week 13
This week I wasnt able to go to lecture due to another subjects more urgent comminments but here's how i am travelling for the assignment so far -
Diagram of Paul Zucker's Town and Square Theory. This is the 'Dominated' Square design. The square (blue) is a central point which is focused towards a main element/object within the space (red).
This is the Domplatz Square within Mainz. The Mainz Cathedral (red) acts as the dominant building with the square orientating itself to the entrance of the Church. The surround buildings form themselves around the square.
This figure map identifies the Old (red) and New (blue) district of Mainz. The original city was settled by the Roman Empire approx. 32BC and has taken on a very organic type layout. The central point of the town was the town square, which was later the location of the Mainz Cathedral (975 AD)
Above is a road map showing the main roads leading to and from the Mainz Cathedral. Since the centre of town is largely made up on the cathedral, theatre and several public squares, most of the roads lead towards it, proving that it really is an important aspect of the city.
This is an urban street section cut through the cathedral, Domplatz square, and the surroudning residential/commericla buildings. This really shows the scale of the cathedral and how domineering it really is. This is a usefully diagram when viewed with Zuckers theory of a dominated square.
Above is a progress of the panel being put together. i still have to fix up the report a bit more, finish referencing and just generally play around with the layout to make everything fit together and flow nicely.
Week 12
Lecture
'Inverse Nolli' - Elise Robertson
Ebenezer Howard's Garden City
Building Typologies
Hopefully by next week i will have my report done, and have most of my diagrams finished as well.
'Inverse Nolli' - Elise Robertson
Ebenezer Howard's Garden City
Ebenezer Howards Garden City was a response to the overcrowded London during the 1890's. He designed a masterplan that consisted of smaller communities with large parks in between them in a circular pattern. He focused on small scaled, walk-able, mixed use areas within and around the main cities and discouraged the use of cars, preferring to have the main transport be by train. One downfall of this type of development is that there is a limited capacity for residents and future growth, also there is usually limit on the technological and mobility needs for the city.
UTOPIAN GREEN CITY
Le Corbusiers Radiant City 1935
Le Corbusier's idea of a utopian city led him to design the Radiant City, a seemingly 'perfect' city to live in based on his theories and perception on what a city 'should' be.
The city consisted of:
- Residential towers separated above the landscape. People could walk around and interact in public space underneath the residential towers and elevated walkways.
- Hygienic living environment. each tower and public space has access to sunlight and ventilation.
- Prevented need for urban sprawl
By looking at these 'utopian' style developments, we need to ask ourselves whether or not these meet the everyday needs of modern cities?
- Urban sprawl which is already established. In a city where urban sprawl is well established, how do these 'perfect' cities managed to take place. Are they only good for a 'blank canvas' city development?
- cities require cars. This day and ages practically everyone relies on using a car as their main mode of transport. These utopian ideas discussed have a strong emphasis on small, walkable spaces and public transport, restricting the ability for people to drive around the city.
- 'Australian' dream house and land. Many people want the 'dream house'. In Australia that typically means having a large house and a big backyard in a quiet suburban landscape. How many people really want to live and raise a family in an apartment like Le Corbusier's?
- Technological connections. The need for a ever-developing city is essential today as the changed in technology are non-stop and such things as phone and Internet are now a nessessity for people to live their daily lives.
- Environmental concerns/sustainable living.
LANDSCAPE URBANISM
Landscape urbanism is an attempted holistic approach to address these concerns. It brings together knowledge from various disciplines, such as ecology, sustainable building, urban morphology, infrastructure, social cohesion, and aims to achieve sustainable environments while accepting technology and urban development.
FRESHKILLS PARK, NEW YORK
Freshkills Park in New York is a public development situated on an old landfill site. The purpose was to reclaim this land use it for public use.The park has been designed for five major sections that accommodate a range of uses, including cultural, athletic, and educational programs.
Five important point about Freshkills Park
- Restoration. Reclaiming the land and turning it into a worthwhile development that benefits the community.
- Recreational, cultural, artistic, education use. Caters for a wide range of users, all of which are beneficial to the users.
- Adapatibility, flexibility. Areas can be used for a wide range of activities and has the space to expand depending on the communities needs.
