Saturday, August 11, 2012

Week 3 - How to Measure Sustainability?

Reading - Shearing Layers by S. Brand

Best opening quote "Architects and interior designers revile and battle each other." Architecture and Interior Design, just as at University of California seem to be divided here are QUT. Many a time my friends and i have walked past the interior rooms and gone "urgghh, interior.. they're just glorified interior decorators, all they do is put paint and fittouts into my designs." I'm sure they walk past the Architecture rooms and snuff at us and think we're these philosophical, fluffy designers who draw pretty buildings.

haha but thats not true, interior is incredibly difficult and credible as a design discipline.

Duffy's 6 (4 expanded) S's:
Site   Structure   Skin   Services   Space Plan    Stuff
"layering  ...defines how a building relates to people." I tend to look at the so called layers of a design more so in terms of scale. So here are my 5 Scales of Design:

1.Firstly when designed I start at the largest scale Regional; this includes the community and area around the site, what outside the site is going to effect the outcomes of this building, not just the brief. 

2.Secondly, the Site itself, what are it's attributes? site access, sun and lighting, views, aspects, where's north?

3.Then the Building Envelope, I guess you would call this the Skin. How will this building look? how does it effect the buildings around it? how do you enter?

4.Next scale down is Podium or Entry Level. The way I think if this is; First impressions are everything, when you walk through the entry of a structure you make your mind up about how good/bad/nice/warm/cold etc. the space is and then you judge the rest of of experiences within the structure according to this. (well at least this is how i do)

5. Spaces; quite simply the spaces within the building or structure that people are there for. Each individual space has it's own unique experience and function and should be designed accordingly


Just as Brand explains, "The dynamics of the system will be dominated by the slow components, with the rapid components simply following allong. Slow constrains quick; slow controls quick." The same rule can be applied to my 5 Scales; if one scale is poorly considered it will restrict the remainder of the design.

Quotes from: Brand, S., 1997. Shearing Layers, in How buildings learn : what happens after they’re built, London: Phoenix Illustrated. pp12-23 



Tute:

In today's tute we considered and brain stormed the possible architectural ideas, theories, rules and patterns that could be applied to the Woodfordia site and possible surrounding areas.

Butcher's paper drwings:
Tree Core idea
Top left: My idea of the core of a tree and how it expands out in layers (in plan). A tree has a core - The city, Sap wood (the growing part of the tree) - The industry and supporting areas for the City, and the Bark - The organic growth area of the city. 

Just as all trees and plants, the Tree Core would grow to a limit and cease increasing in size, once this limit is reached trees are totally sustainable, they can even live in a closed loop environment, otherwise known as a Terrarium


Honeycomb idea:
Similar to the tree core, each hexagon represents a community, there is a central city which is surrounded by supporting towns and villages. Each Hexagon Community is self sufficient in terms of basic needs such as food, water and energy. Any excess produce can be traded with neighboring communities for produce that the community may be either unable to produce themselves or are short of. The population of each community is determined by the carrying capacity of the land; ie. fertile land can produce more food therefore more people would be able to exist within the community



Fertile vs. Baron land usage:
This rule would be applied to communities living around a river system. The land around rives and water ways is both the most fertile and flattest land. It's prone to flooding and natural disasters such as land slides. By leaving the valleys and land around rivers you both promote the use of the land for agriculture and green space, while designating the high ground for building and industry. The high ground is often the least fertile and therefore most ideal for building.


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