Portfolio 2015

PORTFOLIO A L E X A N D E R C A S S A R 2 0 1 2 - 2 0 1 5

Copyright 2015 by ALEXANDER CASSAR Portfolio ALEXANDER CASSAR 2012 - 2015

I am a recent graduate from the Bachelor of Architecture program at the University of New South Wales. I am looking for work in areas including graphic design, CAD and Revit documentation, architectural and product design, and administration. My skills are far ranging and I consider myself highly adaptable.

This portfolio is intended to act as a landscape of the last three years of my work, mapping the varying thoughts, influences, textures and techniques of my work so far.

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a masterplan for balls head THe bondi Apartments GESTURALITY: TIDAL POOLS FOR SOUTH WEST ROCKS The Part and the whole: An Analysis of the Villa Savoye

a masterplan for balls head

This scheme is the result of a rather ambiguous brief, asking for a masterplan for an Experimental Art Foundation on the Balls Head Peninsula in Waverton.

This site provided a challenge in its’ level changes, as the scheme required disabled access, as well as its historical significance as a disused industrial area and its’ indigenous archeology. The functional requirements of the scheme were broken into staff, artist and vistor facilities. Through an analysis of formal, informal, vehicular and pedestrian circulation these were sited appropriately according to their function and use. An ongoing fascination with Wassily Kadinsky and a recent lecture by emerging architect Andrew Burns, encouraged what was initially only an abstracted circulation diagram to dictate the forms and locations of the exhibition, workshop, cafe and living pavilions. These were subsequently translated into sculptural objects, fragmented interventions scattered in the landscape. The scheme was successful due to its diagrammatic, almost supremacist simplicity in plan, as well as it’s sculptural nature and as a method of carving out and activating space about itself.

01 Cafe Perspective from rear.

02 (inset) Preliminary Sketches showing successive studies and the diagrammatic forms which resulted.

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The site may be accessed via car from Balls Head Road, or by pedestrians via a bush track which leads along the lower water-side edge of the site, and through the disused tunnels of the Coal Loader.

The pavilions were sited appropriately across the site according to function, beginning with a light entry pavilion covering the indigenous carvings. Existing buildings were adapted for use by staff, as they already lent themselves to this purpose. The top of the disused Coal Loader is accessed via a walkway, creating a cinematic experience of the panoramic harbour views, and the large space on the top of the Coal Loader is activated by the cafe. An exhibition pavilion sits in the lower part of the site near to the water, whilst further in the vegetation, structures where the artists are housed and work are sited. The pavilions were intended to be temporary, as the site has many other uses and requires this flexibility.

03 Plan of pavilion locations and functions.

04 Section through staff facilities.

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05 Panoramic view from site towards Sydney.

06 View to site and proposed pavilions from the harbour.

07 Section through cafe and disused Coal Loader tunnels, used to display video and light art.

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THE BONDI APARTMENTS

Sited on 108 Brighton Boulevard, North Bondi, this proposal replaces the existing, dilapidated 1960s apartments. The scheme was to be in resonance with the new gentrification sweeping through Bondi; a rather sensitive modernist replacement of the beach art-deco and suburban brick buildings. Within sight of Durbach Block Jagger’s Surf Life Saving Club, this architecture was to be both resilient against the weather and welcoming to the public, whilst maintaining privacy for residents. The brief stipulated the inclusion of a cafe and a minimum number and type of apartments. Also emphasized was a strict conformity with council regulations including setbacks, streetscape preservation, overshadowing, privacy concerns, ventilation, open space for residents and public and FSR controls. Overall, this was tackled by stacking a series of modules which could be adapted to various apartment types.

08 Street view of the proposed apartments from Brighton Boulevard.

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The site has sea views to the west, prevailing breezes through the site from the east and major overshadowing issues from surrounding apartment blocks. The scheme utilised these issues by creating a wedged arrangement of stacked modules, allowing for a strong street front, and the introduction of light into two courtyards, one for the cafe and one for the residents, seperated by a level change. The stacked modules, whose heights are a continuation of the neighbouring buildings, allow maximum light penetration. These are inflected giving the varying rows of apartments, different advantages of ventilation, sunlight and privacy while creating triangular entry and living decks. A bright gallery and large courtyard links the apartments, and they are separated from the community users of the public lower courtyard. The way by which Engelen Moore in the Barcom Apartments, create a compact living typology which is repeated but responds to site conditions was intensely studied and used as a precedent for this proposal.

09 Site Plan of Brighton Boulevard and the surrounding streets.

10 Exploded axonometric illustrating apartment types and placements.

11 Exploded axonometric illustrating site programming

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12 - 15 Floor Plans showing internal and external layout from the ground floor to the third floor.

16 16 Short section through street front apartments.

17 Long section through courtyards and car park.

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18 Construction Section taken as a detail from Long Section.

