Under BOLTE Alastair Jaffray
TABLE OF CONTENTS Context
Docklands 1 Site 3 Industrial 5
Exploration
Site 7 Conceptualising 9 Positioning 13
Responding
Design Statement 17 Precedents 18 Industrial Objects and materials 21 Iterations 23 Diagrams 33
Final Design
Plans 35 Transects 37 Hero Shots 39 Conclusion 43
References
44
CONTEXT
Docklands The Docklands area is conceived by Dovey as ‘fluid ground’, with various histories of environmental degradation, industrialisation, deindustrialistion, social disadvantage, flows of capital, and tensions between public and private interests. The great connector of north - south geographies, Bolte Bridge, projected Docklands to the forefront of Melbourne’s imagination. Dovey states: ‘The Speedscape (over Bolte) is an aestheticised and enjoyable freeway experience that has markedly changed the image of the city and its waterfront.’1 However 100 metre tall apartment buildings and the lack of public amenity have cast a metaphoric and literal shadow over the greater Docklands area.
1
The area of investigation for this project is under the great ‘speedscape’ of Bolte, an unproductive space in many people’s view, but a place of multilayered history, meaning and experience.
CONTEXT
Site History Before white settlement, the area under Bolte Bridge was a wetland occupied by swans, geese, ducks and vegetated by eucalyptus, she-oak, acacias, banksia and open grassland. Moonee Ponds were a chain of marshy ponds, connected during wet periods.2 It was the territory of the Marundjeri-William - a clan of the Woirurung Aboriginal language group. Under colonisation, ‘West Melbourne Swamp’ was used as a place to pasture cows, a dumping ground for waste and a slum settlement.3 Its industrial history commenced in 1877 with the commencement of drainage and reclamation works to connect Moonee Ponds Creek to the Yarra River to allow for the expansion of railway activities.
3
Several modifications to the site have occurred throughout the 19th and 20th centuries to allow for expansion of port facilities and flood mitigation.
|Site of exploration
CONTEXT CONTEXT
Industrial History Docklands has played an essential part in the development of modern day Melbourne. As a site of industry, Docklands has been a port, a timber yard, fellmongering site, accommodated railroads and warehouses.4 Significant investment in port facilities made Docklands one of the busiest docks in the British Empire through the first half of the 20th century. In 1941, 6 million tonnes of goods were unloaded via the north dock.5 Docklands has been connected to other sites of Melbourne industry; the brickworks, flour mills, tanneries and other factories of Flemington, which dumped their waste down Moonee Ponds Creek, so that it could exit to Port Phillip Bay.
5
The industrial history of Docklands is one of speed and efficiency - a productive landscape. Its materiality included steel, corrugated iron, concrete and the repetition of sheds, railway tracks and cranes.
EXPLORATION EXPLORATION
Site Exploration The project has explored new ways of analysing site condition and qualities. The exploration of site has provided a spatial framework to guide the iterative process of testing design interventions. The spatial inquiry has included on-site analysis using different analytical frameworks, literature reviews, generative design techniques and testing. The landscape form, spatiality and experience have been explored however the final design outcome would benefit from greater testing of materiality. A parametric design process has been applied to the modeling - an iterative process using 3-D software.
7
The project has also engaged with ecological and industrial systems.
EXPLORATION
Conceptualising
9
For the designer to be sensitive to cultural, environmental and historical elements of ‘site’, they must engage with both scientifically grounded site observations and the hidden meanings of non-site and ‘Terrain Vague’. The designer should not be limited by an analysis of the site’s physical condition, as discussed by Lynch6. Extra layers of a site’s meaning can be revealed by a questioning of what makes a site void, where do its boundaries lie and which nonsite characteristics can be used in the design.7 In Sola-Morales’ notion of ‘Terrain Vague’, the landscape architect is struck by a sense of abandonment in an unproductive landscape.8 The challenge for the designer is to find qualities in the landscape that restore their connection to the urban context, without the ‘violent transformations’ anticipated by Sola-Morales.9
‘Sites have long futures, and site planning must increasingly be seen as a continuous stream of modifications applied to a changing landscape rather than a convulsive creation imposed on a static world’11 (Lynch)
‘In these apparently forgotten places, the memory of the past seems to predominate over the present’10 (Sola-Morales)
Conclusions for design Engage with spatial elements of site
and
temporal
Search for site elements which can restore connection back to urban setting Engage the viewer with the site’s historic, cultural and social history
EXPLORATION
Conceptualising Void Interpretation The interpretation applied a testing of the physical properties of site - toxiticity levels of soil and water, and conveyed these findings visually. Higher levels of water Nitrate and pH on site than from where they flow demonstrate the importance of connection between the site and greater Melbourne. The variances in soil condition demonstrate the site has been used as a dumping ground to place unwanted materials from other productive landscapes.
Reflection
11
Our relationship with toxicity is a socially and culturally defined threshold. Environmentally, toxicity levels have a role in the plants and turf that may be grown at the site. The intervention prompts further questions about where the boundaries of site lie, how people react to pollution, how are these judgments a result of past activities and what materials are suitable for any site intervention.
How toxic is the site beneath Bolte Bridge?
Conclusions for design Consider pushing site up stream Incorporate historical context into design Expose the viewer to materiality of past
EXPLORATION
Positioning Situationists The Situationists explored new ways of understanding site through spontaneous actions, playfulness and breaking free from socio-cultural norms. At Docklands, a sense of liberty was gained by planting eucalyptus trees between straight rows of exotics, and on Buffalo Turf from America. The spatial experience changed as the location moved from the terrain vague to the manicured landscape of Docklands. Reflection Peoples relationship with site is governed by social conventions. People accept that plantings are the way they are and should not be changed.
