JOURNAL Architecture Studio AirXi Ting Samantha Loo 347119

EXPRESSION OF INTERESTWeek 1

PERSONAL PROJECTStudley Park Boathouse

For the last Architecture studio, Air, we were tasked with designing a boathouse in the style of a ‘Master’.

I ended up with Mario Botta. Botta spends a significant amount of time trying to absorb the ‘feel’ of the site and he merges it with his original idea to achieve his final design.

The idea behind the design is the connection of the boathouse with the environment, which happens to be the yarra river. It would do so by having the upper floors hang over the river, which serves as a physical connection

The boathouse incorporates a lot of Botta’s concepts into the design. This includes the use of skylights to bring natural lighting into the living spaces and obtaining the building form by modifying simply geometric shapes.

Using Botta as a base helped me build on his existing ideas as a starting point and modifying it to make it my own.

Similarly, I would be building on existing ideas that are interesting and innovative and attempt to develop it further and improve on it.

STATE OF THE ART PROJECTSLou Ruvo Center for Brain Health

The Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health was designed by Frank Gehry in order to spread public awareness about Alzheimer’s.

Like most of Gehry’s buildings, the centre appears almost sculpted and organic and consequentially all the activities in the building has to be � tted into the form (Farrellly 2007: 134). In this case, the trapezoid shaped window had to be encased in the steel grey framework so it could work with the façade. The external cladding is covered with a re� ective material, which gives the impression that the building is moving.

Gehry usually incorporates very mundane features of the building’s landscape into the design (Curtis 2011: 663). In this case, Gehry uses the sun which is almost ever present in Vegas to create the movement in his design and bring in natural sunlight into the building. Personally, I � nd the building aesthetically interesting because I like the � uidity of the design and the interesting cutouts for windows. However, the building has also been deemed an eyesore by some. Therefore, how ‘artistic’ a building is very subjective as beauty lies in the eye of the beholder. In a way, Gehry’s buildings tend to invoke strong emotions from people and that was what made him famous.

The building demonstrates technological advances and in its own way the culture of today’s society. For instance, the building itself is a con-tradiction. Although building was speci� cally designed for the Vegas landscape, the team responsible for the building was not all on site for the construction. In fact, different pieces that made up the façade of the building had GPS chips embedded in it so that the building’s engineers in Germany could ensure the façade was pieced together accurately. The cultural context being global where it is possible in today’s society with global teams where people need not be physically present to complete a project. Furthermore, the architecture of the building was used as a marketing tool to impress upon people that the centre was taking Alzeheimer research seriously.

In conclusion, what I learnt from the architecture of the building is that in order to have an effective design, one must always be open to new technological advances and that one should do what they believe is best for the building and not what people might think the building should be like.

Photo taken by Mathew Carborne

STATE OF THE ART PROJECTSMode Gakuen Cocoon Tower

The cocoon tower designed by Tange Architefcts and was the winning design for an educational building. In a way, the cocoon is a metaphor for education. For instance, the cocoon is the incubation period where the lava turns into a butter� y. Similarly, the tower serves as a location where the student ‘lava’ is being educated ‘incubated’ to be useful members of society ‘butter� y’.The structure of the cocoon tower is unique where the tower appears to be ‘wrapped’ with a web of white ‘fabric’ like a cocoon. The white structure in a way acts as a shade and the narrow portion on the top acts provides unobstructed views of Shinjuku. The building also blends nicely in the landscape and although there are 50 levels, it is not the tallest tower in the city.

The cocoon tower tried to bring in nature into the design. This is because the city did not have any space for greenery and they wanted the students to experience nature. Therefore, they had to bring ‘nature’ into the building. They did so by incorporating student lounges in between classrooms. These lounges were actually three story atriums with panoramic views of the city. The idea of the interaction between nature and the built environment has been increasingly common in 21st century architectural design especially with the increase in aware-ness about the environment and the need for green spaces.

Like most tall buildings, the building was constructed using steel with concrete � lled columns. The main structure consists of three elliptical diagrid frames and an inner core frame. Due to constant seismic activ-ity in Tokyo, they used viscous oil dampers to dissipate and reduce excess seismic energy. The inner core alone has six dampers which are placed in the middle of the structure which is the widest. Also, the frames are placed every 24m and the members intercept every 4 meters at the same angle. This is to ensure that the building appears elegant and also make it easier to attach the external cladding. This tower was ground breaking in the aspect of reducing seismic activ-ity. This building is the � rst circular tower in Tokyo that is earthquake resistant. This example in technological advancement is mostly ap-plicable in countries where earthquakes are common. In that aspect, the building demonstrates how local environmental constrains does not restrict but rather forces the architect to think outside the box and come out with new and interesting forms.