15 : Final Presentation

In the presentation yesterday I received a range of feedback.  The guest critic Hank repeated what I had described (in a much more succinct way) and he understood the project exactly how I had envisioned it, which gave me a lot of confidence.  It all seemed to happen so fast that I don't remember what Jane said about the function (I know there were a lot of things I had done between presentation time and the last time I saw her) but she would like to see a plan of the site.  Hank said he loved the overall composition and visual presentation style of the panels - and said it was intriguing that the project was easily understandable in a graphical sense, even without the fundamental plan drawing.

I am very pleased with the overall outcome of my project, especially after being so anxious that I wouldn't get it done in time over the past few weeks.

13 : Lecture

Today's lecture was pretty much a summary of the semester, but if there is one thing I have learned from this lecture series it would be this:


Ira Glass on Storytelling from David Shiyang Liu on Vimeo.

11 : Reflection

Feeling a little bit anxious for the two weeks ahead of me... My plan of attack is to get my storyboard done either later tonight / tomorrow morning before class.. so I can discuss that I will be meeting all the requirements for the presentation.. I don't like, doing a storyboard too far in advance.. but at this stage I think it is important to ensure that I am focusing on the right drawings..

11 : Brainstorm

Last night I was feeling quite overwhelmed, so I called my amazing urban designer, who has become quite the mentor these days, for some direction.

Together we went over some ideas.. some crazy, some boring... some completely unrealistic...

I know that creating a trainline itself is not an 'architectural entity' - but I like that idea for some reason.. so perhaps it can still be utilised somehow... After the chat I decided that maybe instead of focusing on a station... I could focus on where these trains go afterhours...

so during the day the interiors are movable... adapatable so people bring their bicycles on board for longer distances.. and then during the day, seating can be provided for shoppers / seniors / general recreation activities... and then at night time all the carriages can retreat to a 'depot' in Woden Valley for a open public arena, like a public forum, concert hall, night club..... Here are few sketches which eventually led to this point.

In one of the lecture Yasu said that our 'architectural entity needs to assist people to:
-debate political/social/cultural issues
-take actions
-do so through mobile means
-assist the constitutes of A.C.T.

11 : Concept : Fragmentation

To bring back my focus to a station is getting me to re-evaluate where this project is going, and I think I'm lacking a conceptual framework.. I know I've been talking about lack of mobility etc etc... but something 'more' to concrete this whole idea.

I was daydreaming a little bit tonight and I starting thinking about the connection between mobility and fragmentation.. 

perhaps it is the fragments which cause immobility...

the opposite of integration is fragmentation... and mobility can be the link in between...

so maybe my architectural entity, the small station in woden in the integrated part / my fragments could be the 'temporary' outposts in other various locations, and the mobility of people is the light rail...

 ..

..


I know I'm going around in circles and the knot in my stomach is tightening in fear that this won't be done in time is growing.. I need to get myself organised.. quickly.

10 : Reflection

Even though I still have a lot to do, I am feeling a little more confident.  I did at least one thing everyday this week, which kept my mind thinking about the project, which deterred me from getting distracted.  I still would like to do a big 24 hour needs-analysis of the dedicated train route in a similar style of what I did for a project last year - I think I will ask Jane, if it is worth me spending the time.

My parliamentary justification so far is:
Realistically, politicians will probably not need to travel to Canberra for parliament as often, mostly due to technology advancements - so I will focus on servicing the people of Canberra, the greatest good for the greatest number of people -- (Jeremy Bentham, Enlightenment Principle)

10 : Tutorial

In the tutorial today, I spent most of my time chatting to my classmates about their ideas (hoping that deep down, it would inspire me somehow) but I ended up just feeling a bit behind, and a little overwhelmed.  Me and Jess were the last two people to talk to Jane, both of us a bit up in the air and were given the advice to think back to our original concept.  Think through the steps of how the ideas developed....

Jane, although she seemed a little bit disappointed, also understood the difficulty of me developing a construction system for this light rail, and suggested I focus on either the design of the light rail system itself OR at one of the stations.  

Tasks to be completed by next week include:

• A developed form for the design / imagery about our idea.
• Design Brief
• List of functions / relevant to our scale
• Justification about our idea and its relevance to a parliamentary system.

