RE-IMAGINING THE CITY:
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TASK 3B
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IDENTIFY KEY FUNCTION / ELEMENT APPLY RE-IMAGINATION TECHNIQUE 3D MODEL - AXONOMETRIC PHYSICAL OBJECT FOR THE MAT
1 - Data & Visitors Center 1.1 - Data Storage 1.2 - Data & Pedestrian Bridge 1.3 - Reception & Visitors Center 1.4 - Entry Towers
4 - Amenities 4.1 - Cinema 4.2 - Restaurant 4.3 - Retail 4.4 - GYM 4.5 - Supermarket
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2 - SKA Science Compound 2.1 - Bike & Cart Silos 2.2 - Very Large Telescopes 5 - Guests Accomodations 2.3 - VLT Interferometers & Ctrl. 5.1 - Dwellings 2.4 - Image Processing 5.2 - Circulations & Viewpoints 2.5 - Convention Centre 6 - Power Plant 2.6 - Mirror Reapir Workshop 6.1 - Turbines 2.7 - Outdoor Reapir Yard 6.2 - Pumps 3 - Planetarium / HQ´s / Labs 6.3 - Power Storage 3.1 - Research Labs 6.4 - Generators 3.2 - SKA HQ´s 6.5 - Cooling Towers 3.3 - Link 3.4 - Planetarium A
Physical Entry / Exit
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CHATSWORTH HOUSE James Henry Fox 1858
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ocated in the Western District of Victoria, ChatsL worth House is a large single storey bluestone mansion adjacent to the Hopkins River near the town of Chatsworth. Built in 1858 for pioneer John Moffat, this conservative classical style house with a Doric portico and encircling iron verandah was designed by prominent Hamilton architect James Henry Fox, also known for the design of the Werribee Park homestead in 1873.
Set in a large plot of land (approximately 600 acres) that includes a complex of outbuildings and gardens, Chatsworth House is a fine example of the conservative classical style homesteads that were built during the 1800’s in Victoria to accommodate the dwelling and business needs of pioneers in those times.
The gardens landscape is significant for the involvement of the noted garden designer Edward La Trobe Bateman in 1867. Bateman, a cousin of Charles Joseph La Trobe (once Superintendent of the colony) was one of Victorias’ first garden designers.
The substantial bluestone building now known as the Longroom, was once the mens’ quarters on the original Cobb & Co route and the stables that run parallel to them have been well maintained and were completed in 1867. The complex also originally included a school and church. Today, Chatsworth House -and its surrounding outbuildings- is in excellent conditions operating as a functions venue owned by the Jones Family and managed by Trent Adams. Farm production consists of a prime lamb enterprise and cropping program.•
JOHN MOFFAT’S PROPERTY SITE PLAN
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The house was built in two stages. First, the front building where the entry hall and the public spaces are located, followed by the back volume -and the connecting corridor- occupied by the bedrooms, services and servants quarters.
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1 - CHATSWORTH HOUSE 2 - OUTBUILDINGS 3 - FRONT GARDEN
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17 1 - ENTRY HALL 2 - DRAWING ROOM 3 - BILLIARDS ROOM 4 - DINING ROOM 5 - GUEST ROOM 6 - DRESSING ROOM 7 - HALL 8 - LIBRARY 9 - MASTER BEDROOM 10 - BEDROOMS 11 - SCULLERY 12 - STUDY 13 - LAUNDRY 14 - PANTRY 15 - STORAGE 16 - KITCHEN 17 - STUDY 18 - VERANDAH 19 - PATIO 20 - SERVANTS QUARTERS
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FRONT
LINK
VOLUMETRIC RELATIONSHIPS ANALYSIS
IDENTIFY KEY FUNCTION / ELEMENT
he first part of my investigation focused on the T relationship between the solid and translucent volumes that when put together form the basic scheme
of the Chatsworth House. Inadvertently, this analysis also resulted in a study of the proportions that each of these elements show. Based in the previous statement, the Chatsworth House can be divided into 3 parts: The Front Volume hosting the social or public program, the Linking Volume where a long corridor acts as the main circulation, and lastly the Back Volume, where the private program and services are located. (D1)
Furthermore the Front and Back volumes can be divided into two parts: Interior or solid, and exterior or translucent.
