Week 6

Project 1 Individual Statement:

Globally climate change has caused a massive rise in sea levels resulting in massive numbers of 'Climate Refugees'. Climate change has warmed the world's oceans causing super storm cells with higher intensity and higher volumes of water dumped on the land in one event.

Australia; having vast amounts of resources and space accommodates for Asia's Climate Refugees. Climate Refuge's are set up with the Woodfordia Refuge being the exemplar and educational center for the Climate Refugees.

Refugees come to Woodfordia to learn about sustainable living practices and techniques. After 6 months of living sustainably within the Woodfordia community, refugees relocate to new climate refuges and continue to use their newly learnt sustainable ways.

Each Climate Refuge is self sustaining in terms of food, water and resources. Any extra resources that are produced within the community, for example wood, can be traded with neighboring Refuge's for resources that may be needed.

The population of each Refuge is determined by the carrying capacity of the surrounding land. For example if the land is tropical and fertile land it is able to produce more food and resources than that or an arid climate thus being able to support a larger population.

Buildings within the Refuge are designed according to a set of architectural rules. These rules, applied from 'A Pattern Language' include: Agricultural Valleys, Site Repair, and Green Roads. Structures are also designed to be adaptable and flexible to the community's needs whilst having the robust structure to withstand the stronger storm systems experienced in 2050.


Presentation Panels 

Week 6 - Diagramming

Land Requirements Diagram

Housing in Woodfordia

The diagram on the left shows an ariel photo of area 10 of the Woodfordia Site. The sandy colored areas have been deemed by the Woodfordia committee as acid land and is unsuitable for growth of trees or plants. Thus this area, being high on a hill, is  the perfect location for housing for the residents of the Woodford community. This aligns with the Architectural Possibilities and 'A Pattern Language'  rules of Agricultural Valleys and Site Repair.

Light Green - Green space

Dark Green - Trees

Dark Grey - Roads

Light Grey - Housing unit

Flash Flooding

Woodford under normal weather conditions:

Woodford under flash flood conditions:

Week 6 - Research

Storm intensity

"Projections indicate there may be an increase in the proportion of tropical cyclones in 
the more intense categories (3-5), however a decrease in the total number of cyclones. By 2030, projections show that there may be a 60 per cent increase in severe storm intensity and a 140 per cent increase by 2070. Projections also indicate that tropical cyclones are moving southward as sea surface temperatures increase"

Reference:
Department of climate change and energy efficiency. 2010. Climate Change - potential impacts and costs. Australian Government. Page 1. Accessed 29/08/2012


Sea Level Rise

"The global average sea level rose by close to 20 centimetres between 1870 and 2007."

"Sea levels rose at an average of 1.7 millimetres per year during the 20th century, and 3.4 millimetres per year from 1993 to 2007"

Reference:
CSIRO. Understanding Climate Change. http://www.csiro.au/en/Outcomes/Climate/Understanding.aspx. Accessed 29/08/2012



Climate change quote: 

Generally for Queensland

"Rising sea-level, stronger tropical cyclones and increased intensity of oceanic storm surges are likely with climate change. A study has shown that tropical cyclone intensity around Cairns in northern Queensland could increase by up to 20% by about
2050. Stronger cyclones would increase the flood level associated with a 1-in-100 year flood in Cairns from the present height of 2.3 metres to 2.6 metres; a rise in sea-level of 0.1 to 0.4 metres would result in the flood level increasing further to 2.7 to 3.0 metres. This would result in flooding occurring over an area about twice that historically affected"

Reference:
CSIRO. Climate change impacts for Australia. http://www.csiro.au/files/files/p3ct.pdf . Page 7. Accessed 29/08/2012

Woodford Master Planning

Photoshopped!!

Hexagon Pattern Applied to Woodford area

Week 6 - Planning

Pattern Planning

Before - Google Maps

 After - Photoshopped

Each Hexagon represents a community's boundaries.
The red out line is the Woodfordia site
Dark Green represents undeveloped forests and land.

