Earlier preparation for Esquisse 1

In preparation for the Esquisse the development of these marketing images helped to formulate in our minds how these spaces might be used in anticipation of our step towards architectural planning and programming of the building.

This space became a vertical gallery, offering the exclusive exhibition experience the the Barangaroo development while taking full advantage of the view.

This image encapsulates the absurdity of the structure, particularly how to treat the spaces that have been engulfed by the lattice structure.

A perception of how the ferry terminal might look and the view of the building that passengers might experience when docking into port.


This image, while abstract provides a perception of how the otherwise narrow spaces will be enlarged by the view extraordinary view out over the harbor.

This image is a play on the concept from semester 1, the Lion/Tourist and the Zebra/Professional relationship becomes the catalysis for the external stairway which work as a performance space.

Lattice members - Research

Images from the the 3ds max model imported from max: complex joint connections

Following the aesthetic of Robert Maillart's - Salginatobel Bridge the lattice form will take on the minimalist sublime.

As an area of inspiration origami provides a strategy in realising the complex joints. The process of of order acts to create unique and diverse shapes that can be easily reproduced out of a easily massed produced plane material (sheet material).

In concept the joints could be custom made to match each nodule point through deconstructing the BIM Revit models. However, we have decided that we would bring the joints together in a more haptic way embodying the chaotic ambience of the overall structure to be enjoyed by those who take on the challenge to climb through the lattice that will also be an extreme adventure course for dare-devil tourists.

The beams would be modular construction to a point. The lattice will be made up of trussed cross members in order to distribute the dynamic forces that it will be subjected to. As the grid is irregular the lattice will be subject to immense shear force as well as complex tension and compression.

The nodule connection would be costume made through the use of BIM technology in order to be custom made and made off site.

3ds MAX education

There are some great sites that provide some really extensive explanations of how to do some really cool things with max rendering

check them out:

www.cgcookie.com

www.creativecrash.com

www.pxleges.com

yay! improve your skills set!

In-class exercise...10 minute idealisation...

This in-class exercise stemmed from our inability to solve our own design problems, and instead find other people's studio projects far more 'solveable' and 'easy'. In fact, in a few minutes we had established that almost anybody else's design problem could be worked out in ten easy minutes. ..let me just show you how... haha

And what better way to face a challenge then to attack it head on. Ten minute bursts of work for Joanne's project, led to at least 18 residences being designed for 18 different clients (performed under pressure with a stopwatch, the only way to get architects to do any work quickly). The following week it was our turn.

We devised a number of 3d views that provided views of parts of our projects, and with some blank butter paper, gave the group ten minutes to devise a narrative, or conceptual idealisation of what might occur in the space, or how the structure might be resolved.

The following sketches are what was created in relation to my current BIM model.

Russell's African garden entry...and ramped moat? The savannah awaits...

Ros's structural resolution of the lattice system...it's just so 'straightforward duh'...

Ro's creative use of the cantilever, a bungie swing for tourists...what better way to make money from the site!!

Jo's viewing deck and complimentary roller coaster...who said anything about budget?!

Jacky's cruiser processing point and 'in your face' digital screen! No chance those suckers will miss reading OUR advertising....

Joanne's entry space (upside down, upside down...hehe), pods float in space and gardens grow between the floor structure...interestingly this was actually the roof...in fact with an entry space so fun, who could ever be bothered to climb upstairs to work...

That's all folks for now.. to be continued...!!

where are we up to...in the world of fibre optics...

An optical fiber is made up of its core, (which carries the light pulses), its cladding (which reflects the light pulses back into the core) and its buffer coating (the skin which protects the core and cladding from moisture, damage, etc.). A fibre optic can carry up to 10 million messages at any one time, using light pulses.

Fiber optics is the marriage of applied science and engineering concerning design and application of optic fibers. Optical fibers are widely used in fiber-optic communications permitting transmission of signals over long distances and at much higher bandwidths than other forms of communication. Fibers are used instead of metal wires because signals travel along them with no susceptibility to interference and less loss of signal. Fibers are growingly used for illumination, and are wrapped in bundles so they can be used to carry images, thus allowing viewing in tight spaces.

Fibers are widely used in illumination applications. They are used in medical applications where bright light needs to be shone on a target without a clear line-of-sight path. In some buildings, optical fibers are used to route sunlight from the roof to other parts of the building. Optical fiber illumination is also used for decorative applications, including signage, art, displays and artificial lighting displays.

A piece previously exhibited in MADE Design's cooler in Toronto exhibition is a fibre optic table lamp. The coloured light forms planes that create a proxy lamp within the boundaries of the casing.http://mocoloco.com/archives/010786.php

Optical fiber is an intrinsic part of the light-transmitting concrete building product, LiTraCon. Developed in 2001 by Hungarian architect Aron Losonczi and scientists from the Technical University of Budapest, LiTraCon is 'light transmitting concrete'. Made of fine concrete embedded with 4% (by weight) of optical glass fiber, and can be purchased as large blocks. The most notable installation of it to date is Europe Gate a 4 m high sculpture made of LiTraCon blocks, erected in 2004 in observance of the entry of Hungary into the European Union. The product won the German "Red Dot 2005 Design Award" for 'highest design qualities'. Though expensive, Litracon appeals to architects because it is stronger than glass and translucent unlike concrete.

