Jo-Anne Obi - IAD Component 1

INTERIOR & ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN COMPONENT 1 Jo-Anne Obi

DESIGN BRIEF & SPECIFICATION Design brief: There are a prominent amount of art galleries and performance theatres that can be visited, however the majority of them are located in London. The majority of UK cities have one art gallery in its entirety, while London has more than 10. This is the same case for theatres. There is an increasing need for both of these facilities to be made available for those interested in the creative field who don’t always have the luxury of travelling in and out of London.

The objective is to create a space where the arts is made accessible to all, taking influence from themes of nature and our organic surroundings, and if possible to combine them into one space. Both the interior and exterior of the buildings should take inspiration from natural shapes, colours etc, and also bring a modern and contemporary look to contrast with the many older designed art galleries and theatres that we see currently. My reason for choosing these themes is to ensure that I can create natural themed structures rather than the common industrialised look many building seem to have. The buildings should provide a comfortable and enjoyable experience for all.

A main aspect of my design is the art gallery and/or theatre and an included pavilion in a public space area. I have chosen to do this because I believe that both of these spaces are able to work well together while simultaneously functioning individually to the best of their ability.

Specification - Theme: Nature & Organic – Exterior and Interior requirements - Disabled access - Garden spaces and walkways.

- Spacious (needs room for art pieces/sculptures etc and a large theatre area including seating and the stage) - Glass walls where possible for an energy efficient design - Multi storey access for the art gallery space.

- Location should be able to blend with surrounding landscape - Accessible via various methods of transport (car, train, bus etc) - Optimise the amount of natural lighting for each building - A mixture of regular and irregular forms and shapes for the buildings’ structure - Free WIFI - Toilet access - Parking access - Interior and exterior seating spaces - Main reception for each building (gallery and theatre)

LOCATION: DERELICT CONSTRUCTION, NORTH STREET, ANGEL WAY, ROMFORD “Romford businesses ‘sick and tired’ of lack of development in Romford town centre” A big problem with this site is that it deters customers from the area meaning surrounding businesses are losing customers. It’s a huge distraction to passers-by and leaves an overall negative effect on the area. Generally speaking it has become an eyesore to both passers by and residents in Romford.

Romford is seen as one of many accessible points in London with Romford Station and having access to a large shopping centre and market. I believe having other areas of Romford that offer different kinds of opportunities is essential for the growth of a place as a whole.

My plan for this site is to knock it down and replace it with a building that will attract people to the area and benefit other surrounding businesses, while simultaneously improving the aesthetics of the area.

CURRENT SITE (primary photos) The current site is still currently “under construction”. When walking around the area you can see that majority of the neighbouring businesses have closed down. The area itself is extremely dull and generally an area of Romford that most would avoid. In creating a new community space in this area it will not only attract more people, but also provide opportunities for other businesses to gain more customers. Ideally the aesthetics of the area will improve with a new building as the main attraction. Its important to be able to have a feeling of community

MOOD BOARD

VANCOUVER ART GALLERY, Vancouver, Canada – HERZON AND DE MEURON The Vancouver Art Gallery is a sculptural, symmetrical, upright building, including both a low and a tall component. Its wooden structures combined with the different garden space areas relate to my theme and can aid further idea development.

The galleries differ in height, proportion and size. All gallery levels provide natural light and views to either the courtyard, the neighbourhood or the city and the spectacular landscape beyond.

Although it is placed in the midst of a large city, the structure of the building allows it to avoid blending in with the surroundings of other buildings, giving it a unique look.

Front entrance is built on a slant.

As a gallery I believe this building is successful as it has open areas on both the interior and exterior of the building (balcony). The design of the building reminds me of Lego building blocks. The floors are layered over each other having different sizes to each. Being a layered building, the levels are stacked on top of each other like a cake. This is something you don’t usually see on other buildings, you’ll generally see a multi-storey building looking like one singular block with all levels being the same length and width.

It shows a creative design while sticking with the simplicities of what a standard building looks like.

TATE MODERN – HERZOG AND DE MEURON Tate modern is made up of two buildings. The first main building was originally a power station.

An example of renovating an old building into something new while still keeping previous aspects of it. The brick work had the same layout as the old power station.

Although some of the shape of the outside is implemented in the interior, there are still quite large areas of the interior that are like boxy rooms or hallways which I feel is beneficial as then the usefulness of the interior of the building is increased while still having an interesting exterior. It allows a higher level of practicality while still having a creative design

Tate modern is a building that tries to combine both old and new and does so successfully. Instead of destroying the existing powerplant it was refurbished

CHENGDU-SUPO GALLERY – CHENGDU, CHINA The project is in Qingyuan Community, located in Qingyuan Park, surrounded by many schools. The names of “Supo” in Chengdu all come from an ancient bridge — Supo Bridge.

