Studio 8

Over the last week (leading up to the studio in week 8), I have been looking into adaptive and responsive architecuture, in an attempt to find a starting point for this assignment. It was my intention to look at what technologies and techniques are used today and then explore how they could develop by 2030. 

A lot of what i found was similar to what can be seen on this website.

http://yazdanistudioresearch.wordpress.com/2011/02/10/kinetic-facade-products/

It became apparent to me that this sort of adaptability and responsiveness does effectivly nothing for the user of the space. Yes it can help to conserve energy, and perhaps change the comfort levels of the user, but does this really do anything for the architectural experience of the space. Does it make the space and more enjoyable, more usable. Is there anything the user gets out of this that they would not get from a large air conditioning unit, other then a smaller power bill?

In the studio I discussed this with Davor and he agreeed that this type of adaptability that is becoming more and more prominent in today's architecture does very little for the experience of the user. What I want to achieve from this project is an architecture that will adapt and respond to its user in a way that changes the way they experience and use the space. I want it to be able to be used by permanent inhabitants as well as passers by in a way that is both enhancing the usability of the space and creating a stimulating experience.

This is going to be a main focus for this project. I want to integrate this into a building that combines a Maglev station with a public space and commercial/retail businesses. The goal is to create architecture that will provide maximum benefit to all users at all times. 

Vertical Public Spaces is another concept that I want to try to integrate into my building. By this I mean taking the existing horizontal public realm, which is a transitional zone, and re imaging this in a vertical space, as can be seen in the image below. 

The main problem with this is that people are lazy, and do not want to use stairs, and elevators break up the public space. By using either of these methods it changes the space from a transitional space into a destination space. Davor said that I should not let this prevent me from designing this sort of space, but rather take it as a challenge to find a way to successfully design a new type of public space.

Starting again...

So now that the first assignment is out of the way, it is time to develop an architectural entity to exist within the future scenario that was developed. The group that I was a part of for the first assignment was placed into Davor Mikulcic's tutorial. Although my group will not be working together on this assignment as we were in the first assignment, we are all still in the same tutorial, and the input of my group members will help shape my design for this assignment. 

The scale of this project is up to me, however it is important that both the story and the final design make logical sense. This comes down to them being plausible progressions from Brisbane's current built environment. The level of detail in the design is what is most important. This project is to be a highly thought out, highly refined piece of architecture, demonstrating 4 years of architectural education. 

While I did not have a lot of time with Davor, as two of my group members had left and Jessica and I chose to wait until week 8 to talk to him, I did have some initial direction that I briefly talked over with him. Throughout the first project, I found the empty block behind Irish Murphys to be an ideal location for this second assignment. I intend to design a building that integrates the Maglev routes that were developed for assignment 1 with the commercial/retail context that we envisioned for the edge of the city. Public space would also be included into the design. The concepts of vertical public space and adaptable architecture are what I want to be the driving factors behind my design. To make this less of an enormous task, I proposed that I could break it down into a master plan for the area, and then go into high detail with the Maglev station and other areas. Davor confirmed that this is allowable for this project. 

The time frame for this architecture is between 2015 and 2030, however exceptions can be made if it is justifiable to place the architecture outside of these times. Davor agreed that for the scenario that we developed this time frame is perhaps a little early, and allowed us to go outside of this time if need be. 

So now it is time to start this design project, beginning with the creation of a master-plan