Scuplt(it), Live/Work

Catherine has provided a link to a home and office in Antwerp. Building is 2.4m wide x 5.5m deep x 12m high

Also at Archinect

Tower House by Atelier Bow-Wow

link to an interview with Yoshiharu Tsukamoto of Atelier Bow Wow. All their work is worth looking at, the Tower House (image below) especially so.

Herzog de Meuron in Miami

Trust you've all seen Herzog de Meuron's carpark in Miami. It includes some retail and, I think, an office.

Nelson Garrido has had some photographs published at Dezeen and Archdaily.

Project website is here.

The image below shows why your slab soffits and the oblique view down Sussex St are important considerations for your designs.

Note from Natalie Brcar (Part 2)

Natalie goes on to say:
.... and then there is a really nice project for facade idea. There were a couple of facade that were using 'blades' vertically or horizontally - I thought it might be nice to think of opportunities in different materials, in particular in this case being mirror/glass which refracts the light beautifully. There was a student (towards the end) where he had a facade based on the Surry Hills library and maybe he can think of his facade as the 'gem' of his design. ?!

This project, the Rainbow Church by Tokujin Yoshioka, can be seen at Dezeen

Note from Natalie Brcar (Part 1)

Natalie Brcar (another one of your jurors - again said just in case I didn't introduce you properly) has sent me the following note:

Phillip,

It was lovely to be a part of your design studio and see the design projects.

I have a few images that I thought may (or may not : ) be of use to some of your students.

I noticed a common thread in all projects, and that is how to address quality of 'space' and designing useable living spaces with small floor plates as a result of a small site and circulation constraints. It would be good to see the projects develop now from last nights concept ideas for form and circulation and turn these into useable, quirky and lovely spaces that grab any opportunity for daylight and ventilation. Find attached images of the Mineral House Project in Tokyo by Yasuhiro Yamashita - each use is on a separate floor and highlights that you actually don't need a lot of space for living and can be just clever joinery deign and detail.

.... [note continues]


Here are the links to the projects Natalie suggested (and below that one image of each project):

Mineral House Project in Tokyo by Yasuhiro Yamashita
MuSh Residence by Studio 0.10 Architects
House in Minamimachi by Suppose Design Office

56 Leonard - HdeM

A few of you have mentioned this project, so I presume most of you know it. If you don't, have a look at the site and the movie below (what a shame the building won't be actually constructed as shown in the movie :)

56 Leonard Website

A lovely project from Tehran

A gorgeous idea for a facade system by Arsh Design Group.

Link to project at Archdaily

Zaha

Personally not that big a fan of Zaha Hadid's, but I do like the Rosenthal Centre for Contemporary Art in Cincinnati (image below) and think many of you may find it useful.

(Kim, have a look at the way the circulation is organized)

Also, have a look at the recently completed MAXXI Museum in Rome. Good photos at Iwan Baan's site.

Note from Mark Gazy

Howdee people,

Trust you all had an enjoyable afternoon yesterday.

Mark Gazy (one of your jurors - in case I didn't introduce you properly) has sent me the following note:

Phillip, Thanks for the invite yesterday.

The dutch architects I was think of yesterday was http://www.neutelings-riedijk.com. They won a competition for the Museum Aan De Stroom in Antwerp, Netherlands. Images on their website aren't great [one image below - PA] but sure they can do there own search.

Anther project which might help some students is by Van Gameron Mastenbroek - Tea Pavilion in National Park Veluwe Zoom, Rheden, Netherlands. I think the company has split but this is a link I found http://www.zavodbig.com/2009/03/13/bjarne-mastenbroek-search-bv-netherlands/ Mastenbroek was a young gun that used to work for OMA.

Any chance to be a part of the final crit, would like to see how some of the scheme turn out?

Mark


Presentations Wednesday

When you are thinking about how to set out your presentation for Wednesday, follow the following principles:

• Am I meeting the submission requirements?
• Am I excited about my work (not "is this what my tutor wants")
• What is the clearest way of presenting my ideas?
• Am I presenting my ideas to their greatest advantage?

Using Miriam's scheme as an example, one of her ideas was for series of drawers cantilevered off a post. Each drawer contains a different part of the programme. The sides and base of each drawer are opaque or translucent and the drawers are spaced to allow roof light to what is effectively courtyard space. The space between each drawer therefore becomes critical.