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If we now focus on the second subdivision of the Front and Back volumes, It is interesting to find how –diagrammatically- they are inverse to each other. The Front Volume can be described as a solid core surrounded by a translucent envelope, while the Back Volume is a solid envelope that wraps around a translucent core. This inverse relationship relates directly to the program assigned to each of the elements, public spaces in the Front Volume are benefited and connected by a translucent and public element, in this case the
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verandah; whereas in the Back Volume, private spaces share a common central patio where the interactions between the different private programs collide in a single exterior space. (D2) The middle corridor -or Linking Volume- is a simple element that apparently has the single function of physically connecting the Front and Back volumes of the Chatsworth House. The interesting part here is that because of its length this element also acts as a clear divider of the Front and Back (also Public and Private) of the house. In a way, the simplest of the elements in the volumetric study of the Chatsworth House is acting in two inverse ways (connecting and dividing) just as the two main volumes are formally inversions of each other. As a secondary result, my volumetric analysis of the Chatsworth House also shows the way the dimensions of the different elements are closely related to a perfect square. The Front Volume’s core is made out of a perfect square and its envelope is also a perfect square perforated by the core. In the Back Volume, the width dimensions of the longer elements in the enveloping element are dictated by a perfect square translucent element or patio aligned to the center of the Linking Volume.• D1
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TRANSLUCENT
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SOLID
VOLUMETRIC RELATIONSHIPS STUDY MODEL
D2
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RE-IMAGINE 2
ITERATION 1 PRINTING PRESS & LIBRARY
sing the set of relationships resulting from my U analysis, I decided to reprogram the volumetric study of the Chatsworth House into a new building
made out 3 elements, a Library to the front where the public spaces are located; a private area where a Printing Press and a the Headquarters of a Printing Business are hosted in the back, and a connecting and dividing volume where horizontal and vertical circulation distribute users from the outside into the two sides of the project.
The Library’s Collection (semiprivate-core element) houses the books and digital collection, and is wrapped by the reading and shared spaces (envelope-public). The Printing Press and Headquarters (private-envelope) are arranged around a public space (public-core) maintaining the proportional square relationships found in the Chatsworth House. •
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PRINTING PRESS & LIBRARY AXON
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Just as in the Chatsworth House the two new main volumes are further subdivided into public and private, and, envelope and core.
1 - LIBRARY 2 - PRINTING PRESS 3 - HEADQUARTERS 4 - PUBLIC PLAZA 5 - LINK VOLUME
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PUBLIC
CIRCULATION
SPATIAL HIERARCHIES ANALYSIS
ooking now at the interior layout of the Chatsworth House, I decided to categorize the different rooms hierarchically based on their program, their relationship to other spaces, and their location within the house plan. I started by dividing the different rooms into four categories: Public, Private, Services and Circulations. (D3)
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One of the most interesting things that this analysis reveals is how out-of-place the Master Bedroom seems to be located. It occupies the north-west end of the house abutting to the library and in a way creating a very private East Wing, but its location to the north of East-West corridor suggests that its not one of the main spaces in the house.
Given that the main entry to the house is located on the south facade, the rooms south of the East-West corridor -and in direct relationship with the main Entry Hall- are the ones with the highest hierarchy overall. These spaces are: the Drawing Room (used to receive guests), the Dining Room, the Billiards Room and the Guest Room. But not all of this rooms are of equal hierarchy, so -using a private-vs-public relationship- the public rooms were assigned a higher level of hierarchy than the private (Guest Room) spaces.
To generate a three-dimensional representation of the analysis, the resulting hierarchy levels are then assigned heights that show the volumetric relationship between different programs and their location within the house’s plan.
The same methodology is applied to the circulation volumes, where the results show the Entry Hall with the highest hierarchy, the east-west connection corridor one step below and the two north-south corridors to the back of the house as the less important ones.
Even when spatial hierarchy was the main subject of this analysis, the separation of rooms and circulations allowed me to read the schematic function of the Chatsworth House more clearly and in a way lead me to deduct that the Office and the rooms in the north west part of the house were added on a different stage, because there is no internal circulation linking them to the rest of the building. •
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To the North of the East-West corridor, the rooms are smaller thus the grain is reduced but the system applied to categorize them remains the same. Public spaces are assigned higher hierarchy than private spaces and service spaces are assigned the lower rank. (D4)
PRIVATE
The resulting three-dimensional study shows how the different rooms in the original house are a collection of individual spaces, each with different characteristics that when put together can be read as a whole.