Honestly I left the tutorial more confused than ever... but with such little time left this semester I am determined not to dwell on it and will focus on working through my ideas this weekend, before the ideas leave my head.

10 : Development : Concepts

A few days ago I was chatting with a good friend of mine about my project.  He understood my frustration, so he started just putting forward some crazy ideas which may actually be applicable to the project.  After we spoke I began sketching a few of the concepts and to begin 'testing' some of these ideas.  I'm scared it's too late for me to change my direction, but I think in this way I will be able to develop a better concept.

As with all of this, my justification as to its relevance towards a parliamentary issue still needs to be addressed.

08 : Reflection

Last weekend I traveled to Melbourne to visit some good friends of mine.  They happen to be architecture students also, so were actually interested to talk about the types of projects I'm working on.  They mentioned how the light rail system in Bilbao (see post below), but also Melbourne itself has a great infrastructure, particularly in the inner city regions.

Flink Labs used a data visualisation system which maps Melbourne's Public Transport and shows all the areas (blue) which are within reasonable walking distance (5 mins) of 25,000 train, tram or bus stop within Melbourne.


Flink Labs also developed and interactive data visualisation created for the Victorian Government's App My State competition. Live Where? takes data from many Victorian Government departments and combines them into a compelling and engaging visualisation that helps people quickly explore and find potential suburbs to live.

It would be great to develop a similar maps or resources for Canberra and for the A.C.T.

07 : Tutorial

The feedback we received from Jane about last week's presentation was fairly positive.  Obviously, the lack of consistency in paper sizes in the presentation was unfortunate, but in terms of the content she said that she liked the idea of defining the mobile theme as the 'mobility of people', in contrast to almost every other group presentation which was about getting people out of Canberra.  Jane did mention though that we need 'something' else (which is also mobile-related) to really push the idea into a built form.

With this, I looked into the various definitions of mobile.

mo·bile 

adjective

• capable of moving of being moved readily.

• Digital Technology.  pertaining to or noting a cell phone, usually one with computing ability or a portable, wireless computing device used which held in the hand, as in mobile tablet; mobile PDA; mobile app.

• utilising motor vehicles for ready movement: a mobile library.

• permanently equipped with vehicles for transport.

• flowing freely, as a liquid.

• changeable or changing easily in expression, mood, purpose.

• quickly responding to impulses, emotions, etc., as the mind.

• Sociology. characterized by or permitting the mixing of social groups.

• of or pertaining to a mobile.

noun

• a piece of sculpture having delicately balanced units constructed of rods and sheets of metal or other material suspended in midair by wire or twine so that the individual parts can move independently, as when stirred by a breeze.

http://www.visualthesaurus.com/

Just before the end of class, Julian (who is the other mobile tutor) called me over and himself and Jane discussed possible ideas for the rest of the project.  He made a very good point by saying that our 'architectural entity' does not have to last forever - the reality is that it probably won't.  He said that if it was him doing the project, he would focus on the construction of the railway line.  How is it constructed, and is there a way for it to be constructed in certain places around Canberra temporarily / maybe it would become a cocoon or capsule like form that would engulf the train to become a station as well?

Here is a quick sketch I did right after we spoke:

This week I think I will research a little more into the construction of railway lines and see if anything sparks my interest.  This technical approach to the project is usually not my strong area, but last design proposal, maybe I'm up for the challenge??

06 : Research

I'm looking forward to having a bit of a chat to Jane about which direction to take for the rest of the semester.

One idea I had was to focus on the integration of 'Russell' into the master plan, as with our new transport plan this would be the 'gateway' into Canberra, the first glimpse into the axis of the city.

Russell is one of the smallest suburbs in Canberra, comprising a number of government offices but no private residences. It is probably best known for the headquarters of the Australian Defence Force, which is housed in the Russell Offices complex. 

The Parliamentary Triangle is the ceremonial precinct of Canberra, containing some of Australia's most significant buildings. The triangle is formed by Commonwealth, Kings and Constitution avenues.

Russell Offices complex comprise the Office of National Assessments and Australian Security Intelligence Organisation, as well as the Department of Defense and Australian National Defense Force.

