php?type=2&serial=221

I chose the concept model from the future cityscape of Sou Fujimoto's imagination Benetton Building. The designer considers architecture as an artificial object, and how to make such an object closer to the natural environment is his design motivation. The forest is a perfect reference substance for his architecture design because a forest has diversity, variety and complexity and it is nature itself. These features are jointed organically and form a uniformed harmonious space. In this project, Fujimoto even tried to introduce the vegetation inside the architecture, which is a clear and direct concept to blur the boundary of architecture and environment. This mix-used building is surrounded by trees by glass boxes, creating a three-dimensional forest in a stacked way. Fujimoto imagines the fusion of man-made objects and trees in new forms to create a future urban look. There are huge squares, like shopping centres scattered in the forest, and offices that are surrounded by trees and can make people feel depressed. In this environment, trees guard people, and people can enjoy the fresh feeling of being blown by the wind in the natural environment and create new urban landscapes. The designer was trying to test a new form of the combination of building and the environment in the future, which is a pretty bald and experimental design and that is why it is just a paper architecture. However, the concept of using fully transparent material and the design strategy of stacking blocks are worth taking examples of.

Selected Design Element

This design of Sou Fujimoto is only at the conceptual stage, so I think that the model of this building can be expressed in a more romantic way than in the pursuit of excessive reality. In this way, we can better demonstrate the possibilities of the future world architecture and nature that this design wants to show to the audience. What this design wants to reflect is mainly the transparent boxes and the stacking of blocks, which form a piled up vertical forests. Human activities are clearly visible outside the building. So I want to show the design concept of Fujimoto by using lightweight transparent materials and real natural plants. The focus of the design elements will be placed on the plants and activities that embody the transparent box, as well as the composition of the boxes stacked. Colour is also critical to the final visual impact of the model. The structure and volume of the building have been weakened by purely transparent materials. Colour can be used as an aid to convey deeper information, such as telling viewers about the features and hotspots of the space. At the same time, the visual effect of the colour can also make the model look no longer monotonous and simple. I hope that the real materials of the building, the urban context, and the internal and external circulations will be weakened or even omitted. This will express the projection of the future vision of the conceptual design. 

Key Concept Reflected in the Design Studio

In my project, nature and sustainable developments are important elements and design intent. As a highly mixed-used building, the activities of its interior space are also very complicated. In terms of form, my project also involves the concept of spatially stacked masses as an architectural design language and vertical urban gardens. I hope to build a self-produced market and urban agriculture through architectural or urban design, with the aim of evoking the attention of the public to climate change and population growth and at the meantime proposing some solutions. Like Fujimoto, my project is also imagining the future of society. Especially in the future of a foreseeable society that resource is more lacking, the relationship between human, architecture and nature is the focal point. I think that the design of Fujimoto has given me a new idea of my project, that is, even large masses of stacking can achieve light and transparent effect. People and nature can change the perspective of observation through architecture. So by making this conceptual model, I think I will find more subtle relationships and changes in the production process, such as changes in light and shadow, or the impact of plants on space activities.

Geometrical Description of the Shape  

This concept model will be a 1 to 100 scale and made of transparent acrylic board. I will make a series of boxes of different heights to suit different functions and activities. The box aspect ratios of these boxes are fixed at 1:1, 1:2 and 1:1.5. So the plane of these boxes is 5 meters by 5 meters, five meters by 7.5 meters and 5 meters by 10 meters, and their multiples, and so on. In terms of height, 3 meters is suitable for general daily activities such as offices. 4 meters is suitable for open public areas such as restaurants and coffee shops. The 5-meter space can be designed as a market and art gallery. The highest ten meters of space will become the future urban farm and greenhouse. I want to use a 2 mm thick acrylic sheet so that the thickness of the wall is 20 cm at a ratio of 1 to 100. This way, when cutting the wall, remember to leave 2 mm (20 cm in reality) for the alignment of the four walls. The human activity inside the box I want to embody by placing a 1 to 100 3D printer model. Such a 180 cm human is about 1.8 cm in this size. I will use real plants to represent the natural space inside the box, so I won’t strictly follow the size ratio. At the bottom of the model, I will make a 5 cm high base with a length of 1 meter by one meter.