13
Whilst not tearing up the cobblestones, the positioning exercise had a similar feel of rebellion
EXPLORATION EXPLORATION
Positioning Deambulation and DÊrive The experimentation with methods of the Dada, surrealist and Lettrist movements tested people’s responses to the landscape in a disorientated and confused state of mind. The unconscious movement through space created a sense of apprehension at the lack of control and a heightened sensorial experience. The approaches allow new speculation into the landscape. Reflection The psychogeography of the Docklands unveils the feelings of anxiety and apprehension felt under the Bridge.
15
....exploration at the confines between conscious life and dream life... (Andre Parinaud (ed) Andre Breton Entretiens, Gallimard, Paris, 1952)
Conclusions for design The spatial experience can be enriched by providing an environment where people feel free to defy order, deviate from path, explore and challenge.
DESIGN STATEMENT Through varied pathways, constructed and natural landforms, the viewer should gain an understanding of the industrial systems of the site.
RESPONDING
DESIGN PARAMETERS
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SPEED EFFICIENCY REPETITION DISCOVERY (of active and redundant industry)
Responding|Precedents Art12
technology vs nature speed movement
Landscape13 industrial relics industrial shapes
RESPONDING
Genk C-Mine Hosper Genk, Belgium
19
Landscape
minimal intervention industrial materiality
Seattle Art Museum Weiss Manfredi Seattle, America
Landscape
groundplane manipulation fast shapes infrastructural context
Responding Industrial objects ‘...Landscape approaches differ from those of architecture and planning in that they seek to reclaim rather than to conquer.’ ((Marot14) active and redundant
RESPONDING
borrowed landscape
21
industry byproduct
Responding Materiality of industry
Responding Iterations
RESPONDING
Landscape
23
architectonic vs organic pathways views opening up axial pathways
RESPONDING 25
Testing in site linear pathways containers as viewpoint tilted planes contemplative space
Testing for speed
RESPONDING
Straight lines Architectonic forms Closing viewpoints Contrast (with organic)
27
Under the Bridge
RESPONDING
Pillars as pathway Pillars for repetition, rhythm Geometric forms Exposure of tower
29
Industrial shapes
RESPONDING
Industrial roofing Repetitive shapes Pathways as production line Tilting planes Opening and closing viewpoints Situate within industrial context of redundant warehouses
31
Responding Diagrams Speed axis Shapes for repetition, rhythm Water flow for speed Changing water flow from straight to windy pathway
RESPONDING
Slope for pathway
33
Sound of traffic movement
Fast entry to site Slow path towards end to create contrast
Exposing active and redundant industry Relics exposed as viewer moves along axial pathway.
Industrial objects Central path direction
FINAL
DESIGN
35
Final Design Plans
400mm contours
FINAL DESIGN
37
Final Design Transects
FINAL DESIGN
39
Final Design Hero shots
FINAL DESIGN 41
43
Final Design Conclusion The site exploration engaged with both the spatial and temporal elements of Docklands. Spatial frameworks allowed for analysis of both physical and non-site characteristics. The final design shows the possible balance that can be achieved by placing objects of architectonic form together with more organic forms. A water course and central axis provides a pathway in which to follow and experience changes in speed as both viewer and water are impacted by the shaped landscape. Both sets of shapes and their materiality are designed to be explored, climbed, run through and walked over. The viewer experiences both the speed, efficiency and repetitiveness of an industrial landscape but also (as a point of contrast) the slower, calming and contemplative nature of natural forms. The spatial experience is one of discovery and the realisation of the richly layered history of site.
References 1 Dovey, K 2005, Fluid City; Transforming Melbourne’s Urban Waterfront, p.150. 2 Tonkinson, D & Lloyd, D, 1991, Moonee Ponds Creek Concept Plan: Flora and Fauna Study, Board of Works, Melbourne. 3 Moonee Ponds Creek Coordination Committee, 2011, Moonee Ponds Strategic Plan, Melbourne. 3 Moonee Ponds Creek Coordination Committee 2011. 4 Andrew C Ward and Associates, Docklands Heritage Study, September 1991, Commisisoned by the Historic Buildings Council and the Docklands Task Force, September 1991. 5 Ward, Docklands Heritage Study, Appendix 6 Lynch, Kevin and Gary Hack, 1984, Chapter 2: ‘The Site’, in Site Planning. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press. 7 Spens, Michael, 2007, ‘Site/Non-Site: Extending the Parameters in Contemporary Landscape’, AD Architectural Design. 8 Sola-Morales Rubio, Ignasi, 1995, ‘Terrain Vague’. In C. Davidson Anyplace. MIT, pp. 118-23. 9 Ibid, p.122 10 Ibid, p.120 11 Lynch and Hack, ‘The Site’, p. 33 12 1. William Turner, 1844, Rain, Steam and Wind - The Great Western Railway,
The National Gallery London. 2. Giacamo Balla, 1912, Albright Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo 3. Pablo Picasso, 1909, Landscape with a Bridge, National Gallery, Prague 13 BP Park, Waverton (McGregor Coxall, 2005), Ballast Point, Balmain, McGregor Coxall, 2009), The Coal Loader, Waverton (Hassell, 2011), the Levitt Pavillion, Bethlehem (WRT, 2010)
14 Marot, S 1999. The reclaiming of Site. Recovering Landscape: Essays in contemporary landscape architecture, edited by J Corner. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, p.55.