Week 5 - Research

Sea Level Rise Diagrams

Information sourced from: http://flood.firetree.net/ and then photoshoped

Brisbane:
0m

1m

2m

3m

Bangkok:
In 2005, Bangkok had an official population of 5,658,953 (Wikipedia). With a Sea Level rise of 3m I would suggest that over 4.5 million people will be displaced. As Australia is one of Thailand's closest developed nations that has the space and resources to accommodate for refugees, it would be suggested that many of these 'climate refugees' would be accepted by Australia.

Wikipedia. 2012. Bangkok. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bangkok. Accessed 26/08/2012

0m

1m

2m

3m

Week 5 Research

Rising Sea Levels

I found a website called FireTree flood maps, this website uses NASA data and Google Maps data to estimate the average sea level rise globally. Any location in the world can be looked at. I've chosen to look at one local example; Brisbane and one International example; Bangkok, Thailand. 

The reason I chose Bangkok is that it is a relatively low lying city that is densely populated. In the event that the sea levels rise over a meter, as Australia is one of Thailand's closest neighbors we would likely receive many Climate Refugees.

FireTree website link
http://flood.firetree.net/

Australia with sea levels at 0m

Australia with sea levels at 50m

I intend to use this data for graphically purposes on the group poster.

Week 5: Strategic New York

Lecture:
The New York High Line
While I enojy the theory and idea of the New York High Line, There are a few issues I have with it:

1. Accessibility

Currently, to access the High Line you have to walk up a set of stairs. Without knowing that there was this beautiful green space up there; just walking on the street you would think that it was still an industrial train line.

I would propose to have ramps down to the street that had greenery planted along the sides. Stairs could still be incorporated into this however as it is at the moment the stairs or 'entry' to the High Line doesn't really invite you up there, you would have to know its lush and green or know what it is to want to explore and walk up the steps.

2. Relation to Street

Just as the previous train line had no relation to street nor does the High Line. Currently it just passes between buildings and over roads. In order to invite people to explore and wonder 'what's that up there?' I would propose green ramps that branch out of the High Line. Almost in a symbolic manner; as the High Line snakes its way through the city like a vine up a tree, it should expand and shoot out runners line a vine. This doesn't have to happen at every entry but some, as means of grounding and establishing it as part of the environment. Not like the Snake that it is, but a living vine expanding and taking over the grey mass that is Manhattan. 

Images retrieved from: HIGH LINE. 2012. High Line Design.  http://www.thehighline.org/design/high-line-design Accessed 25/08/2012
Images edited in photoshop.
Tute:

Future Visions and Scenarios

Plan for the next week:
Sunday:
- Factual info on future scenatios
- Graphs and Tables to display info
- InDesign Template for pannels

Monday
- Compile graphs and images
- dDiagrams for systems
- Patterns
- Festival involvement

Tuesday-
- Planning of the Woodford Site

Wednesday
- Finalise and Review

Thursday
- Print

Friday
- Submit

Week 5 Reading

Erasing architecture into the system

Just as Cedric Price drives himself we should all "forge ahead conscientiously as an architect.. [to] propose schemes [to] respectively create new conditions in the human living environment" while challenging and creating new "ideas that break clean away from existing notions."  Cedric price introduces "non-architectural ideas into architectural ideas into architecture today".

To me Price and his fellow Archigram members seem to be more about architectural ideology and theory than actually trying to applying their ideas and techniques to real world applications. Although incredible elaborate and ahead of his time Price's ideas were truly amazing. The technology may not even have been invented for his Fun Palace to be built however his fundamental ideas were sound and applicable to Project 1 and the woodford site. 