- Self sustaining. Utilises sustainable practises for energy, water use, waste management to ensure that the park has little to no environmental impact and continues its legacy of being 'fresh' place to be.
- Accomodate diversity. A wide range of activities are available, from recreational to educational.
Today's lecture really focused on one main point. About addressing simple issues with simple solutions
ASSIGNMENT
As far as the assignment goes, I am up to beginning wiritng my report and have developed a list of things to talk about. This is my proposed plan of attack for my report:
Brief intro to Mainz
Introduce the church and surrounding context (old city)
Church's history
Architectural aspects
City Layout
Social Context
Sense of PlaceBuilding Typologies
Compare to the other main church in the new city
Conclusion
Hopefully by next week i will have my report done, and have most of my diagrams finished as well.
Week 11
This week I tried to decide on what I'll be doing for the final piece of assessment.
I know I want to focus on an architectural element within Mainz.
Possible locations for my final project are:
Churches -
Old City - The Mainz Cathedral. This church is the centre of the old city district and has been apart of the city for approx. 1000+ years. Great deal of history and a strong influential components of the city.
New City - Protestant Christ Church. A relatively new church (100 years) but the first protestant church within the strongly Roman Catholic city. The church does act like a monument in that it strongly
New City Public Square - The main promenade of the new city. Draw comparisons from the Champ de Mars in Paris. Has a definite influence of the way the layout is structure.
Waterfront Development - Since Mainz lies on the Rhine River, one of the busiest shipping channels in Europe, it would be interesting to see how the river front has been used over history and how that has shaped the city. Also since there are a few new developments going up along the river, whether or not these elements will further change the city.
For this report I am going to do another Panel + Report submission. I think I've learnt a bit from the last assignment and can hopefully improve and create both a visually impressive and informative report.
The CRA I have developed for my submission is as follows
I know I want to focus on an architectural element within Mainz.
Possible locations for my final project are:
Churches -
Old City - The Mainz Cathedral. This church is the centre of the old city district and has been apart of the city for approx. 1000+ years. Great deal of history and a strong influential components of the city.
New City - Protestant Christ Church. A relatively new church (100 years) but the first protestant church within the strongly Roman Catholic city. The church does act like a monument in that it strongly
New City Public Square - The main promenade of the new city. Draw comparisons from the Champ de Mars in Paris. Has a definite influence of the way the layout is structure.
Waterfront Development - Since Mainz lies on the Rhine River, one of the busiest shipping channels in Europe, it would be interesting to see how the river front has been used over history and how that has shaped the city. Also since there are a few new developments going up along the river, whether or not these elements will further change the city.
For this report I am going to do another Panel + Report submission. I think I've learnt a bit from the last assignment and can hopefully improve and create both a visually impressive and informative report.
The CRA I have developed for my submission is as follows
Click the image for a full size version
Week 10
Sense of Place
Memories
A way for users to interacts and appreciate a space is for them to develop memories about the space. This will create a deeper connection between the users and the space and give meaning to an otherwise ordinary space. This is what 'sense of place' is, its linking a certain place to memories held by the user.
The history of the area also creates an opportunity for the users to connect with the space, it doesn't have to be of big historical meaning (such as memorials etc) but can be just from the users everyday experience with the space.
Mirko gave a quick analogy of what Architecture really is in relation to 'dimensions'
Music - Mono-dimensional - sound, travels in one 'direction' (start to end) one dimensional
Painting - Bi-dimensional - visual, uses both X & Y axis, two dimensional
Sculpture - Tri-dimensional - Becomes 3D, users can walk around it and see if from all angles. three dimension
Architecture - Quad-dimensional, much like a sculpture, but can utilise another dimension, time.
Architecture is a way to understand time
A great deal can be said about a certain period of time by the architecture that was created during it. It's almost how we identify certain periods of time by looking at the building styles created during them. Another aspect that is usually caught within the built style is the values of the society, they are generally reflected in architectural style.
When discussing urban planning, we looked at how creating these public spaces etc, it means dealing with:
Society's memories
Peoples memories
History & Heritage
When tackling these sorts of issues, you have to think about how to manage the history of the place and how your 'design' will affect those who will use it or have previously used the space.
