Proposal 1

I wanted to create a pavillion-like space which burs the boundaries between inside and outside. I felt that a good way to do this would be to create just one space which housed all functions. I included a promenade, with descending stairs on either side, which links all the different spaces together. Perhaps this could also be made into a colonnade. A glass 'tower' in the centre houses the main staircase to the mezzanine floor. I was quite influenced in Queensland stick architecture, and Glenn Murcutt's facades and designs of houses in the bush.

Gallery Visit

I visited Carriage Works, White Rabbit, Wentworth Galleries, Wentworth Galleries on Pitt and the MCA.

These are images from my work book.

Prescedents

National Portrait Gallery - Canberra

I really love the use of materials in this building, as well as the interesting partis that are used - similiar to Glenn Murcutt's style, a series of long 'corridor' type structures which create rows of circulation.


Mies Van Der Rohe - Berlin National Gallery

I was drawn to the effectiveness yet simplicity of Mies' design, the way he can suggest movement, not through angles or curves, but through simple cubes of mass in compression. I was particularly interested in his concept of hanging walls, as in all his designs - walls act as screens, openings in their configurations act as doors. They serve no structural purpose.

Research and First Sketches and Ideas

Site Analysis

An analysis of the various surrounding zones. Site 3 is highlighted in pink. I identified that a lot of the pedestrian access would be coming from the trainstation, to the right of the site.
drawings made at the site

Project 2: Room and Narrative - Final Submission

Painting:'Card Players in a Sunlit Room' by Pieter de Hooch 1652

Narrative: A widow alone in a vast space surrounded by memories

Pieter de Hooch decides to portray the full length of the scene, from the bottom of the floor to the top of the ceiling. This provides a large, tall frame for the activities of four characters - the three men are focused towards the lone woman, who despite the company looks detached and absorbed in her own thoughts. I thus deduced a narrative of a widow, like many elderly people, constantly living in the past. Memories possess their present.

My design is located in a forest clearing, a landing in a staircase - a thoroughfare. This means that people are constantly passing through this space, but rarely stop to linger, corresponding to the sense of a woman surrounded by movement and people, yet lonely. The glass panels, representing memories, are the same height as her, suggesting frames of people, which obstruct and guide the circulation through this space. The huge glass columns form a canopy, reacting to its forest surroundings, while also suggest a sense of structure and protection. However, the transparency of the materials is exposing, it imbues a sense of vulnerability and solitude. The translucent roofs provide comfort in the fact that they are there and can be seen, but in reality provide very little shelter. Much like the painting, this space is a skeleton of a house, but not a home. The tiles create a sense that this is a 'gathering of memories,' - they gather around the columns, columns group around others, trees group around this space. In this space, memories collide to create a realm between present and past.