A Few Models

In thinking about how the light chimneys would cut my block main office and public space building forms I created a wooden model that would aim to just play around with some of the ideas of angulation of the light chimneys to certain spaces and even to an extent the transformation of the accepted block forms themselves.
By stacking the block forms at different levels and playing around with light chimneys of different angles and lengths there is a lot that seems quite monumental and quite industrial with the associated use of concrete chimneys cutting brick square buildings.
Further play around with the use of converging light chimneys on a certain point within the different spaces and the fact that I don't want to have all the chimneys orientated so that within the space one can see through each one outside. Although this could be interesting, at a certain level it is also selfish in that all commuters must stand in this one spot and look out which could cause crowding along this internal convergence point. By spreading the lookout points within the interior spaces and changing the associated light chimney angles a lot more people can appreciate the gift of sight and views of the city that is presented to them.
Above and Below: I created a small model of how my staggered brick facades would meet the glass interior of the office and train stop spaces within. The idea would be of creating a staggered brick facade and by the use of brick ties or similar attaching that facade to an interior wooden frame form that would support the building while also by use of aluminium attachments and silicon hold the glass in place as a second protruding skin on the inside of the brick facade. In my model I used a stiff cardboard for my wooden framing, tracing paper for my glass and and thinner stiff cardboard for the creating my staggered brick facade.

Thinking About My Facade and Light Chimneys

Another addition to the outer brick facade of my main building blocks is the use of airport/train station panels scattered across the facade of the building with a line of panels associated with a specific train and addition time being put at a specific place on the outside of the buildings. This way a person who catches a certain train has only to look at certain line of panels at a designated constant place on the facades to know when their next train is coming. By the different train panel lines being placed at different points along the side over time it stop congestion of people waiting in big groups looking at the boards offering a greater through fare of people once they learn where their train time is positioned, as well as further offering facade interest and integration.
Concentrating more on how my building would be clad, I considered a number of what I would consider junkstyle modern materials: corrugated iron, brick, wood and glass (either broken/fragmented or whole). My idea consisted around my general office form being made from a number of quite monumental square brick building spaces, with the brick facades looking quite war torn with bricks punched out from the facade to allow viewing from the inside office spaces and with the corners grazed for larger areas of viewing as well. Other additions would be purely aesthetic with potential addition of window barricades or corrugated iron shutters that although functional in keeping out the elements could be done in a much more functional way, although in this light being able to express my junkstyle modernist ideals. The inside of the spaces while for this task not important too much for me (as I will be concentrating more on the exterior of the building (ie. the glass and bricks coming together)0 will be covered in gib board and the glass areas to provide a very functional modernist interior that will aim to make the inside not so cluttered and contrast the complexity of the building outside. In essence the junkstyle movement aims to retrofit an old derelict building to an interior modern standard while keeping the industrial outside feeling quite alive and emphasized.
Above: An exploration of what I could do for my detail with creating a corner from a large amount of bricks and showing the glass showing through from the inside. With this I would also create a small section of my light chimneys made from concrete that would show my maine three building materials: brick, glass and concrete.
Another ideas for the creation of my light chimneys was to use a variety of materials in its construction as well as creating purposeful holes in the rising structures that would create patterned light within the light chimneys themselves. The structures although mostly pre cast concrete could have embedded within them bricks, corrugated iron and attached wood, again alluding to a junkstyle theme of creating pattern and geometric forms through a modern tradition use of materials to show craftsmanship, design and general thought.

Addition screen shots of the exterior of the building and its gaps and light chimneys that cut the top floors of the office spaces as well as the elevated train stations area offering views of Auckland and the sky and nature through the differently positioned light chimneys pointing in different directions.

Further Development

Above: Potential cross section of my 1:1 detail of my wall, with a timber back framing covered by an insulating water proof barrier attached to the outer brick facade and further attached to a glass pane.

Part of my design as explained in my previous blog was in created a facade of bricks riddled with holes and missing bricks that offered dappled light into the interior of the building while gifting impromptu views to those using them. By using a mixture of Roman, normal and irregular sized bricks with could be an interesting use of materials and forms, that also hark back to my idea of Junkstyle Modernism in being a modern industrial form of an Arts and Crafts movement, in the use of materials to their advantage (with further inspiration from the Kolumbia Museum by Peter Zumthor in its use of interior dappled lighting created my openings left by use of material).