View of Campbell Park, headquarters of the Australian National Defense Force.

From the book 'Canberra Following Griffin' the diagram illustrates a study for National Capital Authority, about the 'Central National Area' completing the Constitution Avenue restoring the Russell corner of the triangle as the new entry to the city.

The Australian–American Memorial commemorates the role of the United States in World War II. 

06 : Individual Assignment

As I understand, the purpose for the rest of the assignment, is build upon the 'strategy' at our interim presentation and create an architectural entity which is to replace and/or support one of more specific function the parliament house currently provide.

Slightly confusing... but upon reflection of our strategy, I've tried to break this down into some sort of concept to give me a bit of direction for the rest of semester.

06 : Development

As mentioned earlier, I have reviewed Dee's Sketch-up file and re-analysed our ideas based on the feedback given in our interim crit yesterday.

I wish I applied some of the techniques found in one of our main exemplars as found by Jess about the Light Rail proposal on the Sunshine Coast.  Here are some of the images in their proposal:

 

Before the next tutorial on Friday, I will attempt to apply some of these techniques in specific areas around Canberra in order to decide which part I will continue on with the rest of the semester.

I will also dig up a book I have somewhere called "A Pattern Language" which has some really great diagrammatic / sketchy examples of these types of situations which I hope to employ in the second part of this project.

06 : Reflection

Obviously, there is not much that can be done about the project now, but I think it's still worth reflecting on what can be improved for the rest of the semester.  I assumed that everyone was on the same page and trying to put as much effort in as possible, after completing 7 design studios before that, but obviously not. 


Jess wrote a really good reflection on our project which can be found at http://jess-hammond.blogspot.com/2011/09/final-panels-and-post-presentation.html
Here are our panels from the presentation:

Dee's last panel (which was supposed to display our architectural entity) was not to the standard that I expected.  I think it would have been important to be more explicit in the drawing style that everyone wanted, and to make this very, very clear from the beginning.

Over the weekend, I am going to use Dee's sketchup file and re-analyse and visualise in a style I would have done if this was an individual project.

05 : Progress

Brain-wave..... what if Australia was separated into individual countries...
... small distances to manage
... union similar to European Union
... increased densification

only 6 days until presentation... this isn't the best time to have new ideas!!! - but I'll talk to my group about it and see, who knows - maybe it can be incorporated.  This is just a really really rough sketch that I did when I first thought of the idea...

I'll wait and see what the overall plan for the panels is, based on what was discussed in the tutorial and decide if it's worth exploring this idea a little further.

At this stage, I think it's slightly realistic.. and I think that keeping Canberra as a central 'iconic' city.  Each of the other capital cities would be given more power to make decisions that affect it's area.  This allows the Australian Union in Canberra to focus on bigger, wider issues and the overall well-being of the continent.

04 : Progress : Site Analysis

We finally got a chance to meet and discuss everything today:

-- new rail to increase mobility around Canberra.
-- increase density to allow smaller, self-sustainable areas to thrive.
-- make it an example for other Australian cities... a "gateway" into the country.

What's worrying me, is trying to figure out how the parliamentary system will work in the future within this new 'example' city.

After the meeting I printed a base map of Canberra and did some site analysis overlays to assist us in the location of these new stations:

Road Network

Green Spaces

River Network

Places of Interest

Existing Precincts

04 : Theme Selection

I just found out that I have been allocated to the Mobile 2 Tutorial, with Jane Foster.  The theme is 'The Traveling Circus' and it has reminded of a book that I read recently called "The Art of Travel" by Alain de Botton.  He writes a lot about the act of traveling and its psychological effects.  One of my favourite quotes is:

" Few seconds in life are more releasing than those in which a plane ascends to the sky ... accompanied by the controlled rage of engines we rise fluently into the atmosphere and an immense horizon opens up across which we can wander without impediment ... There is a psychological pleasure in this take-off too, for the swiftness of the plane's asent is an exemplar symbol of transformation.  The display of power can inspire us to imagine analogous, decisive shifts in our own lives; to imagine that we too might one day surge about much that now looms over us. "

I realise this may not have much to do with anything right now, but I just wanted to get this out of my system before the tutorial, and I find out what "The Traveling Circus" might really mean.