Skyscrapers are by-products of the urban parameters subjected on them; both physical in terms of providing maximum density within a limited footprint and symbolically as they represent the phallic, prestige and capitalist success. Typically, this constitutes a homogenous building experience.
Diversity and richness within the Sydney city landscape is not signified by the corporate tower buildings, but rather by the population and their interaction with, and use of the urban landscape. These pockets of art, culture and activity, become a springboard for new tower design.
The environmental constraints on the Barrangaroo tower are very different to the Sydney city framework; there is no existing typology or maximum footprint constraint but rather a provision of vast open space, a unique threshold and competing user groups. However, the current proposed tower design conforms to present-day skyscraper typology. The building seeks recognition through the use of the syntax of height competing with the Centre point Tower as the spire of the urban skyline, however this is not encompassing the inherent qualities of the site, and does not provide a diverse, unique experience that could revolutionise this precinct.
The Barrangaroo precinct provides the opportunity for a new building typology, relating to the parameters of the unique site; horizontality, threshold and user group. The user group or client consists of tourists and professionals using the area for recreation. The tourist looks for the destination, observing the environment rather than engaging with it on the same level or frequency as the professional.
Question: How does the new tower engage with each user group successfully and provide the situation for diversity and dynamism usually not associated with skyscrapers but rather with the urban fabric and its inhabitants? (tower as micro-city/organism/self-sufficient object)
Homogeneity – current building typology/verticality
User – Journey, destination, linear, purposeful / non-linear, social/photographic journey
Opportunity (Site) – Barangaroo Precinct
Stimulation – all prior experimentation (Sketch up/Laser cutting)
Experiment 1 – precedent studies
Study of successful floor plans through the diagramming of their spatial programs to determine meaningful ratios
Spatial Programming – methodology -Scholarship – flexible architecture/OMA’s Seattle Library
Diagram – plan
Experiment 2 – constrained parameters
Creating a rigid instrument for design in Revit using spatial programming volumetric ratios as parameters to create compositions that can be referenced to an original architectural diagram
Volume = Length x Height x Width allowing us t work in 3 Dimensions
Evolution = predator and prey, Le Corbusier, parameter, parametricism
Experiment 3 – free parameters
Using the free, exploratory nature of 3D Studio Max to investigate form, particularly skins, to clad the geometry compositions identified in experiment 2.
Skin = Juhani Pallasma’s haptic understanding of skin
Enclosure = container, resolution, gesamtkunstwerk
Experiment Cycle
This was a critical step in our development - an attempt to articulate what it was that we were trying to achieve with our experimentation in detail. This lead on to the development of the idea of an instrument in design and helped us link our experimentation to ancient vitruvius ideas.
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