Folio of Mark Ng (389752) Work from ABL20038 Explorations: Landscape Studio 1 centred on the design of The Potter Cafe Open Space at The University of Melbourne. Tutor: Andrew Saniga Semester 1, 2013
Site Analysis
Preliminary site impressions View of the site from Level 1 of the Potter Museum
As a way of exploring different forms of representation, students were asked to produce a graphic site analysis summary that took inspiration from a work of art featured in an exhibition adjacent to the site.
Selected Work: Stephen Bush, Sunday at the Eclipse Mill, 1983, oil on canvas, 112 x 162 cm (frame)
Ideas about realism and observations of daily cycles in this painting informed the final site analysis images. The concept of reproducing reality (including time), filtering information, as well as visual imitations of tone and emotion were incorporated.
An attempt at representing the site through only shade as part of an in-class exercise
Site Analysis On-site sketch analysis
Aesthetic influences such a washed out, dusty tone and omission of lifeforms, as well as conceptual influences of expression of true structure (bunker beneath) and changing shadow positions were incorporated in the perspective site impression.The graphic style was also informed by further investigation into another artist/photographer, Thomas Demand, whose work expressed a sense of hyper-realism.
Concept Design
Preliminary manipulations Iterations of a digital model of the shoe elongated, cut, twisted (guess the rest!) in Rhino
Having analysed the site, students were then asked to buy a random object from an opshop which would serve as a starting point for designing an intervention. The object would have a series of manipulative verbs applied to it (cut, fold, etc.) in order to generate ideas.
Found object: Canvas Shoe
Selected explorations in peeling, twisting, rearranging, folding, layering and weaving
Outcome of object exploration
Design Development The object was used as a starting point for designing a fully resolved intervention on the site. The shoe’s legacy is the idea of the screen-like surface that resulted from the design process but the idea was largely left behind.
Final Design Proposal
DISCOVERY This is an intervention for the Potter Cafe Open Space based on the concept of Discovery. The site is located in The University of Melbourne within the Physics precinct, above a bunker that is historically linked to particle physics. The concept represents the pursuits of the field and the university in general. Discovery is expressed in the gesture of a screen that visually disconnects the site from the street to provoke curiosity to discover what lies behind. Users are guided up onto the elevated site with a ramp that bends as it leads users around the site until they move past the edge of the screen and discover what is behind - a visual illusion in three dimensional space. The illusion refers to the mystifying, never-ending nature of discovery and represents the shift from things appearing simple at first, but being unexplained, to things appearing complex, but being explained. The illusion itself provides a platform for seating, while other seats in the same minimalist language are integrated into the site. The proposal seeks to provide a node and novel attraction to the university that accomodates customers of The Potter Cafe, university students, staff and members of the public through engaging them in a metaphorical act of discovery.
Final Design Proposal This series of diagrams describes the simplified design process.
Plan (1:100)
East Elevation (street) (1:50)
Section A-A (1:50)
Final Design Proposal Approach from footpath / Potter Cafe
‘Spectacle of Discovery’ / Illusion as viewed from priveleged point
Evening view from overpass between Physics and Geology buildings
Folio of Mark Ng (389752) Work from ABL20038 Explorations: Landscape Studio 1 centred on the design of The Potter Cafe Open Space at The University of Melbourne. Tutor: Andrew Saniga Semester 1, 2013