Change of Site

After playing around with my buildings form, it became apparent that it was becoming hard to find a optimal balance between distance above the heritage building and underneath the bridge. One was constantly overpowering the other and I wasn't too happy about having the building in the same location as I was before.

I have therefore decided to return to the original location I had with the folie, and punch my building through the arches of the bridge. This will allow me to align my building with the bridge, and as the structures are so similar, have each one mirror each other.

The bridge is also useful in providing shade for the building, which is a necessity for photography as you want to limit harsh amounts of light in your photos. Not only this, but the arches of the bridge provide a natural frame for the building.

I am starting to wonder why I didn't just do this from the start as it is starting to make a lot more sense to me now as a building then it was just floating above the wharf buildings.

The only limitation this site contains is the narrowness of the arches, which will force my building to also be narrow as I want to have a continuous volume and not a narrow space at the end.

This building I found in an old student architecture book. It has clear links to the sort of building I want to produce. However, my building would need to be a scaled down version.

It can be seen to be a pure rectilinear structure with certain aspects which help to create a more trendy and exciting building.

Looking At Exemplars

This week I went back to look at some exemplars, but instead of looking at the typology of photography studios and galleries; I looked at the typology of cantilevered architecture .

From the exemplars it could be seen that the actual cantilevered section doesn't vary between projects but gains it character from its base constraints. This has shown me that the way in which the building is held up or attaches to the ground is very important and should not be overlooked for the purpose of the main building.

It could also be seen that quite a few of these exemplars wouldn't work on the site as they would block the main thoroughfare of Howard Smiths Wharves

This exercise has helped me to understand further how I want my building to change to a more defined building and the changes I need to make to make this happen.

While researching some buildings, I came across this building which has the same sorts of characteristics as my building. At least formally. This has a cantilevered section, however this building has two base supports instead of one, making it more structurally feasible. Also, the cantilever isn't as far as mine, making it easier to hold up.

This building is a proposed comic book museum in China, designed by MVRDV architects. While it differs to my building in many ways, I am mainly interested in the way in which their spaces all fit together. I particularly like the first image with the different levels which all flow into each other. They set up seperate spaces which are still connected to each other while the user has to pass through one to get to the other.

Trying Things A Little Differently

After the feedback from last weeks presentation, I have decided to change some aspects of the building and work on some aspects a bit more to push them further. In the tutorial I grabbed a large piece of paper and starting sketching out ideas of how I wanted this building to look and possible ideas for an interior space.

This became the basic sketch from which to work. From it you can see an elevated building which has an end support attached to the ground. It floats above the heritage building and provides quite a bit of distance between the two buildings, this will leave it feeling less cluttered.

This is a quick sketch of the interiors of the building with the folded skin. It could be seen to be quite a large space which could be used with its pure volume rather than boxed off into seperate rooms. The space the skin creates could be used to a fuller extent. Perhaps have the rest of the building focus on folding?

From this there became the idea of working with the support tower to create a more visually appealing form. I decided to taper the end and sit the main space on the top. This could then be used as an entrance passage with differing spaces along the way.

Some windows could then be added to allow quick glimpses outside until you reach the main space which is fully glazed.

I came up with the idea of using organic shapes in the main space to house certain rooms, such as the gallery. This is similar to the Peckham Library, or the Bordeux Law Courts. The idea behind is that the building is very crisp and geometric from the outside, but once inside the rooms are very organic.

There could be a series of these pods at varying levels within the main space. I need to work out how people will get to them, or how they will sit in the space. For example, will they be suspended? Or held up by columns?

This was a quick sketch of another way the building could be designed with several columns which hold the main space up. It could also be seen that the main space works as part of a truss system.

This diagram shows the idea of moving through the space in order to keep the main perspective on the aperture at the end.

Feedback on Interim

After the presentation yesterday, there were a few things wrong with the design which could be looked at and changed to provide a more elegant design.

- The interior of the building was in stark contrast to the exterior. In this case, the user would experience a technological design from the exterior, then be dissapointed when they entered the building to find standard ceiling heights and box rooms which have no connection to the initial impression of the buidling.

- The aperture at the end of the building becomes too literal with the curved glass and could be more delicately designed with the skin of the building folding back on itself to an inset glass panel.

- The entrance to the building through the midway section is a little clumsy and confused, you especially lose  the feeling of perspective when having to turn back on yourself to get to the aperture.

- The midway tunnel is a little intrusive of the passersby and forces them to interact with the building in a way which they may not want to do. You cannot choose what they do.

- The building does not sit right on the site, especially the way it hangs over the heritage buildings, this needs to be changed.


The folded skin of the building worked well, but should be kept straight instead of twisted.

Final Boards - Interim

These were the final boards I produced for the interim presentation. They show the building in its earliest concepts with no refinement or full resolution. From them you can see the technologies chosen to drive this design as well as space adjacencies and possible circulation.

Adding the Shell

From the 3D models produced in the earlier post we can create the final images. This is just to show you how a revit jpeg was traced and turned into an elevation etc.

Here is the original revit file.

And here is the revised illustrator file.

 Again, here is the revit file.

And the resultant image with skin.

3D Model

Here are some screen shots of my digital model that I made in revit. Due to my limited skills, the building skin isn't present on the model and will be drawn in later on illustrator.

However, from these models, you have a better idea of how everything connects together and the overall shape of the building. From this model I'll be able to take floor plans, elevations and even 3D drawings all the time knowing that the building is proportionatly accurate.

The person in the last image gives the building some scale.

Time to Manipulate

I have decided to draw inspiration from the form of a large format camera. In particular the folded middle section.

Finally A Form....

After deciding finally upon a form that I am happy enough to use, it would a good idea to get an idea of the room sizes and their relationships.

The maximum floor space allowed is 1000m squared and the minimum is 500. I am led to believe that this is actual floor space and not the buildings footprint, so it can't be 10 storeys high, unless it represented some sort of needle structure.

These photos showed some basic working out of spaces. I wrote down what I would assume the sizes of each room would be. However, they could be changed later.



The overall size of my building was 533m squared which fits in with the brief. However, I have no doubt that the room sizes will increase when it comes to modelling.

I also drew up a quick diagram which shows which rooms stem from which others.

However, I also have no doubt that this too will change.



Inspiration from Cameras

After trying to formalise a design in three different ways, I have decided to investigate some photography books to find some inspiration.

From these photos of lens technology and camera construction I have attempted to find another form.
These are the sketches I produced.

These images can give you all different ideas about form for a building. However, in particular I like the idea of the large format camera, as I think the folded mid-section can really translate into an architectural language.

The rays of light through the lens has also made me think of differing floors and access between them all converging on one focal point.