My journey through 4b

At the beginning of this unit there was confusion in all the groups, nobody knew what was going to be presented to the next tutorial and what the design challenge was. Me, Regina and Andrew started to analyse the site and started to plan on how we wanted to present it. Andrew entered deeply into the layouts of the analysis and me and Regina started to develop a master plan.

Master plan No. 1

Inspiration: A Swedish “outside shopping mall” that has a glassed roof above the shopping street.

On the presentation we got critics on cutting of traffic from Brougham street, nevertheless the entire
group agreed on that the traffic was a problem to get a solidarity between the school.

Our group got two new group members, Anna and James; they had similar idea to ours. They were intended of having a “spine” that go though the old train track and became a connect link between the school, which we tried to develop. As a group we also created spaces were people from the University and public people interact with each other such as library, shops, gallery, backpacker, cafés etc, those kinds of spaces we named “bleeding spaces”. In our new master plan we still kept the library that linked every school together.

Master plan No. 2
We tried to keep the natural path ways that take the public to the campus area; due to the pathways we created entrances/courtyards. There is lack of traffic lights on the original site, so by placing lights on the north and western side it facilitate the walk ability for the public to get to campus.

After the groups presented their master plan it got decided that the master plan Rick, Collie, George and Christine presented was the plan everyone were going to design from. Although our group became “the bleeding group” that was going to design and solved the spaces were public
and university people cooperate, which was our main idea. We also had to solved the bender.

At this point we as group felt confused and did not know what our main task were what we were supposed to resolve and design. Therefore we put most of our focus on resolving the bender, because some parts were lacking. The bender needed to be at least 5 meter above from the normal street level, which makes the bended 10.7 meter above the ocean level on the crossroad between Brougham Street and Clare/Cunnigham Street, this action will give all the cars and truck the opportunity to pass by and it also release parts of the exhaust from the cars. To release more of the exhauster and to bring light into the tunnel we created voids on the bender, and that also creates path-ways for the walkers.

Another problem we tried to resolve was how we were going to design the ramp from Brougham Street up the bender. We soon realized that it could not be possible to create a 70 meter long ramp, so we designed a stair that have a sculpture form and involved the bender.

We divided different parts of the bender and everyone got a building/site to design. My site is where the courtyard ends of the present waterfront campus and the suggestion is to build a courtyard with a spiritual centre.

I started to some research on spiritual centres and churches. After doing some research I found a church that I got very inspired of; the Italian Jubilee church by Richard Meier.

I wanted to create a space that did not have specific religious trademark and hade a simple design. Material such as concrete, stone and glass are as well very simple and easily get in contacted with. The circle shape symbolized a reunited circle, some kind of reincarnation. I wanted to get a lot of light into the building so therefore the building has an open, round skylight. The building was placed in the middle because I wanted to get a focus and that is also the reason why parts of the bender continue into the courtyard and building.

Digital picture and a section of the spiritual centre

After focusing on the spiritual centre I realized that the area around the spiritual centre needed a lot of work. Tucker pointed out why I had the building in the middle of the site, it acquires big space and it left corners of the courtyard that are difficult to develop good urban spaces. So I did some sun studies on the site, research on the elements that were placed there and I could take use of. I did as well research on landscape architecture and how people fallow different paths.

The DDI:

It have four entrances which create clear axis through the building and different pathways. The dome gives shelter for the rain and wind, as well as it gives reflected light inside the building. On the south-east side of the Zen garden there is a view point were you ca se the bay.

People can be connected to the courtyard by five different entrances. The different paths on the area make people choose a direction which brings theme to diverse meeting points, such as the winter garden, the Zen garden, the spiritual centre and fountains.

The inspiration comes from Japanese gardens were the mixture of soft greenery and hard stone gives an excited collaboration.

The furniture:

Inspiration Link to my building

I wanted make a furniture with two function, so therefore it became a light and a table.

Refine: Just because I have worked digital the entire time I decided to make a model, to see if the reflected lighting would work. The pictures show the result of the model:

Summery: This unit been a good fun to do, it requires a lot of work but in the end I have learn a lot and I am satisfy with my development and how everything turn out. Some points of the unit were confusing, i.e. when our group did not really knew what we were going to present to the master plan presentation, but it worked out.

I appreciated the smaller group work, it help me to understand more how things worked here at Deakin University, so thanks to Regina, Andrew, James and Anna. Thanks everyone else and good luck with every thing. (If anyone is coming to Sweden, here’s my email address: bb06pqpa@jth.hj.se)