Optical fiber is now used regularly in everyday products, for novelty lighting, see frisby below, andhas even made its way into fashion. As it is a safe light to touch, with a long lasting lighting life, it has been incorporated into shoes and clothing.

More recently, fiber optic has been used in signage and digital screens, and has made its way into architecture, in the form of large building facades and screen technologies.

In the Shanghai Pavillion below, feautring at the World Expo in Shanghai 2010, the 'Dream Cube' is the result of a collaborative effort between New York-based ESI Design and Chinese firm Atelier FCIZ Architects. The building changes colours based on visitor's movements and incorporates thousands of photos of the building's visiting crowds.

Digital elements were incorporated in the building design from the beginning, rather than being 'tacked on' toward the end of a project, which resulted in a successful, innovative building with its digital technologies an integral part of the experience of visiting this exceptional building.

Within the pavilion, photos submitted by Chinese citizens float in space as part of a multi-layered path through the exhibit. Along the way, fiber optic tubes respond to visitors' waving arms. The trip through this dreamscape ends up in a 360-degree theater, 100 feet in diameter, and surrounded by a 14-foot-high screen. As people gather in the theater they're asked to clap, in a sort of Chinese Tinkerbell moment, which triggers changes in the LED lights on the cube's exterior. People approaching the exhibit will see the whole building change color, in response to visitors inside.

In the words of ESI founder Edwin Schlossberg, in regards to this building, "I like to design something where the story is composed by the people participating in it. It's a sign of where we're going, and we're just beginning that odyssey now."

Drawing inspiration from the present use of fiber optics in architecture, in conjunction with our developed metaphor of the predator/prey analogy, the lion and the zebra, it is integral to represent the skin, or fur, of these animals, in the building's facade. Fiber optics have so far been the most technological and ideal form of representation of this metaphor, through their soft, fibrous nature. It is conceived that thousands of fibre optics might form a digital screen facade, that collectively, shows coloured digital images, to tourists and professionals alike.

artist's impressions of conceptual design

Super Colossal - UTS Broadway Tower

This is an alternative design by Supper Colossal Architects for the UTS Tower in Sydney criticised as being an eye sore in the skyline. This has some resemblance to the direction in which model 1 is headed, the variety of vertical and horizontal space enables diverse use of the spaces and experience.

The UTS Tower is taken, split into four and distributed across the site. The podium space is elevated, linking the new slender towers at multiple points creating large flexible teaching spaces.

Model 1 Developement

Urban Screens: Toward the convergence of architecture and audiovisual media

The high visibility of the Barangaroo site, particularly from the harbour, and the heavily transient population of tourists and professionals that will inhabit the area, make it an ideal location for an exploration of architecture meets audiovisual media, or in present day terms, the 'urban screen'. No longer the domain of advertising companies and their blatant and usually objective billboards, which have brought about the universally recognisable Picadilly Circus, London or Times Square, New York, architects have begun to take an active interest in digital screens and a particularly successful example is given below.

Picadilly Circus

Times Square

As Tore Slattaa writes, "[recent urban screen architecture] ...is analysed as reflecting shifting corporate and cultural ideas about the relations between media and society: a new material and symbolic relation between constructed spaces for symbolic creativity in the global audio visual industry and global urban centres."

She identifies the use of digital screens in the Danmarks Radio (DR) building, a national public broadcasting institution in Copenhagen. In particular, of this very large scale development, the concert hall, a design competition won by French architects Atelier Jean Nouvel.
"Building in emerging neighborhoods is a risk that has often proved fatal in recent years. When there is no built environment upon which to found our work...we have to turn the question around: what qualities can we bring to this future? We can respond positively to an uncertainty by using its most positive attribute, that is, mystery. Mystery is never far from seduction. When the surroundings are too neutral we must create a transition, a distance between them, and us, not as a retreat into ourselves, but as a means to establish conditions that will allow a particular territory to blossom. In other words we need to bring value to the context, whatever it may be. For this we must establish a presence, an identity. I propose to materialise the context by creating an exceptional urban building respecting the planned layout of the site. It will be a volume, a mysterious parallelepiped that changes under the light of day and night whose interior can only be guessed at. At night the volume will come alive with images, colors, and lights expressing the life going on inside. The interior is a world in itself, complex and diversified..." (Jean Nouvel)

Perhaps most compelling about the digital screen in this architecture is that is no longer a visual tool that we simply observe once or twice, but rather it is fully inhabited. The people moving around heighten the visual seduction and the changing projected images provide a complex narrative to the building's use.