Tutorial
This weeks tutorial was fairly short but we spent the time thinking about our 'self negotiated' assignments and what we will be analysing. The general task of the assignment to to look at the relationship between one element within the city and the context it sits in. A great deal of the analysis will be on how the element (building, square, roads etc) responds to its context, and whether it influences its surroundings or has been influences by its surrounding environment,
FOCUS ON HOW THE BUILDING INTERACTS WITH THE CONTEXT
Since it is a self negotiated assignment, we have been asked to develop our own CRA sheet according to what time of assignment we will hand in (panel, poster, speech, model, video etc). We have been given a few examples on what we need to assess ourselves on, and our own CRA is to be done by Wednesday 11th.
Memories
A way for users to interacts and appreciate a space is for them to develop memories about the space. This will create a deeper connection between the users and the space and give meaning to an otherwise ordinary space. This is what 'sense of place' is, its linking a certain place to memories held by the user.
The history of the area also creates an opportunity for the users to connect with the space, it doesn't have to be of big historical meaning (such as memorials etc) but can be just from the users everyday experience with the space.
Mirko gave a quick analogy of what Architecture really is in relation to 'dimensions'
Music - Mono-dimensional - sound, travels in one 'direction' (start to end) one dimensional
Painting - Bi-dimensional - visual, uses both X & Y axis, two dimensional
Sculpture - Tri-dimensional - Becomes 3D, users can walk around it and see if from all angles. three dimension
Architecture - Quad-dimensional, much like a sculpture, but can utilise another dimension, time.
Architecture is a way to understand time
A great deal can be said about a certain period of time by the architecture that was created during it. It's almost how we identify certain periods of time by looking at the building styles created during them. Another aspect that is usually caught within the built style is the values of the society, they are generally reflected in architectural style.
When discussing urban planning, we looked at how creating these public spaces etc, it means dealing with:
Society's memories
Peoples memories
History & Heritage
When tackling these sorts of issues, you have to think about how to manage the history of the place and how your 'design' will affect those who will use it or have previously used the space.
Tutorial
This weeks tutorial was fairly short but we spent the time thinking about our 'self negotiated' assignments and what we will be analysing. The general task of the assignment to to look at the relationship between one element within the city and the context it sits in. A great deal of the analysis will be on how the element (building, square, roads etc) responds to its context, and whether it influences its surroundings or has been influences by its surrounding environment,
FOCUS ON HOW THE BUILDING INTERACTS WITH THE CONTEXT
Since it is a self negotiated assignment, we have been asked to develop our own CRA sheet according to what time of assignment we will hand in (panel, poster, speech, model, video etc). We have been given a few examples on what we need to assess ourselves on, and our own CRA is to be done by Wednesday 11th.
Week 8
This week was the due date week of the assignment. Has been a hectic few days leading up to the exhibition getting everything finalized and fixed up.
Overall I'm happy with what was turned out, but I'd be lying if i said it was a pain-free journey. A few issues arose with the group that I wasn't happy with.
Assignment Reflection.
From thursday-sunday we spent 8am-3am together working on model and fixing the report and panel so that we could get it printed and handed in on time. Despite us having steadily worked on the assignment for the past 2 weeks there was a surprising amount of work involved in creating the panel.
Alyssa honestly didn’t pull her weight. We assigned her a part of the report to write, but the whole section had to be re-written by Jordyn the re-edited by myself because it didn’t read properly and there were a few mistakes.
I CAD'd the entire nolli map and scale model within Revit, which granted i was happy to do as my part of the assignment, but then it was left up to me to do all the laser cutting myself (took over 2 days, and i had never used the machine before)
ben and I assembled the scale model
Jordyn, Alyssa and Ben then painted the model while I was sick but Ben and I had to later repaint it a lighter shade of grey because the first coat was way too dark.
The panel was done by Ben and I, we decided to just do it outselves to save time and frustration. Ben being far more proficient at photoshop did a lot of the laying out. I drew all the figures on the panel, even though I had asked the girls to draw some themselves. what they did draw I had to fix and redo because I felt like they weren't up the proper standard.
As far as group work goes, there was a lot of room for improvement, but over the past 2 years I've found this is generally the case with every group assignment. It's so hard to divide up the work evenly, for everyone to put in the same quality work and for everything to just come together perfectly.