Price's ideals also line up with those of the Woodford Folk Festival's 500 year plan. He states "Such a building need never reach completion; it would instead become a process of endless chance. 'Inbuilt flexibility or it's alternative, planned obsolesce, can be satisfactorily achieved only if the time factor is included as an absolute factor in the total design process."  Winters, E., 2007. Politics and the Situationist International. in. Aesthetics and architecture, London ; New York: Continuum. pp92-98

The Woodford 500 Year Plan states "We’ll cultivate a convention of decision making, strengthening through time, that will resonate in our work and nurture our future.... We will build with the eyes of artists. We’ll provide space for our descendants to meet the challenges of their generations with vigor, courage and imagination and encourage them to celebrate their journeys with levity and frivolity." Woodford Folk Festival 500 Year Plan

Both visions make a moral decision to remain flexible and sustainable in their built form well into the distant future. The visions both show total disregard for the now and project well into the future. 

This to me is one of the fundamental flaws with the current politicians and planners,they plan for the next election or purely for profits and monetary gains. Planners and decision makers need to plan and project well into the distant future, somewhere in the vicinity of 50-100 years, a lot can change, but a lot also needs to happen if we want the world we love to still be here when we get there.

Further Reading...

Just a few sections from the reading that I thought would be relevant to Project 1, in particular the Woodford site.

Green Streets

"A local road, which only gives access to buildings, needs a few stones for the wheels of the cars; nothing more. Most of it can still be green. ...

In a typical low density American suburb, more than 50% of the land is covered with concrete or asphalt paving." C. Alexander, A Pattern Language, (1977), Oxford Universities Press, page 233

A typical suburban road:

Green Street:

I think this is very relevant can should be used in all areas outside of the main highways and the city area. What Alexander has stated is true, you really don't need anything else for a car than two rows of pavers to create a street. By having a street of pavers surrounded in grass the heat typically produced on a hot summers day would be drastically reduced and would also immensely help to reduce the heat island effect created by the concrete jungle in summer.

This is definitely something that will be integrated into Project 1 and 2!

Site Repair

"Buildings must always be built on those parts of the land which are in the worst condition, not the least." C. Alexander, A Pattern Language, (1977), Oxford Universities Press, page 509



There really isn't a more logical idea out there, however quite often councils and developers overlook the environmentlly right thing to do and build on perfectly good land either to expand the city or expand their empire. The problem with this is that it is incredibly short sighted and just as Alexander stated in the Agricultural Valleys section of the book, "once destroyed, it cannot be regained for centuries." C. Alexander, A Pattern Language, (1977), Oxford Universities Press, page 27

This is incredibly relevant to the Woodford site. Althought the current owners of the land are doing amazing things to regenterate the environment on the site there are parts that have acidic soil and are unsuitable for regeneration. Therefore by applying the principle of 'site repair', development for the future community on the site must happen on these less (environmentally) favorable areas.

Vegetable Garden

"Set aside one piece of land either in a private garden or on common land as a vegetable garden. About one tenth of an arcre is needed for each family of four." C. Alexander, A Pattern Language, (1977), Oxford Universities Press, page 821



Although primative this gives an idea of how much land is required to support a family . As Murray Lane out lined in his week 3 lecture, forjust one person 2.5 hectares or 3.7 rugby league fields are required to produce the food needed for one year. To me this sounds massive!! Would it be safe to suggest that as farming technology and techniques become more efficient less and less land will be required to sustain the life of one person??

Further reading and research....

 A Pattern Language:

Work Community

"If you spend eight hours of your day at work, and eight hours at home, there is no reason why your workplace should be any less than a community than your home. ... 

Build to encourage the formation of work communities - each one a collection of smaller clusters of workplaces ... gathered around a common courtyard which contains shops and lunch counters." C. Alexander, A Pattern Language, (1977), Oxford Universities Press, page 233



Obviously what Alexander is trying to convey here is that your workplace should be as much of an enjoyable experience as your home is resulting in you 'living' as opposed to just being 'dead' at work.