Naoshima Ferry Terminal - SANNAA 2003 to 2006 - Kagawa, Japan

Joseph and Lucy were luck enough to go to this terminal while visiting japan in 2008. It is the gateway to Naoshima Island and art precinct that is home to significant traditional japanese inspired modern and Tado Ando architectural marvels, most famously the Naoshima Contemporary Art Museum and the Chicheo Museum. Both these focus on concrete & glass / cave & light.

This ferry terminal is significant because while serving a set function it is an enabling space facilitating free programing when not in use. Furthermore, the structure is allusive, columns are slender and minimal and where required to be larger are incased in mirror; reflecting the surroundings. This details along with the thin quality of the roof suggests a sublime invisibility and defiance of conventional structure.

Week 1 - Preliminary process

The design development of the Barangaroo Tower (Big Red):

Height: 159m

Area: 33,000m2

Our process for the concept and is as follows:

The Manchester law courts have a totally square metre area relative to the proposed square metre area for Big Red. Taking our final most refined explorations from semester 1 we will bring our projects into reality through architectural resolution. Both Lucy and Joseph will work on each other’s best concept models and aim to incorporate the design elements of which are best suited to the two unique forms.

Model 1 – predominantly a horizontal skyscraper this form will incorporate a digital billboard and ground level free-programming events space.

Model 2 – a skyscraper dominated by a lattice form will incorporate an extension of the monorail and ferry terminal.

These two individual models will work simultaneously in creating a design solution that will emphasise the idea of destination along with facilitating business as usual, thus fusing the attractions of both the professional and tourist as one. This building will explore the two critical elements that create a successful destination, being; transport & venue while creating unique habitable spaces for regular patrons.

AIA Tusculum - Barangaroo 13 July 2010

The Tusculum covered the most recent release of the Barangaroo precinct and opened a forum of discussion amongst the Architectural community, the two topics that were reoccurring where the inefficient involvement of the government and the proposed bulk of the proposed design. The articles below discuss these issues within the media:

http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/keating-the-new-bandmaster-leading-our-mini-manhattan-20100224-p3dw.html

Government involvement overseeing the development of Barangaroo has been criticised for not achieving a satisfactory outcome when grappling with an architectural development of this magnitude:

‘In architecture there is a crucial distinction to be drawn between process and product. Unlike law, where process is product, or medicine, where a bad process will lead almost inevitably to a bad outcome, architecture can have the shoddiest of processes and still produce brilliance.

Conversely, you can have every box ticked, every rule obeyed, every committee minuted and still produce unutterable crud. Architecture is a by-hook-and-by-crook kind of game, where the end must justify the means. Or not.’

http://www.walkingmelbourne.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=4711

‘This (current site) undeveloped section of Sydney's harbour foreshore is a 22 hectare concrete slab that used to be a car park. It juts out towards the water from the edge of the CBD.

Those that do stop to talk to The World Today aren't sure of the scale or details of the development proposals. But they all say they want part of the site left open to the public.’

Great contrvercy lies in the comparison between the existing plans, the perception of the public being over developed and the requirements of the city. What has not been evidenced in the debate is the data that the floor areas has been generated from and the effects that a development of this bulk might have on the city beyond the appearance.

Barangaroo - South Commercial Precinct

Revised commercial precinct (reduced number of buildings and building heights, revised island tower hotel design)

Commercial precinct viewed from Darling Harbour showing proposed new hotel tower

Commercial hub and external public waterfront and walkway, with the hotel island at the right hand side of the view

Public esplanade with low-rise mixed use development and greenery at its edge, and the business district visible behind, providing a more human scale to the public space

The revised south commercial precinct design favours reduced building heights and visual scale across the business district, combating some of the criticism the earlier submission received. A new tower design on a reduced, less prominent island footprint, perches above the public level, somewhat less obtrusively than the previous proposed island tower. Its height has also been reduced from 213 metres to 159 metres.

In the financial hub, the number of commercial towers has been reduced from 4 to 3, and the public pier reduced from 150 metres to 85 metres in length. The precinct's cultural building has been redesigned and shifted to the northern park to allow a public waterfront.

Whilst the scheme is still far from its final design, the precinct including its landscaped parks are conceptually beginning to take shape and public interest is growing. The latest proposal was submitted to the NSW Department of Planning in July, after a six month consultation period with the public and the business sector. Building work has begun at the very southern end of the site, and plans are in place to begin cleaning up the contamination of the site, from its previous use as gasworks.

Further information can be found at;

http://www.australiandesignreview.com/news/17309-Lend-Lease-downsizes-Barangaroo-plans

http://www.barangaroosouth.com.au/

In terms of our design process, we will spend our final university semester utilising our previous semester of experimental research into new building typologies and meaningful form for this site; contemporary digital design grounded in a theoretical architectural context. We hope to propose a new tower and precinct design that invigorates Sydney and challenges pre-conceived ideas of what this precinct, and present-day urban design should include. We hope that you watch this site closely for design updates and we are very enthusiastic to be arriving at the exciting 'design' component of our final year architectural course.