As far as group work goes, there was a lot of room for improvement, but over the past 2 years I've found this is generally the case with every group assignment. It's so hard to divide up the work evenly, for everyone to put in the same quality work and for everything to just come together perfectly.
Finished Panel
Finished Model
Week 7
This week i was unable to attend the lecture due to illness
While listening to the podcast, I was able to pick out some interesting topic covered by the guest speakers (albeit most of the recording was pretty hard to hear).
This lead onto what Mirko was saying about the difference in being a citizen vs. a customer. In that a citizen has every right to be in a public space and no one can tell them to leave, but a customer is usually a visitor to a POPS and can be asked to leave (private security etc). Identifying these spaces will be helpful for the assignment so that we can explore how the city is structure and how its inhabitants live within it (where do they go, what areas are accessible, are there any POPS?)
Assignment Progress
Since I was sick this week and couldn't attend the lecture or tutorial, My group took the model and draft of report to tutorial without me to get some feedback from the tutor.
Feedback we received back about the model was positive althgouht Mirko did want us to repaint the model to a more 'dull' colour. I didn't really like this idea and thought it looked better in it's natural colours (plywood) but unfortunately Mirko is one who is marking so we took on his advice and planned to repaint the model during the week.
The report was heavily criticised but we did get some helpful advice in finding out the parts that needed more work and sections we failed to cover/needed more analysis.
Feedback we received back about the model was positive althgouht Mirko did want us to repaint the model to a more 'dull' colour. I didn't really like this idea and thought it looked better in it's natural colours (plywood) but unfortunately Mirko is one who is marking so we took on his advice and planned to repaint the model during the week.
The report was heavily criticised but we did get some helpful advice in finding out the parts that needed more work and sections we failed to cover/needed more analysis.
Week 6
Week 6
This weeks lecture focused on a few specific cities and how we can apply the theories and knowledge we have learnt about in the past lecture and analyse the cities accordingly.
Mirko went through the tips and guidelines for Assignment 1 submission-
A1 poster
600x600mm 1:1000 scale model of city
Report - smaller section on history
- structure and layout
- structure and layout
Nolli map (week 3 workshop) - detailed, major part of the city
include two nolli maps. one for the scale model (600x600m grid of town)
one for the panel (larger scope showing the whole city, the differing layouts in the city)
one for the panel (larger scope showing the whole city, the differing layouts in the city)
Investigation on urban environment (weeks 1-4 lectures n tuts)
important aspects of the city
development and changes.
important aspects of the city
development and changes.
Tutorial
Sat down with Elise today and went through potential ideas to cover within our report
Sat down with Elise today and went through potential ideas to cover within our report
Things to Consider:
Bridges - Comparing the city structure before and after the main bridges were built, did they have to reconfigure the streets in order to accommodate for the increased traffic over them and through the city?
River life - shipping channels (import export), influences brought from the river (such as from other cultures)
Analyse how people use the city (popular spots, movement through the city)
New train lines, bus ways etc - How did these public transport additions alter the way people move around the city.
Architectural style of the city - Does this style carry through from the old district to the new?
City sections - help portray the scale and layout of city streets. Use these to compare the new and old cities.
Church -> acts as a focal point. Maybe look at catholic vs. protestant influences (since Mainz is primarily Roman Catholic)?
Timeline - How the city has expanded - old maps and diagrams may be more useful rather than text.
Aassignment update -
Started laser cutting by myself.
Assembled the site model with ben.
I used Autodesk Revit and imported an aerial photo of our chosen site. Using revit i am able to trace the outlines of the city blocks by using its mass modeling function
Once each city block was outlines, i simply extruded all the shapes to create a 3D model of the city. This is the 'site plan' of the city. I printed this plan to a PDF document and imported into in Corel Draw.
Since the laser cutters in the workshop only function off Corel Draw files, I imported my Revit PDF into corel and then was able to make adjustments to the drawing (such as changing lineweight to 'hairline' and the line colour to red). Once this was all done within Corel i was able to move onto laser cutting the shape out
Above is a shot of the laser cutting in action. In order to make the scale model 3D, we had to cut several copies of the buildings so we could stack them ontop of each other to give the impression of a 3D building.
This is a progress show of the scale model just after it was painted it first coast. As you can see each building is made up of 3-4 cut outs stacked on top of each other.