19 Shadow Diagrams (left column downwards) June 9am, 12am, 3pm (right column downwards) Dec 9am, 12am, 3pm.

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Gesturality: TIDAL POOLS FOR SOUTHWEST ROCKS This scheme was developed in a studio run by Glenn Murcutt and sited on the shoreline of Back Creek; the mouth of the Macleay River, in South West Rocks on the northern coast of NSW. The students and lecturers camped for three days overlooking the site. The site itself is completely inaccessible by vehicle, and accessed only across a 1980’s timber footbridge and finger-wharf, which connects the site to the pragmatic town of South West Rocks. The population of the town use the site all year round for leisure activities particularly fishing and dog walking. However, council maintain the bridge only because of the sewage pipes linking the town to a sewage disposal site. As well as this social criteria, the site also has an incredibly complex and delicate natural framework, with both dune systems, and mangrove forests further inland.

Tidal variations, strong winds, the forces of coastal erosion and the need to plan for future sea level rise were all considerations that were emphasized.

The brief asked for a series of open pools with facilities and public space for occasional performances, a local fish and oyster cafe, together with a residence for a live in caretaker. A new

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bridge improving access to the town and existing services was a possible additional component. The entire scheme was to be completely independent with regards to water, waste and power. Overall, the project was approached with more traditional methods of representation, and combining direct experience of the site with more conventional research methods.

There was a definate functional need to cater for use from the old bridge, and the proposal of a new bridge across the narrowest part of the creek in this scheme. There was also the importance of finding a sheltered, stable part of the site which would have the least impact on the dunes and mangrove ecosystems. This determined the siting of the project. Conjunct with these decisions, I began drawn studies of the land and water. This seemed appropriate given the nature of a tidal pool. The land appeared incredibly gestural in the rise and fall of the tides and dunes. These observations played a stong role in the overall form of the scheme.

20 Photograph of the finger wharf which runs perpendicular to the bridge out across the tidal flats. The dense mangrove forests are visible in the background.

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The scheme was sited on the edge of engineered shoreline seen in the bottom right-hand corner of this photograph and extends to the arrival point from the old bridge. The buildings are stretched from the west to east in a linear progression, from the densely vegetated, private caretakers residence, to the open, public café at the water’s edge as one enters the site via a new bridge. A rhythm is established by the open space of the treated grey-water storage ponds and the light timber structures. The landscape persuades the architecture with its gentle gestures, as the crests of dunes flow through courts and swales into reed ponds. Contrastingly, the architecture makes its own highly constructed gesture, formalising the already engineered shoreline

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into a strong arm; a concrete walkway which draws the water inwards. Services such as water storage are encased in solid, block-work, integrated elements which run north to south, allowing a transparency essential for the dual orientation of this siting, with north sun and south views. Power is provided by solar panels on north facing roofs, and grey-water is recycled through biofiltration, while the blackwater is macerated and pumped to a disposal site.

The scheme is one entirely of opposites; oriented to the north and south, with access from the east and west, both transparent and solid. These were amalgamated into a scheme which aims to encapsulate all the required functions of the

brief, cater for future change and respond to the immediate and broader surrounds with several simple gestures. Influences on the project include Siza’s Leca pools, Wright’s Taliesin West, and Andresen O’Gorman’s Mooloomba House as an inspiration for timber detailing with local hardwood.

21 Photograph of the old bridge looking towards the mangroves showing the area chosen to site the scheme.

22 (inset) Preliminary Sketch studies of the landscape, particularly its’ formal qualities in an effort to capture them and translate them into the design.

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27 Sketch Rendering of walkway towards the caretakers’ residence.

28 Detail Construction Section through one the childrens’ bedrooms in the caretakers residence.

29 Sketch Rendering of entire scheme, as approached from the old bridge.

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THe PART AND THE WHOLE: An analysis of the villa savoye This was a study of Le Corbusier’s Villa Savoye. Various mediums were employed as mechanisms to understand the architecture.

The building was studied first as an entity, the whole, and then as a part. The whole was looked at with an emphasis on geometry and its relation to itself. This was crucial for understanding the formal composition of the building, the way in which it was sited and the overall structural system. The part was analysed through a detailed sectional model and that segment was then explored as from the perspective of a participant.

30 Exploded Axonometric of the whole showing layers of structure and mass.

31 Model of the exploded axonometric. This was then analysed in relation to the siting of the architecture.

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32 Sectional Model showing interior spaces.

33 Ground, First and Roof Plans as modeled in Sectional Model.

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34 - 35 Photo-manipulated drawings were produced, evoking a sort of mental negative image; an impression left on a visitor. These studied the living area that opened out onto the garden terrace where the section was taken, from the point of view of a visitor.

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Copyright 2015 by ALEXANDER CASSAR Portfolio ALEXANDER CASSAR 2012 - 2015