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FINAL SUBMISSION - SPATIAL DESIGN III

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Week 12 - Structure and Detailing

I’ve been looking at so many things to work the structure out, the pile of paper just gets bigger and bigger as I was having some difficulties to figure it out. Ceili kindly helped me understand so I can have a solid project. 

For the structure I will use Clear Timber Radiata Pine, free of knots and blemishes, used for high-quality joinery and furniture. 

New Zealand pine is a light coloured, medium density softwood with a moderately even texture that produces sawn lumber with excellent working properties. Sawn NZ timber dries easily and can be kiln dried rapidly from green. The wood can be readily treated with preservative to achieve all desired durability levels.

Through good silviculture management, New Zealand pine logs come in a range of qualities capable of yielding lumber grades to meet almost any requirement. (https://www.nztif.co.nz/buying-nz-timber/) 

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Week 11 - Enlightening Introduction

Located in the heart of the city, Fort Lane is a thoroughfare between two arterial routes, being Queen and Customs Streets and connecting also to Fort Street which importantly provides a link to the busy Britomart Station. Central Auckland has developed significantly over the years, with a primary focus on retail and commercial activity. Business in the streets surrounding Fort Lane has increased significantly over time with an expediential growth pattern which suggests even further expansion in the future. During the expansion process, the sense of community has been lost and Fort Lane, where two popular theatres (1) formally stood before being destroyed by fire, became a place devoid of any artistic element.

The project concept is developed around an ideal which would create a sense of community through spatial design, ideally it would encourage people to spend more time appreciating the environment in Fort Lane, resulting in the creation of an informal surveillance whereby people become the “eyes on the street”. The sociologist Eric Klinenberg in his book Palaces for the People, promotes the belief that wherever we gather informally, strike up a conversation and get to know one another, relationships blossom and communities emerge. Based on this theory, the project embraced the idea of designing a space where people would play an essential part in its success. Tools such as movable furniture and dividers were added at each level, allowing the community to become a part of the design process by participating in its creation.

Design inspiration was taken from nature to provide a protective canopy between the two very high walls which enclose the narrow space in Fort Lane. The supporting structure is made from pine and based in the organic form of a tree. A series of blades rise up and connect to form a decorative pattern on the ceiling which casts different shadows into the space as the sunlight changes direction.

The stained-glass serves to uplift the mood creating movement and playfulness to contrast with the gloomy atmosphere that currently exists in Fort Lane. In the evening, the use of LED technology would allow moving images to be projected from the glass, combining creative interest with the functionality of projecting light into the street.

The design crawls organically up the side of the building and over the existing edifice to form the top level. Here there would be a Café with movable furniture allowing flexibility within the space for different social gatherings. A separate designated area would be available for hire, the profits from which could be turned into training programs for students wishing to gain work experience.

The different levels of the building would be freely available for bookings to those who desire to showcase their work or exhibition in the performing arts. One of the most important aspects of this design is that it would ideally connect to the past by association with the theatres which made culture accessible to all regardless of social status.

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Week 11 - Theory  - Artist Inspirations

Olafur Eliasson - Your body of work

I revisited my research on Olafur and Hélio embracing the discovery that inspired by Hélio Oiticica work in Penetrables, Olafur Eliasson created “Your body of work”, an immersive installation that demands an interaction between the participant and the art. The suspended transparent sheets of foil form a maze, and complementary colours appear when the sheets visually overlap, creating compositions that continually change in response to the viewer’s movement through the space. The idea of art as immersive experience was a concept I strived to achieve in my design.

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Week 11 - Modifications

I’ve been working on the modifications I could do to improve the space, promote the community sense and social gathering.

I’ve found a softwall that can promote flexibility to the space and encourage the inhabitance to design the program.

MOLO

A flexible freestanding partition system that can expand and contract to freely shape more intimate spaces within larger open areas. The cellular structure of softwall + softblock serves to dampen sound while translucent or opaque versions sculpt the light of a space. Recognized for its elegant innovation, softwall + softblock is a part of the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York.