That is all the progress so far for this week. Since I drew, imported and cut the entire scale model myself. I have left the report side of the project to the girls, Jordyn and Alyssa so everyone does their fair share of the workload. The actually assembly of the model was done by Ben and myself, and then we will probably end up doing the panel ourselves as well.
Week 5
Week 5
Design The City:
First part of the lecture looked at designing the structure/layout of the city. A lot of the example cities are chasing the 'Utopian' layout, which is a perfect and geometric layout that will provide the residents with the 'best' place to live. This in turn will ideally create a social utopia within the city.
Design The View:
Next covered was designing the city around views and/or creating viewpoints. This is driven by the visual experience of the city users/ It's all about wanting to capture those perspective views within a city.
Design The Grid:
Similar to the 'Utopian' theory, this is about designing the layout according to a set grid pattern.
4 main grid types were covered - Roman, Spaniard, American and British
Roman - These grids are typically based off 2 major axis, usually 2 main roads that intersect
Spaniard - Follow a similar pattern to the Roman, but is usually rotated 45 degree from north.
American - A north-south based grid that measures 6 miles x 6 miles
British - Based on the roman grid which aligns itself with the natural topography of the land. Cities with this grid design are planned well in advance to cater for future growth. Most cities that is settled by British takes the same/similar layout as an established city back in Britain. A 'belt' or circling land that separates the city centre from the outer country area.
When it comes to city layout styles, I prefer the British type grid system. Their forward thinking in terms of planning for the future growth of the city and how their respond to the natural topography and geographical features shows a more logical approach to town planning.
Assignment:
After doing a quick bit of research on our chosen city, Mainz Germany, if i were to classify the city based on the typologies covered in the lecture, it seems that Mainz follows a British/Spaniard type grid layout. This is because it uses the Rhine river as a starting point, which influences the towns structure, because of this the city's grid is at a 45 degree alignment to the north point (which fits the Spaniard style, though it is more likely to be influenced by the British because of geographical location within Europe).
The original city of Mainz took an organic style, which followed the 'Design The View' style in that even though it loosely follows a grid, it's more about 'framing' views towards the main Church (seen as being a monument) in the city centre.
Tutorial Progress
These are the notes taken during the tutorial, stating additional information for the assignment submission and key points for the report to cover.
Assignment:
~2200 words for report
>7 references from various types of sources
Scale Model must by 600mm x 600mm at a 1:1000 scale (covers a 600m square of the real city)
Nolli Map - a focus area within the city, showing a more detailed view of its structure
Report -
Background info on city
Design The City:
First part of the lecture looked at designing the structure/layout of the city. A lot of the example cities are chasing the 'Utopian' layout, which is a perfect and geometric layout that will provide the residents with the 'best' place to live. This in turn will ideally create a social utopia within the city.
Design The View:
Next covered was designing the city around views and/or creating viewpoints. This is driven by the visual experience of the city users/ It's all about wanting to capture those perspective views within a city.
Design The Grid:
Similar to the 'Utopian' theory, this is about designing the layout according to a set grid pattern.
4 main grid types were covered - Roman, Spaniard, American and British
Roman - These grids are typically based off 2 major axis, usually 2 main roads that intersect
Spaniard - Follow a similar pattern to the Roman, but is usually rotated 45 degree from north.
American - A north-south based grid that measures 6 miles x 6 miles
British - Based on the roman grid which aligns itself with the natural topography of the land. Cities with this grid design are planned well in advance to cater for future growth. Most cities that is settled by British takes the same/similar layout as an established city back in Britain. A 'belt' or circling land that separates the city centre from the outer country area.
When it comes to city layout styles, I prefer the British type grid system. Their forward thinking in terms of planning for the future growth of the city and how their respond to the natural topography and geographical features shows a more logical approach to town planning.
Assignment:
After doing a quick bit of research on our chosen city, Mainz Germany, if i were to classify the city based on the typologies covered in the lecture, it seems that Mainz follows a British/Spaniard type grid layout. This is because it uses the Rhine river as a starting point, which influences the towns structure, because of this the city's grid is at a 45 degree alignment to the north point (which fits the Spaniard style, though it is more likely to be influenced by the British because of geographical location within Europe).