A few of my plans for my building show a staircase almost like entering a mountain spiraling around the monumental brick and extending concrete light chimney forms extending up around it. The seating commuter area would be situated on the second floor of three floors of the office space, allowing direct access to the train tracks during the day being so elevated above the ground as the train bridge is while further the area can be closed off at night to the public for safety by the use of a barrier at the entrance to the stairs on the Parnell Rise part of the office/public space.

Starting Off the Design Process

Our first task for the Augmented Reality group was to produce a quick photoshopped image of our prior weeks Second Life project onto the site of our real life building. Having never used Photoshop even this was to some point a bit of a challenge in learning to use the crop and eraser functions within the program but from the result I was able to create a image which was if not semi-quality then satisfactory for a complete beginners level.
Being asked to produce one augmented drawing per day even from the outset was a bit of a challenge but one that I have attempted to keep interesting through substituting the odd augmented drawing for a model or similar. My above augmented drawing showing the back of the Parnell Rise train bridge has on it an augmented drawing showing the back of my previous Second Life building with its Corbusier like windows and sun/sight louvres. Showing this at my daily crit, Dermott made the point that I should concentrate on not having such a form cluttered work either opting for a glass building with associated mullions or for one that embodied a greater use light chimneys to project views and light into the office building.
Experimenting with a number of buildings, the one above aims to create all entries and walls into the light chimneys expressed in my Second Life building. I wanted to go for a more soft natural colour of brown than the coolness of the Corbusier concrete while also alluding to and harmonising with the background Victorian Train bridge. The office would still remain quite monumental in its shape but be exaggerated in form and its associated manipulation of light that would frame the sky. Another idea was bought out that we should aim to give back and gift something to the public through our building, with ultimate architecture creating something that gives back to the general public whether in views or emotions within the space or upon seeing it. My idea was to utilize the very nature of the site next to the train tracks and the fact that the building completely envelops the tracks as well to create a public train station and seating area that would lead out onto the main street onto Parnell Rise. My initial concepts were to reduce the office size and in hindsight the spaces may have been too large for the limited amount of 5 inhabitants. Further there should be pedestrian access to Parnell Rise via visible stairs and monumental entrance to entice people to come in and visit the station itself. The gifting in my point of view was seen as something that could be given to people waiting for the train to arrive. While contemplating on what it could be I identified that the greatest problem was that especially in Britomart there are very limited views seen from the space apart from the few skylights in the ceiling above but otherwise commuters are forced to look at an impressive but altogether dark scene. On the other side, most small stops on the Auckland train routes are too open exposing the commuters to wind and other elements that provide too many view but not enough comfort. Here I wanted to change this in creating a space that by utilizing the previous light chimney designs was able to pick out views of the park and other areas around it in the city and gift them to the commuter waiting, almost framing views of the city, offering inspiration while also by having a semi closed space, creating an area of comfort within an industrial urban surrounding.

The two pictures above and below explore my idea of creating a very junkstyle modern space that offers gifts of sights and views to an elevated train stop area that provides a stop for commuters. The building complex consists of a shell of a number of scattered box buildings that look quite war torn with missing bricks from the corners and the interiors. This design feature offers a dappled use of light within the previous office spaces while at the same time offering impromptu but interesting view points from the interior of the building surrounded by an inner glass wall lining. On top of the structures I have included a large number of sky lights offering views from both the central train station spot but also in the other top floors of the buildings that work with the brick dappled lighting. The light chimneys also aim to be like a bushel of flowers or a firework at the main Parnell Rise street entry that over hang the stairs leading up to the top commuter train area, giving it a very monumental industrial feel.

Junkstyle Modernism - Example Pictures of a Modern Pop Architecture Style

Just a few pictures which in modern pop culture and contemporary architecture which aim to embody some of my Junkstyle modernist ideas which to my knowledge have not been fully utilized in a strong architectural movement....

Gathering Brief

Based off of our previous office brief what I understood was demanded off of us was to throw aside all notions of digital practices and climate change within our previous designs and create(or rather redesign) a building which solely concentrated on the idea of gifting. This idea of gifting embodying a notion of gifting back to society both in the emotions felt in the space but also as Judy mentions in that the gift should "inspire(d) others to want to be architects".