3. Section Structure Model

Scale: 1:20

Material: Metal, Plastic, Basswood

Technique: Metal shaping, 3D printing, laser cutting
Hrs: 10hrs
Budget: 100aud

Architectural Precedent

Reference

Designer:    SANAA

Project:     21st century museum of contemporary art 

The 21st Century Art Museum adopts a low-key posture that lie on the earth. It was hoped to be a place like a park where anyone can visit at any time and provide people with various opportunities and experiences. The square boxes of the 21st Century Art Museum is like a house in a city, and the circulation space between the box and the box is like a road grid. Instead of creating a sequential linear space in the building for narrative and human experience, the grid-like streamline creates a lot of intersections in the building, which naturally triggers the occurrence of many random interactions, and there are many possibilities for contact. Just like a sandbox or a stage, the architect did not deliberately arrange the space story, but to promote different stories to produce themselves. Moreover, the 21st Century Art Museum itself is a round shape with entrances in all four directions. Personally, this figure itself dispels the concept of “front, back, side” inherent in the building, by encouraging people to flow from different directions ( Entering the building instead of looking for the main entrance according to their way of travel has also promoted a sense of equality and more like a sandboxed space.) The museum has two floors and a basement. The second floor is a cube that rises from the top of the circle on a bird's eye view, in order to make the homogeneous form no longer silent. From the perspective of the first-floor function, the white exchange area and the blue exhibition area each occupy half of the field. The auxiliary function room is also well hidden in the flowing plane.

Selected Design Element

SANAA provides an open, public space where many people are free to enter and exit, and various public places of communication. At the same time, this kind of space has a private side, and people can do their own things while they are getting together. This spatial model produces its event patterns in a completely natural form, making the seemingly rigid geometric building an active and vivid system. SANAA's work deals with the relationship between the building and the surrounding urban environment through a simple architectural form, clear architectural boundaries, and transparent and translucent architectural appearance. Clear architectural boundaries define the entire system and make it independent of the surrounding environment, which helps to enhance the guiding and the clear nature of the building. The use of transparent and semi-translucent materials makes the building a showcase for urban behavioural activities, which enhance the openness of the building. From the perspective of architecture and city, SANAA always calls for the simple and direct return of simple aesthetics. By separating the indoor and outdoor space with a transparent material, the continuity of the indoor and outdoor space is enhanced, the urban interface is activated, and the sense of isolation of the building is compensated. At this time, the building is completely relative to the city. From the perspective of the building itself, by honestly expressing the components that transmit the building load, it truly reflects the spatial form of the building. The consistency of the structure, materials and spatial form makes the system itself a unitary whole.

Key Concept Reflected in the Design Studio

Similar to the SANAA design, my design also plays with the layout of mass blocks. All blocks are distributed above and below a platform. My site occupies the entire block. I hope that users can move freely in my building and create more possibilities for communication. The 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art uses a network-like transportation system to organise independent spatial blocks that carry different functions in an interconnected rule system. The boundaries of adjacent spaces are defined by corridors designed to serve as additional exhibition areas. These corridors of different types, dimensions and efficiencies enable people to cross the building with direct, rational, fast, linear movements, and to experience the slow passage of time. Also as designing a public space, the 21st Century Art Museum is worth learning. Its primary function is to provide a platform for public communication, allowing people of different social backgrounds and different ages to communicate freely. At the same time, as a public open space, a variety of private activities are indispensable. Therefore, organising and designing space based on people's behavioural activities becomes the starting point for SANAA design. SANAA conducts a detailed analysis of various functional spaces and organises contact spaces according to the different characteristics of various activities. In the treatment of internal space, I have always pursued the hierarchical system of architectural space. I learned from the design of SANAA that there is no level of rational space hierarchy, which frees people from the pressure of the usual hierarchical building space.

Geometrical Description of the Shape  

There are many models of museums that can be found online. I don't want to repeat what others have done. So I want to look at this classic building from another angle. I will do a small section of the museum's profile detail model, which shows how SANNA is structurally transparent to the museum. So I took a part of the space in the building, including the curtain wall and some functional rooms, trying to show how the design was so light and thin. It can be seen from the picture that the columns between the floors are very thin, only 120 mm. In the 1 to 20 detail model, it is 6 mm. In the plan view, it can be seen that many load-bearing I beams are actually hidden in the wall of the function room. The thickness of the wall is about 200 mm. It is 1 cm in the model. I will take a 5 meter by 5-meter corner to make a 25 cm square structure model. The height of the museum intercepted is 4 meters, which is 20 centimetres. So at least a 30 cm square base is required.