I wanted to continue looking at curved forms and came across this building. The main curved structure is an exterior hallway for walking in and out of the site. The exterior site also has curved forms in areas like the stairs.

“vertical architecture” repetitive use of long pole like structures throughout the interior and exterior of the building

Elevated structure extending throughout the building

Some curved areas makes the building feel not as flat, gives it depth

ODENSE MUSIC & THEATRE HALL – DENMARK - C.F. MOLLER ARCHITECTS The new music and theatre hall is created to be a cultural power centre with four stages and the Carl Nielsen Academy of Music under one roof.

The great hall accommodates approximately 1800 spectators, while the small hall accommodates approximately 300 spectators There is also a chamber music hall and a rhythmic hall. The Culture centre also has a restaurant, bar/lounge with access to a roof terrace, offices and canteen as well as a parking basement.

The site is in the Hans Christian Andersen Quarter and borders both the historical town and contemporary multi-storey housing.

Designed in a way that it looks like different puzzle pieces put together to create a building, aids easier interior layouts Again looking at building block like forms and structures.

Interior seating arrangements and exterior shape are similar I think this building is able to successfully use regular forms like squares to still create an interesting building on the exterior and interior, due to the fact that it is not one singular cube/square building.

Entrance is very boxy/ brick like which makes you assume that the interior would be a replica of this, resembling other buildings such as tower block office buildings.

The space available is used to create interesting forms within the building.

Contrasts with the exterior, the building has been split into different sections and layers (ground floor, first floor etc).

As mentioned previously this building uses the space available to its fullest capacity. The beams acting as stabilisers fill in the empty space on the ground floor of the building.

MODEL MAKING FOR BUILDINGS BASED ON PRIMARY RESEARCH

Again looking at curved and layered forms

Doing some initial sketches of the references I used I focused on the shapes shown in the perfume bottle and the candle holder. with the shapes on the candle holder being used as windows in a building. These are simple ideas for the type of designs they could be implemented in.

1st MODEL

This model takes more inspiration from the clothing pegs, having a layered like look with parts going in front and behind of each other I feel that is was successful in showing how the building could be used, as well as what the structure would be like.

2nd AND 3rd MODEL

I feel that out of all my experimentational models these were the least successful as they didn’t inspire many ideas for how they could be used.

I think that they would make interesting pavilions to be placed in an outdoor public space however their forms don’t work well as buildings on their own.

4th MODEL

This paper model inspired quite a few different ideas which are shown in the drawings below. The main feature of it is the larger and highest points of the curved wall would form the central areas for the building

Like the perfume bottle, this model takes on curved structures for the walls, moving away from the generic rectangular buildings that are seen majority of the time

As development I wanted to continue to implement the idea of curved structures, with the entire building becoming a winding curve with sectioned off areas for different parts of the building

The general idea is that the bigger parts of the building takes on a shape similar to a parallelogram, moving diagonally from top to bottom

5th MODEL

This is a very simplified model and I was able to play around with different ideas for outcomes of this for different purposes

The main aspect of it is the curved body repeating along the curved “gate” or wall. It has stripped walls that I have adapted in some developments to be used as an open ceiling/roof

This is a quick SketchUp model showing clearer what idea #2 could look like. It was adapted slightly and the glass dome was moved from being on the side of the bridge to the middle of the bridge. I feel as this is more effective and if it were to be placed in a garden area of the site it would create a greater influx of people who want to come to this park to relax etc.

This would create less of an open, public park experience and gives people to chance to have more personal experiences while spending time at the site.

This model ended up being quite versatile and allowed for a range of experimentation. If I were to develop it further I would consider possible materials I could use to improve the paper and card model

PAPER MODELS

This paper model became a reference point for a new set of models. It inspired ideas or other shaped buildings etc. I sketched the shape of the scrunched up paper to lead to the development of a model.

This is a simplified outcome of the drawing of this model. For the front/main building I tried to keep the zigzag aspect of its structure and also showed a simplified design of the back part of the building.

If I were to develop this further, I would try to create a more interesting way for the two buildings to connect to each other, so they don’t end up looking like two separate buildings that just happen to be next to each other and show a more obvious connection.

Development would include further developing the interior and how it would work

PAPER MODELS

Again this is a simplified sketch up model of the paper model drawings I created. A running theme in both is the zig zag structure which I feel makes the design more interesting as a whole. These models do stray away from the more curved designs I’ve been looking at however I feel it is important to explore a variety of designs to see the type of final design I would want to create.

