Working With The Sun

Leading from my last post about bringing people into the city to live, I began thinking about the idea of linking commercial and residential via the retail section. So to do this I began playing around with just box shape forms to play around with the sun and the location of 'buildings' at this stage.

Test 1 - NORTH POINTING STRAIGHT UP: Just testing building position and location on the site. In terms of sun pattern and shading, this is not to bad however one of the buildings happens to shade the other in the early morning. Not ideal

Test 2 - NORTH POINTING STRAIGHT UP: Just testing building position and location on the site. As with the previous discovery, one of the buildings happens to shade the other in the early morning. Obviously this does not happen everywhere in Brisbane City, however I have an opportunity here to avoid this from happening on this site.

Test 3 - NORTH POINTING STRAIGHT UP: Just testing building position and location on the site. I manipulated the shape of the building a little bit and repositioned them in different locations. Again the early morning is not ideal because one of the buildings is in complete shade.

Test 4 - NORTH POINTING STRAIGHT UP: Just testing building position and location on the site. I rotated the buildings to face true north and just off true north respectively. This will ultimately provide passive design solutions. However this still has an issue with the morning sun!

Test 5 - NORTH POINTING STRAIGHT UP: Just testing building position and location on the site. The final test I conducted actually achieved everything which I was hoping for. These are not the actual building form but it gives me a start with the locations and positions of the buildings which need to be designed.

Bringing People To The City

When I started thinking about bringing people into the city to live, it reminded me of my experience with New York. New York is a city where everyone lives & works essentially. One thing that stuck in my mind about this particular city was the effect of such dense living on the surrounding environment. Because each building is shoulder to shoulder, each street is like a wind tunnel. It has no where to go apart from straight down the street.

In addition to this, the sheer height of the buildings and lack of separation also provide an issue with regards to natural light and the sun movement.

A very shaded city outside of the hours of 10am-2pm

With this in mind, I began thinking about spatial planning of the site. Do I do one big building? Do I split it into different elements? Can I spread the elements out over the site? I started sketching possible solutions which involved RETAIL, COMMERCIAL & RESIDENTIAL and trying to see how they fit together. I believe that the commercial and residential element should not directly connect with each other.

Commercial and Residential should not have a direct relationship. However they could be joined by retail and hospitality.

An idea of letting retail be the connecting link between residential and commercial. However as one building I am struggling to allow for the sun and keeping each of the spaces bright with natural light as well as limit the effect of the surrounding buildings.

Future Users

Brisbane City Council research shows that South East Queensland population will grow by an estimated 1.3 million between the year 2011 and 2031. With that in mind, I think it is a good idea to reduce the rate of urban sprawl and make living in the city far more viable for families and Brisbane people. 

This weeks tutorial we were thinking about characters and different scenarios those characters might require when occupying that site. What I chose to do was to select a 30 year old female (Jane) who is married with a child. She also works full time.

If in my scenario I was designing a residential apartment (meaning that Jane would be living in the city now) I did a brainstorm of all the different things she or her family would require in normal day to day living. Not all of these may specifically apply to her, but also her family and any interests they may have. The list of things inclue;

* WORK
* GROCERY SHOPPING
* COFFEE SHOPS
* GYM
* RETAIL SHOPS
* MEDICAL
* SPORT FACILITIES
* EDUCATION
* PLAYGROUND/PARK

[Week 9] Lecture 8

Once again in this lecture it was recapped that Architecture cannot be viewed as just an entity or structure sitting within a space, it is more than just that. It establishes itself as a device for the surrounding community and specific users of the space. There are two main purposes which architecture should address;

Protection - from rain, sun, wind and also social interactions (giving privacy)
Opportunity - opportunity for activation and functionality of the space

It is interesting that this is brought up again. Whilst in theory architecture should adapt and link with neighbouring sites, reality is what makes this difficult. The reality of this is developers have money to spend on what they require or what they want. If it is going to benefit them in the short term or long term they will most likely go ahead with it, as long as it is viable. However more often than not by going outside of the requirements of the developer, it usually ends up costing more than if it were just left out or not considered. In the cycle of the world, 20 years is a short time but for a developer 20 years is an eternity. They are not required to think to far ahead which is where architecture always clashes heads with reality.