SERVICES
D3
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ITERATION 2 LOCAL FOOD MARKET
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LOCAL FOOD MARKET AXON
house, into a group of different programs that –just like the house- were independent on its own but a part of a larger arrangement. This resulted in project for a food market, where the different characteristics of each volume represent the different kinds of products sold in the market. These different volumes are then connected by four external pathways -mentioned before- while maintain the same arrangement shown in plan in the Chatsworth House. •
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he combination of different hierarchies and programs lead to a set of cube like volumes connected by three long and short rectangular prisms. In responding to the question of what is preserved in the translation of the analysis when creating a new iteration? I decided to maintain the program of the original circulation volumes, but instead of internal corridors they were transformed into external pathways. Then, I scaled the whole arrangement so that the cubes with the highest hierarchy were able to accommodate two levels instead of one, and finally, I re-interpreted the set of cubes that used to be the different rooms in the
1 - MAIN ENTRY 2 - PROTEINS 3 - FRUITS & VEGETABLES 4 - STAPLES 5 - PLAZA 6 - EXTERNAL WALKWAYS
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OZONE COFFEE PALACE J. McLeod 1890
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he Ozone Coffee Palace was one of the most orT nate and magnificent Warrnambool has ever seen and it stood on the corner of Kepler and Koroit Street
-1890’s. They typically were multi-purpose and had a large number of rooms for ballrooms and leisure activities. Coffee palaces were aimed at families in coastal areas and inner city locations.
Designed by Mr J McLeod, the Ozone Coffee Palace was built in 1890, closed in 1915, and reopened in 1920 now as the Hotel Mansions. On February 23, 1929, a fire burned the building to the ground where later a new hotel was erected -and is still standingfollowing the original Ozone footprint.
Not much survived the 1929 fire, therefore finding information on the building was extremely hard. A few pictures of a timber model and some taken on the night the building burned down were the material used to redraw the plan and elevations in the following pages. •
on the spot now home to the Hotel Warrnambool.
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Once it was completed, it would’ve been one of the grandest hotels in Victoria, and from the tower at the top people would’ve been able to see for miles. Accounts from local newspapers describe the Ozone as ¨...a real mixture of architectural styles standing at five stories and also incorporating a 500 seat theatre, public and guest dining rooms, and at one stage an information centre.¨
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The term Coffee Palace was used to describe the temperance hotels which were built during the 1880’s
1 - OZONE COFFEE PALACE 2 - RESERVE PLOTS 3 - JOHNSON RESERVE 4 - LAKE PERRETOBE 5 - WARRNAMBOOL BAY
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EXTERNAL / SOLID
INTERNAL / LIGHTWEIGHT
MATERIAL & PROPORTIONS ANALYSIS ased on the little information available on the B Ozone Coffee Palace -mainly in the form of old photographs from the night it burned to the ground- I decided to focus this analysis in the evident difference in materiality between the building’s front and back volumes. By looking at the building’s remains, I could establish that the volume facing the street was constructed out of either concrete, stone, or masonry that was able to outlast the back volume of the building, which I assume was mainly built out of timber and thus was consumed by the fire faster.
This first analysis lead me to conclude that even when the front volume of the building is not programmatically the most important one (it mainly houses the facade and a set of external arcades and terraces, whereas the back volume allocates the rooms and most of the inhabitable internal spaces) it is the one with the highest hierarchy overall, giving the building a strong sense of frontality that we have also seen in other precedents analyzed in this studio.