If developed further I would want to try and create a similarly shaped structure that is connected to the back of the building, but slightly larger as one of my sketches showed.

MOOD BOARD

INTERIOR DESIGN MOOD BOARD

MODEL EXPERIMENTATION BASED ON MOOD BOARD

Being based on the other models presented in the mood board I wanted to attempt to show the idea of layered buildings and the general structure of them. For the first model I used cardboard to cut out a similar shape one of the referenced models. Moving on from this I kept a similar idea but had the structures curved instead of straight.

Being based on my original paper model development, I continued with the idea of having some aspects of the building layered over each other, while making sure there is still a high level of functionality I moved back towards having curved structures but also mixed it together with some straight sides of the buildings

My original plan for my art gallery building was for there to be some form of overlapping, taking inspiration from my paper models and other references.

To still include this with my further developed model, I will aim to try and design a roof that overlaps over all the individual or “mini” buildings that are all sections for the gallery.

This way by doing this I will be able to continue the development of my idea while still adapting and changing the overall look of it compared to its original inspiration

The basic idea of this design is that for the interior of the gallery is that there is a long, wide corridor starting from the very first section of the building.

Within this corridor there are the filled in walls of the elevated rooftops, which will be used as the display rooms for the gallery. Most will contain between 1 – 3 floors with stairs used to ascend up and down without there being too much inconvenience to customers

Basic SketchUp model of the layout

While I do like the potential that this model/layout has, one thing I dislike is that along the development it lost the layered aspect that I initially started with. Instead of continuing with the development of this model I want to research other ideas and then combine aspects of this model with other potential outcomes

Another possible site layout, highlighting the layered aspects, some sections of the buildings being taller than others.

SINOUS ARCHITECTURE – BOSJES CHAPEL sinuous /ˈsɪnjʊəs/ adjective 1.having many curves and turns. "the river follows a sinuous trail through the dale“ As suggested in the name, this architecture company has a signature style of having buildings with many curved forms. This particular building is based in South Africa, surrounding mountain ranges. Its interior plan shows a simple rectangular space “like a glass box”.

This building inspired ideas for my final model. I want to continue with the idea of having layered aspects while simultaneously implementing more defined curved aspects

CONCEPT SKETCHES FOR FINAL MODEL

Referencing my more developed paper models I would adapt these ideas to create a central area for the site with individual buildings all related to the art gallery. Moving away from the design of general art galleries, instead of everything being in one main, central building, the “rooms” would be split into separate buildings which will be related in their architectural design

FINAL MODEL DEVELOPMENT AND FURTHER EXPERIMENTATION OF IDEAS

Following my initial ideas for my final model, I used the same layout and arranged the buildings around each other, however upon doing this I wasn’t happy with the result as it didn’t carry the layered aspect of the buildings that I was looking for. The buildings themselves were successful as they all carry a curved element to their shape and structure, which is one main thing I wanted to implement in my final model.

FINAL MODEL OUTCOME

CENTRAL GALLERY SECONDARY GALLERY Secondary gallery buildings that include experiences such as specific exhibitions

Three buildings conjoined to each other, upper level with lift access. As its aim is to be a place for bringing communities and people together there is no main reception centre. People could be required to show booking codes to gain access to the galleries and then be allowed to roam freely.

GREENERY SPACE Open area for people who want to visit the site or while they are visiting. Includes walkways leading to gallery buildings and seating areas of the site, with a low glass frame around it

ENTRANCE POINT While the greenery space allows access to visitors from roads leading to Romford market, this point will allow access to people coming from other areas of Romford or London. It can become a focal point for the site

To add some context to the site I added the general shapes of where surrounding buildings would be

Layered aspects to the higher area of the building, which adds slightly more depth to the surface

Interior of the ground floor of the central gallery, open access to each conjoined building

Interior of the upper level of conjoined gallery

Close up view of the main entrance point.

COMPONENT 1 PART TWO

DESIGN BRIEF & SPECIFICATION Design brief: Due to the success of the development of the new art gallery there has been a decision made to redevelop part of the surrounding area in Romford. There is a need for further art community related spaces and so I will be creating a community centre to be located opposite the first site. The aim is to create an extra level of accessibility to members of the local and outer communities.

An aim will be to create a juxtaposition in the two buildings as the first site took a very natural form, this second site should take inspiration from geometric shapes.

The reason for creating this building is to introduce more creative focused buildings to encourage people to explore different activities.

Even if someone has never done any art related activities before this site will again create accessible opportunities for a variety of people.

Specification: - Disabled access - Garden spaces and walkways.