The original city of Mainz took an organic style, which followed the 'Design The View' style in that even though it loosely follows a grid, it's more about 'framing' views towards the main Church (seen as being a monument) in the city centre.
Tutorial Progress
These are the notes taken during the tutorial, stating additional information for the assignment submission and key points for the report to cover.
Assignment:
~2200 words for report
>7 references from various types of sources
Scale Model must by 600mm x 600mm at a 1:1000 scale (covers a 600m square of the real city)
Nolli Map - a focus area within the city, showing a more detailed view of its structure
Report -
Background info on city
- Where it is & surrounding environemnt
- Culture
- History: When it was formed -> major events -> present/future plans
City Structure
- How it was formed & by whom
- Initial layout -> what typology does it follow?
- Changes/growth
- Present day layout
- Main features of the city - do these influence its structure?
Theories
- what theories and concepts covered in the lecture apply?
Additional points to consider covering in the report -
- Bridges - reconfiguring streets
- River life - shipping, transport, influences from the river
- Analyse how people use and move through the city
- new train lines, bus ways, how does public transport shape the city
- Specific architecture of the city, are any external influences present?
- Draw and analyse city sections
- Are the churches the focal point? look at catholic vs. protestant in Germany/Europe
- Visual timeline - how has the city expanded
Week 4
This week we had to choose the city in which will be basing our assignment on.
Our group decided to join the Rhine River tutorial group.
The Rhine River tracks through several European countries and is a major transportation and economic route.
We have bene given the choice of two cities which lie along the Rhine River to do our assignment on. They are Mainz and Koblenz, both in Germany.
We decided to go with Mainz because I am already slightly familar with the city, having read a bit about it last year.
Tutorial
I wasn't able to attend this weeks tutorial due to illness, however i read the tutorial exercises online, and while they are pretty vague without having a tutor to explain them further, i still tried to complete them.
City Diagraming
1 - Brisbane Timelines -
Using old Brisbane City maps we were asked to create a quick expansion diagram based on the information within these maps.
because i was sick and not able to go to the tutorials, I've tried to follow the tutorial exercises on blackboard but they are pretty vague. so i did a quick colour mapping of the site indicating the growth shown throughout the maps.
Red is from the earliest map showing a cluster of developments where Newstead is now. Dark blue is the development of Fortitude Valley and new farm. Light blue is the continued development and increase of density in the CBD and New Farm. Green shows the outward growth clearly defined by the 1920's map.
2 - Mobility - main roads and access routes. cars vs. pedestrian traffic
3 - functional analysis - what the area is used for
4 - morphologies
Our group decided to join the Rhine River tutorial group.
The Rhine River tracks through several European countries and is a major transportation and economic route.
We have bene given the choice of two cities which lie along the Rhine River to do our assignment on. They are Mainz and Koblenz, both in Germany.
We decided to go with Mainz because I am already slightly familar with the city, having read a bit about it last year.
Tutorial
I wasn't able to attend this weeks tutorial due to illness, however i read the tutorial exercises online, and while they are pretty vague without having a tutor to explain them further, i still tried to complete them.
City Diagraming
1 - Brisbane Timelines -
Using old Brisbane City maps we were asked to create a quick expansion diagram based on the information within these maps.
because i was sick and not able to go to the tutorials, I've tried to follow the tutorial exercises on blackboard but they are pretty vague. so i did a quick colour mapping of the site indicating the growth shown throughout the maps.
Red is from the earliest map showing a cluster of developments where Newstead is now. Dark blue is the development of Fortitude Valley and new farm. Light blue is the continued development and increase of density in the CBD and New Farm. Green shows the outward growth clearly defined by the 1920's map.
2 - Mobility - main roads and access routes. cars vs. pedestrian traffic
Using a street map of Brisbane I highlighted the main mobility aspects of the city. The purple lines indicate major roads throughout the city. The red dots are ferry and citycat terminals and the routes connecting them. Blue dots indicate major bus terminals. Green dots indicate train stations and the green lines show the railways connecting them.
3 - functional analysis - what the area is used for
The functionality and zoning of this site is shown above. Blue is commercial buildings such as shops, restaurants etc. Pink is high density residential buildings, apartment complexes. Green is low density residential housing.
4 - morphologies
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