Why not create a place where your work and home are close by, thus incredibly reducing the need for private transport to and from work, from suburbs into the city. What if everyone lived walking distance from work?? Similar to the presentation during the lecture where the building was designed to incorporate work and home. There'd be no need for private transport other than for leasure. Obviously this model would only work in a fairly dense city environment. I spose it could work at the other end of the spectrum to where a farmer lives on the land he works on.

What it boils down to:
Urban sprawl is the problem! The commute to/from work and home would have to be a major contributing factor to CO2 emissions from cars. Cities need to be dense and have a well designed public transport system. A city should be limited to a certain population and boundary, out side of this boundary should be green space and farm land, thus land isn't wasted creating roads just for people to communte to and from the city everyday.

Reading - A Pattern Language - Christopher Alexander

For the past few weeks I've been reading the book A Pattern Language by Christopher Alexander in order to find some inspiration and ideas for the upcoming  Project 1 - Future Scenario and Architectural Opportunities. What I've found are some very interesting and useful sections that I plan to use and help inform the project out comes.

City Country Fingers

"Keep interlocking fingers of farmland and urban land, even at the centre of the metropolis. The urban fingers should never be more than 1 mile wide, while the farmland fingers should never be less than 1 mile wide."

C. Alexander, A Pattern Language, (1977), Oxford Universities Press, page 25

From this, the main idea is that one continuous sprawling city destroys life and ruins the land. by having these 'fingers' of city and countryside that interlace with each other giving city dwellers access to the country and rural dwellers access to the city whilst promoting corridors of green space.


Agricultural Valleys

"The land which is best for agriculture happens to be best for building too. But it is limited - and once destroyed, it cannot be regained for centuries. ...

Preserve all agricultural valleys as farmland and protect this land from any development which would destroy or lock up the unique fertility of the soil. Even when valleys are not cultivated now, protect them: keep them for farms, parks and wilds."

C. Alexander, A Pattern Language, (1977), Oxford Universities Press, page 28

Quite simply put, build on the hills, farms and green space in the valleys.

This is also quite logical in terms of natural disaster planning; by building minimal structures in the low lying areas you prevent potential disasters and death caused by floods, flash flooding during storms, and land slides etc. It must be noted though that by clearing trees off the side of the hill it weakens the earth and opens up the potential for a land slide. There fore it would be suggested that terraces and rows of trees be integrated into the hillside development as a preventative measure.


Four Story Limit

"...high buildings make people crazy ... they destroy social life, promote crime ... expensive to maintain and they wreck open spaces near them."

Alexander believes that tall buildings really don't offer any genuine advantage other and profits for developers and super densifying a city. He also believes that by moving people further up and away from the ground you remove them from the casual social life of the sidewalk and interaction with other people.


Activity Nodes

"Community facilities scattered individually through the city do nothing for the life of the city."

Alexander explains that a city must have nodes of concentrated communal activity. Made by directing paths through public squares.

Week 4 - People and Lifestyles

Reading - Politics and the Situationist International

This week's reading, Politics and the Situationist International shone a a new perspective on architecture for me. Aldo van Eyck's ideas of "address[ing] matters beyond the mere form and function of a building" have totally flipped my perspective of approaching architecture. 

After reading the article I believe that architecture could be categorized into 2 types of building design; the first (the way I have viewed architecture for years) is that Architecture shapes the city around it. However Eyck's perspective was that the "patterns of life" shaped the architecture. Maybe I'm wrong, maybe it's more like a 2 way street where one is constantly influencing the other and vice-verse.   

Further reading through the article Winters talks about the Moral and Political decisions of architecture. The analogy of the animal in nature versus a man's life is interesting. He believes that an animal's life is laid out in front of it and it follows a chosen path, where as man is free, free to choose his own life path. When applied to the current sustainability movement however, as it is becoming more and more apparent through popular media man has seemed to have chosen the 'correct' political decision over the correct moral decision. What I'm talking about here is that for decades man has ignored the facts the he is slowly destroying the earth with fossil fuel emissions and chosen what is easiest or cheapest, not necessarily the right answer. 