What to do with the Myer Centre!?

By designing a multi-use facility for the myer centre location, before I decide how/what I will do with the existing MYER centre,  I think it is more beneficial for me to actually work out what kinds of things I want to address with this space. If we are going to bring more people into the CBD to live then they require all of their usual facilities. Food, transport, work etc... 

*Residential Apartments
*Commercial Office Space
*City Link Transport System
*Retail
*Restaurants & Cafes

These are the main areas which I think need addressing if the MYER centre is going to be the main target. 

From the book "Everyone Eats - Understanding Food & Culture" by E. N. Anderson it talks about food being apart of culture. Obviously we already know this but digging deeper into this food also evolves around peoples daily lives. As people become busier and busier, preparing food is becoming a much more time consuming daily chore for most people. New York City is such a dense mode of living and most people live extremely busy lives. In conjunction with that, the general culture is to eat out at small eateries on more than regular occasions.

With the Brisbane culture progressively becoming busier and busier, this concept of people eating out regularly needs to be considered in this design.

Discovering potential monorail lines around the city

Urban street section (Elizabeth Street)

Lecture 8

The Site

Given the option to pretty much choose a site anywhere within Queen St, I think the best area to have a look at is the current MYER centre. To me, it includes a lot of necessary facilities such as eateries, retail and transport so in its own right it is a multi-use facility however I think the actual building itself is not friendly for the users.

However this site does propose a range of pros and cons. Does it get knocked down? Does it get retrofitted? Does additions get added on top? This building has been around for over 20 years now, so does that mean it is apart of Brisbane's identity? What is Brisbane's identity? Is there a point in time when their needs to be a rollover of new vs old. In with the new and out with the old. It is a very grey area because the location is such a prime spot in Brisbane city and provides an enormity of opportunity. With that being said there is also the issue of funding and the concern of sustainability with just ripping the building down because in its own right that can be sustainable because the actual use of the site is fresh and facilitates a longer procurement for future users.

Out with the old, in with the new!

• The building has no real identity link to Brisbane other than its function
• The building basically has no relationship with Elizabeth street and basically ignores and shuts off any activity which ocurrs on that side. 
• With technology, retail in 10-20 years time will be far different with the rapid growth of online shopping.

'Architecture should speak of its time and place, but yearn for timelessness'  

                                                                                                                       Frank Gehry

On the Queen St side, there are some heritage facades which I feel are more prominent and add to the idenetity of Brisbane. This is due to the whole street being covered with these old facades.

Week 7 Tutorial

This week our group for the first assignment sat down with DaVor and went through our previous project. We threw around a lot of ideas in regards to mixed use and the Brisbane CBD and at the moment I am looking at designing a some sort of residential hub within the city. To what extent..? I'm not sure but I wouldn' t mind exploring the different opportunities.

Pepper Towers, Gold Coast

Out of the many different issues which we identified in our first assignment. There are 3 main ones which I would like to look at and cater for.

1. Reduce the rate of urban sprawl and start attracting people to live in the city.
2. Reduce the car intake in and around the city by introducing a new mode of transport.
3. Multi use facilities                                    

Week 7 Lecture

Architecture fiction in the year 2020...

What really gets me about this assignment is, the purpose of architecture will always remain the same. Whether the year 2012 or 2050. They are all about catering facilities for the end users. Light and temperature and smell and feel can only change so much in that time. The greatest factor which changes architecture in terms of a futuristic environment is technology. As technology advances some of the most pronounced architectural statements have been presented. Dubai is a great example of this with buildings constantly rotating around a central core. Obviously budget is another HUGE factor which is considered when designing.

Yasu mentioned that whilst this is a fictional assignment, there still needs to be a level of realism involved. Everyones interpretation of real and fake are very different. From my perspective in a short period of thinking about this, I see this project as using current architecture but manipulating form and techniques to cater for 'future' scenarios and issues.