5 Individuals - Gathering Brief

With a conversation in our studio time on Wednesday on who we were allowed to choose for our 5 individuals, we were told that in essence any profession was possible (without the doubling up of them) and preferentially the professions of the individuals should be things that you think would benefit the collective group and your architectural start-up business.

During studio time I thought about the different types of media, computer, engineering and building roles associated with architecture and construction, with the start-up business in fact being a collaborate architectural office/studio, the premise needs to provide space enough for all of them to work and store their things. My ideas for the 5 individuals were:

1. Architect - myself, and the designer of the building and associated spaces. I will have to incorporate my ideas from my last projects in with the Carpenter Centre building from the Harvard University Campus in the US by Le Corbusier within my premise as specified in the 'Gathering Brief'
2. Artist in Residence - brings an aesthetic and creative feel to the office and happens to be the colleague who won the European lottery and is bringing the Le Corbusier building (their favourite).
3. Engineer - an essential need for every architect is collaboration on designs and structures with an engineer and therefore it would be very beneficial in the area.
4. Carpenter - Working on the idea of the Le Corbusier building influence and its name, the 'Carpenter Centre', I thought that a building/furniture designer (carpenter) would be an interesting idea and would allow the use of more workshop rather than office orientated spaces within the building, while still maintaining that collaborative building orientated scheme.
5. For my last person I am still quite in deliberation. For now I have decided to go with a Film maker/photographer, mainly as this is useful in terms of the media representation of future architectural projects but also as photographers tend to take pictures of the city and of our society, influential things when exploring how building in general work with social circumstances and different social areas. I am quite moot on this as I would like to perhaps include a different profession within this that would pose more of a challenge, especially when one of my aims to do with gathering is provide a mixed use typology that will aim to meet the needs of the 5 individuals, and in a sense I don't want to make it too easy in terms of creating a solely construction orientated environment. Other ideas include:

• Dentist
• Doctor
• Lawyer
• Psychologist
• Veterinarian
• Pharmacist
• Accountant

These different individuals, although potentially challenging to fit into the general construction grouping of the other 4 individuals in my opinion could create a better fusion of architecture through the need of providing for the extremely differing functions of lets say an architect and a dentist. In essence, it all depends on how complex or interesting I would like to make it.

Site Placement

Deciding on where to place my proposed startup architectural business with my four colleagues, I first wanted to address the idea for this week, "gathering". Gathering can either be used as a verb or a noun with the current definitions being allocated for both.

gath·er·ing

   [gath-er-ing] Show IPA

noun

1.

an assembly or meeting.

2.

an assemblage of people; group or crowd.

3.

a collection, assemblage, or compilation of anything.

4.

the act of a person or thing that gathers.

5.

something that is gathered together.

gath·er

   [gath-er] Show IPA

verb (used with object)

1.

to bring together into one group, collection, or place: togather firewood; to gather the troops.

2.

to bring together or assemble from various places,sources, or people; collect gradually: The college isgathering a faculty from all over the country.

3.

to serve as a center of attention for; attract: A goodfootball game always gathers a crowd.

4.

to pick or harvest (any crop or natural yield) from its placeof growth or formation: to gather fruit; to gather flowers.

5.

to pick up piece by piece: Gather your toys from the floor.

From this my personal response and wish for the representation of gathering in conjunction with my brief is the idea of a gathering of individuals, of professions in this start-up business with my four colonies. As explored in our readings this week, preferentially my idea would be to turn an area of the informal city into formal city through the aesthetics and functions of a well designed architectural building, while in creating a multi-purpose building I should look at some of the building typologies needed for such a mixed-use space.

Above: The site I have chosen is a land island surrounded the 'The Strand', Parnell Rise, Shipwright Ln and on the Parnell Rise side an elevated railway bridge. My reason for choosing this site is its currently limited use as a parking area, with the possible of this function being retained through the creation of a parking area on the bottom or basement floors and the building of the structure on top. The area is in an "informal" part of Parnell and would aid in transforming this area to a formal area through a form of urban acupuncture as it were with the revitalization and rejuvenation of the building area with with a new aesthetic and functional structure. The area is also within the cross-roads of the city and the influential areas of Parnell, the CBD, Grafton along with the Auckland Domain providing exercise and leisure all being in a useful ten minute radius as species in the 'Gathering Brief'. With this being just a conceptual placement for now and not definitive, the next step would to be to create a map, identifying the services needed by my four individuals and find a common area where within the 10 minute walk radius these can definitely be adhered to.