NEW Aluminum Textile: A new material offering in molo's core collection of flexible, modular space partitions. Aluminum textile provides a dynamic responsiveness to sunlight and to the interior environment.

New Design: Molo are now offering a new 235mm wide softwall. The new softwalls will be stronger and narrower, with a width of 235mm (9.25") when compressed for up to 2440mm (8') tall, it gives a visual lightness to the way the softwalls meet the floor and the overall tailored effect of narrowed walls is beautifully finished.

Materials:

Textile

A non-woven polyethylene material, trade name Tyvek©, is 100% recyclable and is made from 5 - 15% recycled content. Its lightweight paper look and feel is tear, UV and water resistant, making it durable to handle and maintain.

White textile softwall + softblock comes to life when light passes through its delicate pattern of translucent fibres and pleats.

Black textile softwall + softblock are printed with a UV resistant black ink, giving the material a velvety, opaque sheen.

Modified textile softwall + softblock is made from a translucent white material specially developed to meet standards in European markets.

Kraft paper

A stiff robust unbleached paper, it is 100% recyclable and made from 50% recycled fibre. It is available in a natural warm earthy brown and a dyed bamboo charcoal black. Kraft paper elements are fire retardant.

MOLO is designed by Stephanie Forsythe + Todd MacAllen

(https://www.presentationmedia.co.uk/product/molo/2704/) 

During this process, I’ve also worked around the use of the upper floor, how it could be use and offer the flexibility of the space. Below its a rough sketch of my ideas and how I thought in the occupancy. 

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Week 10 - Co-Design Workshop

Gabrielle nicely came to the studio to give us some advice about our projects. After a great conversation and insights, I realized some problems in my project I couldn’t see it before. My stairs were in the wrong way and how I could work deeply in the colour theory of the design.

Because I’ve connected the essence of Enlightening into my life background, questions were raised about how the space functioned and if the theories behind it was strong enough. Gabrielle also pointed out the importance of the element of surprise in the project once you get to the top floor and how I was thinking in the approach of it. The materiality of the space and how the surface can alter the atmosphere. 

Providing a space to events and create a place to people to enjoy and stay, such as a café can also be appreciated. I then, embarked into the new phase of the design, working in the inside, thinking what type of activities can reinforce the gathering I want to the space.

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Week 10 - Co-Design Workshop

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Week 10 - Modular Furniture

As I was looking for furniture to encourage permanence in the space, I found this very clever modular furniture from Studio Gorm, Project Wood Peg.

This is the perfect idea for the design, the building is narrow and the elements are fixated on the wall when not being used. It is completely versatile and can be assembled in many different ways. If made with a light wood, it can be carried to the stories in the building and also, packed away in a case of an event.

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Week 10 - Abstract

Enlightening

The main goal of the project is to encourage an interactive relationship between people and the space. Essentially, through the introduction of colour and light into the design and by using organic materials with softer shapes and lines the project seeks to change the atmosphere in Fort Lane from one which is currently dark and foreboding to a space which is bright and visually stimulating and consequently more inviting.

Ultimately, the aim is to create an aspirational space which might inspire creativity and provide a place with a community can enjoy exhibitions, artistic performances or participate in cultural events and programs.

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Week 10 - Design Progress

Our design process is constantly changing due the researches and new ideas that comes along the way.

Me, for example, started with the colour element as the foundation of my project, and now, I noticed that colour was only one of the pieces in this puzzle, I’m slowly getting all of them together to make it work as one entire and complete final project.

I’ve realized that colour and light is a great tool to get where I want: make Fort Lane approachable to go through during the night, having more people around, make culture more accessible and a space available to the community. But I also realized that I might need more than colour and light to have all of this ideas to work. The question that raises in my mind now are: How I will “make” people stay and use the space? How to create permanency? So, through these questions, modular furniture and portable partitions came along.

Inspired by Shigeru Ban, a wood structure has been designed to make the space warm and inspiring, to hold all of these glass structure that offers a sense of “inside out”. The LED technology applied in the glass curtain will offer entertainment when programs aren’t happening and keep the space “busy”.