Palace as two components instead of a single massing. Given that the building occupies a corner plot, each of the initial two components can be further split into two extra volumes, a front and back volume, each facing a different street. What is interesting about this is that the dimensions of the two back volumes are identical even when the elevations are very different. This is achieved by the way the front volumes are attached to the back volumes to form an “L” shape arrangement. Furthermore, this specific arrangement of two identical rectangles results in an internal rectangle whose proportions are very close to the golden ratio, something that is hard to overlook given that architecture has historically followed this rule. (D6) •
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In other words, it is possible to read the Ozone Coffee Palace as a solid externally inhabited volume that covers a lighter internally inhabited one. (D5) Splitting the original building based on its materiality allowed me to start thinking about the Ozone Coffee D5
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D6
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ITERATION 3 PLUG-IN _ LOW-RISE
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PLUG-IN _ LOW-RISE AXON
users without the constraints of corridors and stairs. The overall scheme is also inverted in a way that the back volume now faces the internal plaza generated by building’s “L” shape arrangement. •
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decided to interpret the result of this analysis by inverting the original relationships between the front and back volumes, but retaining the difference in materiality and use suggested in the Ozone Coffee Palace. So, in this iteration I treated the street fronting volumes as lighter and translucent, but still externally inhabited. The back volumes are now converted into a solid and rigid structure that can be inhabited in different ways depending on the user. This project is called PluGIn-LowRise and its main concept is to have an external vertical and horizontal circulation facing the street that allows the back volume to be altered by the
1 - DWELLINGS 2 - EXTERNAL CIRCULATION 3 - COMMUNAL PLAZA
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GROUND FLOOR
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EXTERIOR CIRCULATION
PUBLIC
PUBLIC SPACES ANALYSIS
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fter completing the floor plans –or a close approximation of them- one thing stands out. When I think of a hotel -in this case a coffee palace- I would imagine that most of the volumetric area should be allocated to rooms or accommodation, given that it is the main purpose of the building, but interestingly enough, the coffee palace typology seems to be more about the public spaces and its different relationships to the exterior and the interior than about the actual private rooms.
TYPICAL UPPER LEVELS
The result of this analysis shows how even when programmatically this typology should be made out of closed and private spaces, it is the public and semi public spaces that dictate the final layout of the building. In conclusion, this typology is more permeable and allows a greater access to shared spaces that what its program and name suggests. (D8) •
Facing both streets, at ground level, a public arcade welcomes the users and creates an external circulation that can be used to access the different public spaces located in this level where there are no private rooms and all areas are either commercial (Public) or used as guest amenities (Semi Public). Vertical circulations are located on the two ends of the buildings “L” shape and a services corridor connects the public ground floor in the back. (D7)
SEMI PUBLIC
PRIVATE
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Moving up, on the remaining levels of the building, a series of Semi Public spaces are positioned to the front of the building and connected by external arcades and terraces. Most of the Private rooms are oriented to the back of the building with only a few facing the street.
D7
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PUBLIC SPACES STUDY MODEL
D8
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ITERATION 4 MEGA BLOCK he previous analysis resulted in a building that prioritizes Public and Semi Public spaces over T private spaces. So, for this iteration I decided to completely remove the private program from the equation.
Here, what used to be the main function of the building gets left behind in translation, and a completely new volume is generated by the sum of the Public and Semi Public spaces of the Ozone Coffee Palace and its vertical circulations. The resulting volume can be described as four rectangular prisms sitting on top of a podium, connected horizontally by four bridge-like volumes, with two smaller rectangular prisms behind.
MEGA BLOCK AXON
Thinking of this structure as a community allowed me to suggest that the complex could be designed to be explored without the use of a car so the smaller rectangular prisms to the back became large bike storages and vertical circulations that would enable people to cycle around the building uninterrupted. •
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So, in an exercise of up scaling I decided to increase the dimensions of the resulting volumes so that the
rectangular prisms on top of the podium acquired the height of an urban tower. Given that this exercise generated a very large building I decided to treat it as small community where every tower is allocated a different program and the bridge-like volumes become elevated pathways used to move horizontally around the complex without this being restricted to the ground plane.
1 - SERVICES TOWER 2 - OFFICE TOWER 3 - RESIDENTIAL TOWERS 4 - BIKE SILOS 5 - ELEVATED WALKWAYS 6 - COMMERCIAL PODIUM
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BENDIGO BENEVOLENT ASYLUM Robert Alexander Love 1857
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esigned by architect Robert Alexander Love in 1857 the Asylum is today part of larger medical D centre in Bendigo. It was built and designed in stages.
An interesting aspect of the ground floor is that the internal circulation splits the building in two axis allowing for four independent entry doors to the building.