A presentation of this idea might include:

• A diagrammatic section showing how each space is lit and ventilated.
• Another diagram showing the cantilever and the space between "drawers"
• Layouts showing that the programme can be achieved with large spaces between "drawers"
• Ideas for transparencies in the "drawers"
• Ways of distributing the programme
• Hierarchy of heights between "drawers"
• A perspective taken from the angle of a Sussex St pedestrian or motorist showing the appearance of the soffits and ideas on how these will be treated (material, lighting, texture, colour.
• Precedents that have inspired this solution (these might include the Wall-less House and/or the Balcony House by Tezuka Architects, the lit soffit of David Adjaye's Dirty House (below), the translucency of Zumthor's Kolumba Museum in Cologne (below), sculpture by Donald Judd and installations by James Turrell (in separate Post below).

Finally, if you believe (like Miriam) that converging ideas might dilute the strength of one idea, make that argument (well). The techniques you have been shown (Joanne's convergence idea for example) are only useful to the extent they are useful. When they cease being useful ideas, stop using them.



Streets in the Sky

What I am about to write is a massive simplification of a big issue. Nuance will be lost.

Streets in the Sky was an idea of reconstructing streets away from the noise, pollution and conflict of the vehicular street. It was recognized that streets are more than merely spaces for vehicles (an idea many motorists in Sydney would not agree with), but are also public spaces for social interaction. Assuming that vehicular traffic is a hinderance to social interaction - why not rebuild the street in the fresh air above the old, polluted, congested streets?

Corbusier's Unité d'Habitation projects have a shopping street midway up the building and a garden (and childcare centre?) on the roof. These are the earliest examples of this idea I can think of.

A number of housing projects were constructed in post-war Britain using this idea. A quick googlesearch will reveal alot of information (some dodgy, so use judgement). Projects included Park Hill in Sheffield and Robin Hood Gardens in London. The latter was by Alison and Peter Smithson whose Golden Lane Project is illustrated below.

In these projects apartments were accessed by open corridors down running the side of the building. Each corridor would often provide access to 3 levels of apartments, inspired by the organization strategy of Corbusier's Unité d'Habitation projects.

Ideally, these corridors would be well lit, well ventilated and wide enough that they would function as footpaths, front yards, play areas and social spaces.

They often did not work quite like this, becoming spaces for anti-social behavior (see almost any episode of The Bill).

They have been much criticized in the last 30 years.

Edna Walling

Late in the day on Wednesday (when discussing Catherine's scheme), I mentioned the wonderful Australian landscape designer Edna Walling.

The ABC has a nice site devoted to her that includes the following quote:

The little potatoes had been widely thrown from a bucket (by me) and the gardener told to plant a birch wherever he found one - even if sometimes two or even three were almost touching. ...Sure enough when returning to see later, the perfectly straight rows of silver birches, each meticulously spaced.


The context of the quote on the site relates to the difficulty that some (many?) men had in taking an instruction from a woman, but I like it for a different reasons: the difficulty of designing a random layout; the use of chance operations in design; and (not from this anecdote) the application of judgement.

My recollection is that Walling would often use potatoes thrown from a bucket to locate trees to achieve a random (naturalistic) arrangement. It is extremely difficult as designers to place things in a random way - one often finds the result contrived unless a chance operation is employed. What I like in my recollection of the expanded anecdote is that Walling would also use judgement - if she was not happy with the layout resulting from this operation she will quite happily throw the potatoes again.

Valerio Olgiati 2

Valerio Olgiati's Atelier Bardill has just landed at Archdaily.
Worth a look.

Achille Castiglioni 2

Another chair by the Castiglioni brothers (Achille and Pier Giacomo) mentioned in the lecture yesterday.

Valerio Olgiati

I mentioned Valerio Olgiati to Jordan and others yesterday.

His work is really good, his books are really expensive, but he used to have a little downloadable booklet of his work on his website. It isn't there anymore, but I can email a copy (its very small, c1.6Mb) to whomever puts their email address in the comments below. If you put your email address below and your in-box is full and my email bounces, I will be cross.

Jorge Oteiza

Jorge Oteiza is another artist I mentioned yesterday

Link to Google Image search for Jorge Oteiza

James Turrell

James Turrell is one of the artists I mentioned yesterday.

Link to Flickr photos tagged jamesturrell

NL Architects - TPAC Proposal

Celeste has provided a link to NL Architects proposal for the Taipai Performing Arts Centre