More the technology advances, the more options to transform a place we have, this technology will allow the windows of the building facade to be versatile and keep its function equally.

In this design process, I’ve advanced my researches to find new ways to create the permanency in the space, offering several possibilities so the building can be use at its most.

The next part of my process will be into materiality/artists inspirations to keep developing my ideas.

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Week 9 - Material Polycarbonate

Five Wall Polycarbonate Sheet is the strongest and thickest roofing sheet in the multiwall polycarbonate family. It has an X type profile and five walls structure. Therefore, five wall polycarbonate sheet offers a significant improvement in thermal insulation properties over double-wall and four wall polycarbonate sheets, but it is a minimal drop at the light transmission.

With the good light transmission, high impact resistance, great heat resistance, and hail resistance and high thermal insulation values, it is the right material for application where superior thermal insulation properties are required at a little upcharge. (https://www.uvplastic.com/polycarbonate/multi-wall/five-wall-polycarbonate-sheet.html)

Because of its versatility, this material will be of great use for the roofing of Enlightening building, offering shelter, but still making use of the sunlight at its best.

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Week 9 - Architecture of Fear

As I been reading Architecture of Fear, I realized how the way I felt about Fort Lane was based on my life experiences and how spending most of my life in a 3rd world country influenced in my way of thinking in the design universe.

The way we build walls, buildings and design our urban spaces have a big impact in the human behaviour. In the book Palaces for People, a research made by the sociologist Eric Klinenberg in the United States about a neighborhood that increased the violent rates since a new building was built in the area. The new construction was too big and made it hard for the community that lived in to manage and control who entered and accessed the space, therefore the building was more susceptible to damaging and destruction.

The narrow street of Fort Lane reminds me of the same “lack of ownership” space, the sense community got lost over the years after the fire have destroyed Queen’s and Everybody’s Theatres. My intention is to recover this community back through the design.

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Week 9 - Structure

Inspired by Shigeru Ban, I’ve created this structure to support my glass box. Made out of wood, the “skeleton” is also inspired by the character, that now, it’s literally part of the space. This communal space is of no use without them, same as the structure, the bones.

The pieces will be connected through Japanese joinery and hardware. They are on piece only and extends till the end of the building, like that, all the blades ‘meet’ creating the geometry on the ceiling and the shadows, adding warmth and texture.

The material used will be Pine from NZ. I’m still looking in to that and will add into the blog soon!

Shigeru Ban -  Centre-Pompidou Metz

(https://www.archdaily.com/573818/material-masters-shigeru-ban-s-work-with-wood/54796ce8e58ececbba000043-nine-bridges-country?next_project=no)

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Week 8 - Material Research

Led Screen Technology

I’ve been looking at these videos for the past days imagining the amount of things you can do with a facade such as this one. It allows you to communicate with the outside, and reach people very easily. It gives you countless options and even a “different design” to the same building. 

As I was looking into spaces and promoting safety, lightning is, if not, the most important tool that ensures that public spaces are constantly safe. If streets have steadier flow of pedestrians, consequently that generates a safer environment. Therefore, I will use this tool to create movement, call out people to Fort Lane and create the "informal”  surveillance.

The writer and journalist Jane Jacobs famously studied and wrote about this relationship and developed the concept of “eyes on the street”. The logic is simple: the more people in the streets, the safer they become. 

In this project, my main goal is create a communal space to offer better quality of life throughout the design, the sense of safety and bring life back to Fort Lane, creating a sense of place, to stay, to grow and inspire.

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Week 8 - Promoting Safety Throughout the Design

The article below, found at Smart Cities Dive - The City Fix Brazil articulates the importance of a good Urban Design and the impact of it.

“Cities are homes to people, who develop relationships and communities in which their everyday experiences unfold. Public spaces are central to the dynamics of city life: they are meeting spaces, and the perceptions that people have of these areas are directly related to how they use them.