After Love left the job having completed the central bay, architects Vahland and Getzschmann took over the design and construction of the previously planned lateral wings.
Today the building is in excellent conditions and operating as a part of the Anne Caudle Medical Centre, many internal renovations have transformed the original layout, including a new connection to an abutting expansion. •
It served as an asylum and home for the aged, but the second level was also used as an Industrial School between 1868 and 1885.
BENDIGO TODAY
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The front elevation of the building is its most prominent feature and includes a Doric colonnade that spans the full three levels of the building. The facade suffer a few alterations during its first years.
1 - BENDIGO BENEVOLENT ASYLUM 2 - ANNE CAUDLE CAMPUS 3 - TOM FLOOD SPORTS CENTRE
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A - GROUND FLOOR 1 - ENTRY HALL 2 - ADMISSIONS 3 - BOAR ROOMS 4 - DINING HALL 5 - STAFF READING ROOM 6 - DAY ROOMS 7 - SERVICES 8 - PATIO B - UPPER LEVELS 1 - SLEEPING QUARTERS 2 - MAIN DAY ROOM 3 - LIBRARY & READING ROOMS 4 - LAVATORIES 5 - HALL GROUND FLOOR AND TYPICAL UPPER LEVEL PLANS
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CORRIDORS
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MAIN ENTRY
CIRCULATIONS ANALYSIS
he Bendigo Benevolent Asylum can be volumetriT cally read as a “H” shaped building where two main wings are connected by a central building. This
could infer a reading of two programs (either similar of different) connected by another program. Upon a closer look at the floor plans, we can deduce that this building does not only works the way its volume shows, but also that the internal circulations play an important role in the overall way the building was conceived.
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Two corridors that generate four different entries to the building divide the ground floor of the Asylum something that might be hard to assume only by looking at the elevations, where the lateral entries are treated –almost concealed- as windows. The ground floor accommodates different rooms and programs, this allows for it to be read as a single basement, a group of spaces traversed by two corridors instead of two wings connected by a central element. (D9)
If we analyze the first and second levels, we find that the program distribution is closer to the volumetric reading. Here, to wings with share the same program (sleeping dormitories) and are connected by a central volume where the Public Spaces and vertical circulation is located. Similar to the ground floor, a long corridor divides the building horizontally but now, instead of completely splitting it in two, only the central element is divided, separating the Services -to the north- from the Shared living areas facing south. Two secondary corridors virtually divide the sleeping dormitories but, without a furniture layout, these corridors can only be assumed, as there are no walls or other physical partitions of space to manifest them. •
D9
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ITERATION 5 SUBURBAN STATION eading from the previous analysis I decided to generate an iteration where different types of horizonR tal elements would connect a new set of programs fol-
lowing the structure shown by the Bendigo Benevolent Asylum. The way the two corridors are laid out on the original ground floor made me think of the intersection of two train or metro lines, each one showing a strong sense of direction.
SUBURBAN STATION AXON
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Using this idea, as a base I scaled these the analysis model so that these corridors could accommodate a train or metro car. This not only enlarged the building but also allowed me to start reprogramming the rest of the spaces and volumes around the concept of a train station. Given that I was thinking of underground trains the original ground floor got pushed down and
now appears one level underground. To reprogram the following two levels (now ground floor and level 1) I used the logic of assigning two similar programs to each wing and then connect them two with a central element. On the ground floor a public plaza connects two bus stations, and on level one, a long bridge connects two multipurpose terminals. In this iteration the location for the vertical circulations are retained from the original study. •
1 - TERMINAL BUILDINGS 2 - CONNECTING BRIDGE 3 - ACCESS TOWERS 4 -ENTRY PLAZAS 5 - UNDERGROUND TRAIN
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PRIVATE
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VOLUMETRIC ANALYSIS
n contrast with the previous analysis that looks into Ianalyze the way the building works internally, here I tried to the way the private and public programs are
organized in volumetrically. This generated a very different way of reading the building, a more solid and block-like one that shows how the same idea of two lateral wings connected by a middle volume only works on the upper levels of the building.
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The Asylum ground floor can be considered very public. The four different entries indicate there are at least four different programs, but they are almost fully accessible to all users apart from the private sleeping quarters for servants and staff located to the north of each wing.