However just as Winters states, man "[has] not committed [himself] to live in a certain way; rather [he has] passively acquiesced in a life of numbing servitude" and it's only now that the shit is seemingly about to hit the fan that has man decided to think about and make to correct moral decisions.

Finally I'd like to  quote T.J. Clark; "Architecture is the final point in the achievement of any artistic endeavor because the creation of architecture implies the construction of an environment and establishment of a way of life." To me I interpret this as a building creates an environment and way of life around it, and in-turn this will influence the next piece of architecture to develop in the area. The city slowly evolves taking influence from itself creating new environments and ways of life to further influence the future of the city.



Lecture:
Sketches during the lecture:

1. I remembered one of the Pattern Language sketches, maybe it could be applied to a festival scenario. Develop high ground, audience sits on the hill, stage on other side of 'valley'. In case of rain potentially only the stage is at risk leaving the majority of development high and dry.

Insert Sketch

2. applying the Shearing skin layers to a festival layout. (not necessarily Woodford)

 Insert Sketch

Tute:
Today the group discussed 2 of the parts of Project 1.

Firstly the possible Future Visions and Scenarios:
We've decided to predict a future 50 years ahead (2062) which realistically isn't that far away however is a good distance in time to plan for some drastic changes in the world's environment. The topics that we have chosen to research are:
- Global Warming and it's threats
- Increasing Severity of weather systems
- Rising Sea Level
- The Sustainable product 'boom'

Secondly was the Architectural Possibilities and Sustainable Future:
-Architectural Patterns
   - Agricultural Valleys - Build on high ground, farm on low ground

   - Activity Nodes
   - Site Repair (only build on land that is already ruined or cleared) 
- The Woodford 500 year plan and the values and principles of the plan

Global Warming

Nasa's Global Warming Research

CSIRO's Sea Level website

I found an interesting reading while going through the CSIRO's website called The Impact of Sea Level Rise on Developing Countries: A Comparative Analysis  and it stated that "Even if greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions were stabilized in the near future, thermal 
expansion and deglaciation would continue to raise the sea level for many decades.  
Continued growth of GHG emissions and associated global warming could well promote 
SLR of 1m-3m in this century, and unexpectedly rapid breakup of the Greenland and 
West Antarctic ice sheets might produce a 5m SLR"

 and that "Within this century, 
hundreds of millions of people are likely to be displaced by SLR; accompanying 
economic and ecological damage will be severe for many.  The world has not previously 
faced a crisis on this scale, and planning for adaptation should begin immediately." http://www-wds.worldbank.org/external/default/WDSContentServer/IW3P/IB/2007/02/09/000016406_20070209161430/Rendered/PDF/wps4136.pdf accessed 17/08/2012.


Extreme weather systems and global warming

Another interesting article on severe weather systems and their associations with global warming called A decade of weather extremes argues that "heatwaves, but also precipitation extremes — there is now strong evidence linking specific events or an increase in their numbers to the human influence on climate."

The article argues and demonstrates the obvious correlations between global warming and the more frequent occurrence of severe weather systems. for example: 

I haven't finished the reading yet however I'll definitely be using this research further into the semester.   http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/v2/n7/full/nclimate1452.html Accessed 17/08/2012

Week 3 Research

The Basin Concept

This week's lecture about sustainable Utopian type communities reminded me of a project I did for Architecture 6 (I think) a few years ago. This assignment was similar to this one where we had to consider the architectural possibilities for sustainable communities and suggest patterns and architectural possibilities that could be applied to form a sustainable future. 

In the article I even quoted A Pattern Language's 'Agricultural Valleys'. Who knew that I'd have already read part of the best reading material for this subject.

Please have a read!!