Both the quality of public spaces as well as the surrounding environment determine how people use them. If they are accessible, attractive, and safe, they can inspire a range of uses and activities. In contrast, when public spaces are abandoned or neglected, they can cease to be places where people feel safe.

Over fifty years ago, writer and journalist Jane Jacobs famously studied and wrote about this relationship and developed the concept of "eyes on the street". For Jacobs, one of the main characteristics of a thriving urban center is that people feel safe and secure in public spaces, despite being among complete strangers.

The logic is simple: the more people in the streets, the safer they become. Their "eyes on the street" provide informal surveillance of the urban environment. For residents to move safely through the streets, other people need to be present, contributing to an atmosphere of safety.”

They also point it out some aspects that can contribute for a safer environment: 

• Streets with a steady flow of pedestrians tend to be safer;

• High walls obstruct views of the street, contributing to a lack of security;

• When people inside buildings can easily observe street life, streets are safer;

• Quality public spaces are attractive to people;

• Efficient lighting throughout the day and night ensures that public spaces are consistently safe.

“Urban security is not simply a matter of policing: it is directly related to the quality of public spaces and their ability to attract people onto the streets.”

This article couldn’t be more clear about the impact a good design can have in the space. 

What I want to make it very evident in my research is that a safer environment can be present in so many ways. My ultimate goal in this it’s to help change a culture of fear when entering that space/walking in Fort Lane during the night for example, consequently help dropping the crime levels in that area, according to the NZ Herald, Auckland Central has highest crime rate in 2004, and I believe the numbers hasn’t drop since then. I’m looking to talk to some urban designers from Women in Urbanism in Auckland and develop this idea/research a bit further... watch that space!

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=3553660

https://www.smartcitiesdive.com/ex/sustainablecitiescollective/how-eyes-street-contribute-public-safety/1081896/

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Week 8 - Es Devlin

“Over the last two decades of working, one of the things I’ve discovered is often things are made to fill voids”

Esmeralda "Es" Devlin is a London-based artist and stage designer who works in a range of media, often mapping light and projected film onto kinetic sculptural forms. As I’ve been watching Abstract from Netflix, Es displays her thoughts and explain her process.

“My canvas tends to be devoid of light, you sort of need to start without light, to find it.”

I believe that it’s one of the things I’ve been trying to do with my design, I’ve found a small, dark and almost empty space, that gave me the freedom to design something unexpected, surprising.

Maybe the absence of light gave me freedom, but I haven’t realized back then that it’s important to have the darkness present in the space too.

Devlin tells a personal story about her first job in the design/stage industry when she was designing a theatre scene and how it can tell a story without even saying a word. It’s funny to think about it and realize that everything tells a story in a very unique way, throughout textures, construction techniques, shapes, geometry present in the space, how everything has aged or not at all.

I’ve been wondering about my process and how this design will impact in the space in a whole. How can I make people feel safe? Is the building enough and what other ways can I explore that?

I will start testing some light and darkness in my next stage and develop a research further on.

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Week 8 - Reflection/Light

Back at Uni and after the formative assignment, I was thinking about the light reflection I’ve designed, the glass building and the openness I desired for the space. 

I’ve explained further down the relationship I’ve got with bright colours and why do I want to bring that to Fort Lane and how I want to explore the imagination of the everyday characters and the building throughout the design.

As I was looking around me today, I’ve noticed the lights and shadows my house was casting this afternoon, the contrasting of the darkness and light and how the presence of both its necessary for its existence, the peculiar shapes you can get out of it.

It’s funny how it’s something that is present in our everyday lives and yet, sometimes we don’t really realize the architecture of light and shadow, how it can be manipulated to create effects and bring mystery or drama into it. 

I started looking at filmmaking lighting and the different styles it exists to create certain mood to the scene. 

From that, this second part of the semester I’ll be looking in how I can manipulate the light to create barriers, to guide people to an environment and to cause drama/mystery when necessary, I realized that light and transparency is really important in this design, but if I manipulate it strategically it can turn out in a beautiful meaningful space for the community.

https://filmlifestyle.com/video-production-lighting/