With Judy's small paragraph being set in the distant future as a reflection of the progress that our architectural careers have made, my initial idea was, what in fact will the architecture of the future be and look like. Will it be so called "bubble architecture", radial cities constructed on the essence of ultimate utopian planning (as envisaged by early 20th Century architects like Corbusier) surrounded by Jetson like flying cars, or rather...will our society and the world be different? Will in fact 90% of the world live on hand to mouth, with the majority of buildings being in fact made from grungy industrial materials instead of the pristine skyscrapers and modernist boxes of the rich, capitalist societies today. In essence much has to be explored.

And it is with this first idea of thinking up of a tradition or inventing a word that I have started in responding to this idea of future architecture and gifting back to the community. My tradition and associated world after some thought about my preferential architecture is. 'Junkstyle modernism'. What this idea embodies is a few things but mainly the aim is in creating a contemporary industrial reflection of late 19th and early 20th Century arts and crafts style, in creating objects of quality and constructed substance that reflect the craft of the modern age, utlizing its many materials through architecture. In many respects it also aims to embody the ideas of modern factories, warehouses and machines in general that have shaped our times, for do we not as a society measure progress in comparison to GDP and associated technological gains as has been shown by the superpowers of Apple. Microsoft and other companies?

It is with this idea of Junkstyle Modernism that as per the brief I aim to renovate my office with particular emphasis on these ideas of using modern materials in a way that pays respect to an industrial arts and crafts feel wherein materials are used in a traditional way for modern standards while utilizing their very materiality in creating interesting textures and feels (taking inspiration from such modern architects as Peter Zumthor), in expressing materials to their ultimate potential in terms of form.

Notes from our first group meeting with Padma and Dermott addressed these following bullet pointed issues that I jotted down:

• Look at Peter Cook - Kunsthaus in Austria, all around it are old buildings, glass blob floating above, almost alien like. Peter Cook is making material choices to reflect the alien building structure, always to reflects an idea.
• Designboom - architectural presentation.
• Presentation reflects architecture, produce one drawing a day, working towards a detail
• Importance on quality of finish.
• Junction of all my materials.
• How the materials go together, which materials I am using.
• High quality augmented drawings.
• Present - like bland contexts, take picture of sight in greyscale, make your site look the best, immediate response to presentation, don't make it underwhelming, take Peter Cook approach.
• Generosity is a big part of gifting.
• Sharing ideas is the best gift.
• Use of materials.
• How to use digital world within architecture.
• Manipulation of light important, digital spaces, use of darkness.
• Gifts external surface with darkness inside.

Week 3 - Review - Shirin Heidari

Name: Shirin Heidari

Student ID: 1577418

Blog Address: shirinarchi@blogspot.com

Group: 3

Again my computer has failed to be able to open the blogspot addresses, unfortunately this means that again I wont be able to add pictures from the associated blog by Shirin but I will aim to do so tomorrow upon visiting the computer suite at the Architectural School.

From the outset Shirin made it clear to me that she was upset and confused by the fact that her model was given a D by Dermott upon her review that morning. She was rather upset throughout the peer review and likewise the review followed a slightly different format which I will try and conclude within a few paragraphs.

The main idea between Shirin's project was that of a canopy structure hanging between the facades of two building structures. The canopy on the outside would be made from stained glass, polished metal sheets and would be sitting on top of a wooden bridge that made up most of the inter building span. Shirin (from what I saw) had a number of developed sketches within her sketch book but in realisation fell short in achieving the task asked of her in creating a 1:1 scaled detailed that emphasizes the structure and how the canopy is create which in fairness she tried to make as polished and as covered as possible. This was observed in her fine welding of the metal plates together, the gluing of the stained glass/plastic to the metal and the lack of joining of her wooden bottom slats to the metal of the sitting-on-top canopy. Without a lot to look on I set about helping her figuring out a way she could fix it in order to get reconsidered with a couple of ideas coming through that she could:

1. Instead of welding her metal canopy and gluing her stained glass to the metal, she could have used a number of spider-clips or inter piece grips that could have held all the pieces in position using an intricate and interesting structural form.
2. She could have explored the bolting down of the wooden slats to the bottom of the metal canopy.
3. Further functionalism could have been addressed with possible use of silicon in the joints of the stained glass windows in order not to let water through.

All in all Shirin's project had potential and while she stresses that both Dermott and Padma weren't there for her checkup the day before in the tutor groups, it is just one of those unfortunate situations where the brief is just misunderstood despite an object of certain quality potential.