- An added café for refreshment purposes - Spacious (open spaces for different art related activities) - One or two storey building - Accessible via various methods of transport (car, train, bus etc) - Optimise the amount of natural lighting for the building - A mixture of regular and irregular forms and shapes for the buildings’ structure - Free WIFI - Toilet access - Parking access - Interior and exterior seating spaces - Main reception

CHOSEN SITE

This site is opposite to the one chosen for part one of my project. I think its fitting as it means there would be two new art based buildings present in the same area.

Instead of having them spaced out people are able to decide to visit both if they want to.

SITE ANALYSIS Medical/health centres Churches Schools/Education

HOW CAN ART REJUVENATE AREAS? Art can have many benefits and comes in many different forms. In terms of traditional art such as drawing and painting, it gives individuals ways to express themselves on more emotional and personal levels. Living in a community, art can have a way of drawing people together. “Public art reflects a community and its surroundings working to cultivate a cultural identity by setting a community apart and attracting people to its uniqueness. Artwork helps express a community's values and creates an elevated sense of awareness for community members and visitors.”

Public art has the ability to brighten areas and bring a new sense of enjoyment so there is an importance to have central centres that represent this.

GREEN ISLAND COMMUNITY CENTRE THAILAND For two years, Estudio Cavernas has trained members of this community, utilizing a holistic approach to capacity development in which workers are trained in sustainable construction techniques sourcing local materials for the development of their own communities. Located at the core of the settlement, the Green Island provides a centrally located, accessible, and safe space where children can learn and play together.

MT PLEASANT COMMUNITY CENTRE – NEW ZEALAND

The main interesting point for me, and the central aspect of the building is the large open glass front wall. It allows for a lot of natural light and provides for a view of outside from the interior.

EXPERIMENTAL MODEL USING TENSILE STRUCTURES

The main use of this model was to help with figuring out the shape for my second final model. It was mainly for experimentation purposes however it allowed me to see a basis for where I wanted to further take my project. I liked the different heights created by the metal rods underneath the cloth.

FURTHER DEVELOPMENT

As further experimentation I wanted to carry on with the idea of having a form of layering somewhere in the final design as I did with my final CAD for part one. To make it the most central aspect I narrowed this down to having a general and possibly basic design for the main body of the building, and including the layered aspect in the roof. I cut out strips of cardboard at different lengths and glued them over each other. I then placed this frame over thick blocks of foam board that act as the main body of the building.

As further development for the final model I created a Sketchup model which again focused on the design of the roof. It allowed me to further highlight aspects that I wanted to adapt which I couldn’t do with the previous simplified versions of the models. For the final model I aim to have elevated points of the roof which further highlights the layered aspects. This model will most likely take a more isometric design to it rather than the curved developments I focused on in part one of my projects.

FINAL MODEL OUTCOME (2)

Layered Roof Created using 3mm MDF wood, staggered across the roof

Building entrance Using clear acrylic with engravings of where the entrance/exit would be. Clear acrylic was used to show how the front would be an open area.

Site Context The site which is based in an area of Romford is shown in the model, showing the area of the street where people would walk using corrugated cardboard and grass, while the black foam board represents where other buildings would be located.

FINAL EVALUATION Upon the completion of my Component 1 project I have been able to reflect on what I believe I have successfully achieved and created.

Throughout I have seen myself experimenting more with different styles of architecture and leaning more on my referenced research to guide me throughout.

Focusing on my completed Art Gallery CAD model using SketchUp I was able to take my time to create what I consider a successful outcome that meets the aims of the design brief. The software allows me to experiment with many different ideas and bring my mental processes to life, creating visuals of what I wanted models to look like once developed further. Throughout I was able to learn new skills to further adapt outcomes. My final model took a lot of experimentation of different processes but I feel that once finalised it shows strong links to references throughout my project and shows a full development of ideas to come to a successful conclusion. To improve on this I would want to work on creating buildings with an increased focus on the interior as well as the exterior and also be able to create further experimental ideas. I would also want to be able to use appropriate programs to be able to professionally render any CAD models to add a more realistic context to it.

For my final model for part two, I am quite happy with the outcome. I feel that I was able to develop ideas and improve on physical model making skills. While being a very simplistic model, I feel that the focused detail of the roof brings in an interesting aspect to it. To further improve I would again want to have a more intense focus of designing the interior of my buildings as well, showing function and how it would be used.

I believe that throughout my project I have been able to develop my own ideas while continuously referencing researched architecture, and my own developments. If I were to continue to take this project further I would want to aim to add a deeper level of detail to every aspect of any outcomes created. I would also aim to further consider materials used and why, in terms of sustainability and the location.

Furthermore I’d want to add extra levels of attention that don’t come from the buildings themselves such as further developing outdoor space and its use.