Final Hand In for ARCHDES 101

Here are the final 12 pages I handed in. Please note that any gaps here show up as video files on the actual .pdf file- unfortunately they don't show up here. Basically we were supposed to show the projects we have worked on throughout the semester as well as giving a sense of our experience whilst working on these projects, which were completed together with my team mates, Andy and Manu :)

Plaster Casting Workshop

Here are images from the plaster casting workshop I attended. Working together with Karen from Morphix Design, I created a yin and yan symbol. This was great practice for design work.

City Plant Room Matrix

The City Hotel Matrix

Crit presentation writing: part 1, our concept and the journey

Our hotels act as an escape. Just like Holloway wishes to escape the Garden city in J.B. Ballard's Ultimate City, our hotels are a way for people to escape their day to day lives. Those who live in the city might see Auckland as a dystopia. Crowds of people make it impossible to move. Pollution permeates the landscape, asphyxiating it. Therefore, they might want to escape to what they view as an island utopia, an open space, free of congestion. On the other hand, island dwellers might see Waiheke as boring, and too open. They might feel the allure of the bright lights and excitement of the city, and find the fact that everyone knows their neighbour- and everything about their neighbour suffocating. Hence, they may wish to escape to the city, a place they view as a utopia.

In order to reach our dualistic sites, travellers must undertake a journey. A last barrier before reaching our utopian hotels. To do this, we have developed two vehicles to carry our travellers between Auckland harbour and Waiheke Island: a giant lantern, and a cable car. The jellyfish lantern is a way for the traveller to experience everything. Belted securely onto the lanterns tails, the traveller can not only fully see the journey they are undertaking, but also experience it. They will feel themselves moving in the wind and feel rain or sunshine on their faces. Whilst the Jellyfish lantern might be beautiful to look at from afar, it may be rather uncomfortable for the traveller. This is supposed to cause them to question their perceptions of utopias and dystopias: those travelling to Waiheke wished for open air, yet perhaps this is a bit too open. Those travelling to the city wished for excitement, yet the adrenaline rush accompanying the journey by lantern may be a bit much.

Similarly, the cable car is also a difficult way to travel. It is manually operated by pulling on two ropes which extend through the central pod and past two pulleys, which are the only aids the traveller has in making the movement of the cable car simpler. One must really want to escape to travel by cable car. Since traveling via cable car could take a long time, the cable car has stopping points at various islands along the way, and is also equipped with the bare necessities: food and water, and hammocks for sleeping in. This however, makes communal living within the pod the only option, and there is no privacy.

Therefore, by the time the travellers have actually reached our hotels, their concepts of what is utopian and what is dystopian may have been questioned.

Waiheke Plant Room Ponds

Our Waiheke plant room sits between the two parts of our hotel, and acts as a reception. As the initial point of contact for travellers with the hotel, it is also an initial space for them to take off their bags and relax. After the arduous journey to reach the hotels travellers are able to stick their feet into the pool below the Waiheke Plant room, and relax.

Times Square

The screens on the sides of the City hotel create a Times Square effect. In the space between the three 'towers' of the hotel, all the occupants can meet, creating a crowd experience in the centre of the hotel. Here the bright lights of the billboards and the noise of the other occupants is overwhelming, and very much city like.

The Mesh

Our city hotel (read about it on http://studiolimarchitecture.blogspot.co.nz) is enclosed by a very jagged appearing mesh. This is also useable space, yet since the mesh is so abstract, it becomes a kind of luck of the draw as to how much useable space you will get with your room.

Waiheke Hotel Matrix

Site Plans

Here are the site plans of our hotels, at 1:500.

Plant room and Honeycomb Stair Section

I added the honeycomb stairs to my remake of the plant room section.

Diagrams

In our most recent history lecture, we were shown some diagrams which Richard Meier is fond of drawing in order to explain his ideas. I'm sure that at this moment the whole class simultaneously thought 'our matrices!' because these look like exactly the sort of thing we're supposed to do. Hopefully having seen these will make my next matrix even better, since I have been quite unsure about them previously and we're getting so close to the end now!

Ladders

We considered having ladders leading up to our pods, adding a climbing element into our 'forest' of columns, but decided to develop some sort of circular stair/ ramp system instead as this would be more sophisticated.

Draft Review of ArchiBJZ

For their final workshop, ArchiBJZ had very little to show us. This was due to the fact that they had been concentrating more on work for another class. However, there were some very interesting moments in the two plant room models they did display.

Their city plant room juxtaposed an exquisite curving façade with a more rigid, triangulated enclosure. The model was not quite complete, with their connection methods not yet fully realised, but on the curving side they had rather elegant slender columns running through their curved mass. The pieces which made up this curving mass were numerous, laser cut from a mesh model. They decided that plants would either grow on the mesh or within it, and that the mass of this over all object also allowed it to be inhabited by humans, and are working on developing the mesh interiors as stairs, a concept we found quite original.

On the other hand, the enclosure on the other side of their city plant room was intended to contrast with the calming, curving mass, and act as a more hostile space. Small triangular pieces of semi transparent plastic were stuck together to form an enclosure. Originally, ArchiBJZ were intending on having these pieces laser cut as well, however they decided that they liked the opacity of their final material, as it would let in sunlight, vital for plant life, as well as cause a greater contrast between the more solid curving mass. We believe that this was quite a good decision and that the difference between both sides was more clear due to their decision. This side of their model was not yet fully complete complete, however, with their connection methods lacking in intricacy. Currently they are just stuck together with blu-tac, however ArchiBJZ informed us that they do intend to come up with a more elegant solution: drilling tiny holes into the sides of the plastic pieces and hence connecting them.

Similarly, ArchiBJZ's Waiheke plant room was also incomplete. They did, however, have a very interesting concept for what they finally wished it to be. Inspired by the 2011 Serpentine Gallery, ArchiBJZ had part of their plant room going underground. They wished to create a very interesting spatial experience on the interior through the use of light. The Waiheke plant room was constructed of multitudes of laser cut circles, all slightly moved to the side. This meant that the roof would be fully covered and that light would be able to filter through the gaps. They also intended this to give the building an over all sense of movement, with the sliding of the circles. The connection methods of this model are currently very poor, as these rings were held together with masking tape. However, ArchiBJZ did have the interesting idea of holding the rings together with one solid element to one side, which would create an undulating, curving wall. We hope to be able to see this when complete as this sounds like quite a sophisticated solution.

Both plant rooms had a strong relation to their respective hotels. Their city plant room was intended to be placed between two parts of their hotel components, acting as a bridge between them. Their Waiheke plant room actually was the hotel, with only the top few levels being occupied by plants. Over all, we believe that ArchiBJZ have some very interesting ideas and lots of potential, however they will really have to sit down and work in order to fully realise these before our final deadline in one week. We look forward to see what they produce.

The Organic Façade Matrix

I prefer my Honeycomb matrix to this one, to be honest. However unfortunately, after having had my laptop running non-stop with large programs for at least the last 6 days (...it could have been longer, to be honest... ^^; I'm a bit mean to my laptop.) CAD decided to stop responding just as I wanted to do this! D: But still, it turned out OK I think anyway... well we'll see, I may decide to redo it.