Levels one and two are exactly the representation of two wings connected by a middle volume, where Semi Public spaces that are not typically accessible to outside users or guests, re used as connecting programs between the Private spaces on the wings. (D10) In doing this analysis one interesting feature of the building was discovered, the elevations were designed to maintain a unity, to make the building look as one even when different activity happen in different levels and areas. In other words, if you were to redesign the elevations based on the program happening behind, the project would read in a totally different way, more like an arrangement of volumes than a single mass building. • D10
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ITERATION 6 FILM SCHOOL or this iteration I started by thinking of a program that could fill a two level rectangular prism (one F of the wings of the original Asylum) and a program
that could work in conjunction with it to be allocated on the remaining wing. I decided to have two related programs instead of two identical programs to add a layer of complexity to the iteration. But the rest of the analysis remains faithfully.
programs allocated formed a concept around them for a Film School where the connecting elements between the theater and the studio are teaching spaces where complementary information could be added to what is produced in the studio before it becomes a complete movie.
FILM SCHOOL AXON
I maintained the four-entry and four-program scheme from the original project and assigned complementary and public programs to finish the iteration. In this way the ground floor hosts a foyer and exhibition area, breakout spaces, a cafeteria and the administrative area of the school. •
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I allocated a movie theater to the longer wing, and thought about using a music stage for the other wing but in the end I decided that a program with a closer relationship to the theater should be used. I decided then to use the remaining wing as a double height studio where the projected movies on the first wing might be produced to some extent. Having this two
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1 - MOVIE THEATER 2 - FILM STUDIO 3 - MULTIFUNCTION ROOMS 4 - FOYER AND EXHIBITION 5 - MAIN PLAZA & OUTDOOR CINEMA 6 - VERTICAL CIRCULATION & STORAGE
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WEEKLY ITERATIONS
he following drawings represent the week by T week modifications, iterations and different configurations that took place during the middle part of the semester. Based on studio discussions, this set of drawings evolved into the final project shown in the last chapter of this folio.
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Some drawings are work in progress material and others were used for the mid-semester review or the final presentation mock-up pinups towards the end of the semester, therefore some show a grater level of detail than others.
concept for my final project and without the discussion that was generated around each one of them, the final outcome would not have been possible. In the following pages I will try to give key points for as many drawings as possible but the idea of this section is for it to be more of a slideshow of snapshots from the process, and not a detailed explanation of each image for it is not about what individual image achieves but the architectural and visual evolution of the investigation I developed during the semester. •
Overall, this suite of drawings represents the core investigation of my project. The served as representation tests, they helped generate a verbal and architectural
W05 - FIRST ARRANGEMENT
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W06 - MEGA BLOCK AS A HANGER
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W05 was the first time I developed a suspended arrangement. At this stage the strategy had no general idea or concept, it was just a first test that looked into connecting my initial studies while retaining the programs and scales faithfully form the original investigations. •
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W06
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W07 - VERTICAL ARRANGEMENT
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W07 - PLAN DEVELOPMENT FOR W05 ARRANGEMENT
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W07 Iteration responded to the issue of having previously arranged the volumes horizontally or within the larger element. Here I arranged the studies programmatically in a vertical succession removing the largest element that used to guide the previous iterations •
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W07 - SITUATIONAL DIAGRAM DETAIL
THE MIDSEM MOCK-UP Board was an attempt to synthesize several axonometric views, a site plan, sections and a situational diagram into a single sheet of paper. The result was not used for the MidSem presentation due to format constraints. • W07 - MIDSEM MOCK-UP
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MIDSEM AXONOMETRIC
W08 - AMBIGUITY
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For the MIDSEM presentation I decided to clean up the elements in the buildings that define scale in order to transmit a sense of ambiguity in the arrangement. At this stage the project was a small suburban community connected to a larger city using the suburban terminal from the original studies. The driving concept of this community was its intention to operate as a loop where inhabitants would be interconnected using each buildings circulations and the proposed (dashed) new connections. • MIDSEM PLAN
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W09 - AMBIGUITY
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W09 - AMBIGUITY
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1 - Data & Visitors Center 1.1 - Data Storage 1.2 - Data & Pedestrian Bridge 1.3 - Reception & Visitors Center 1.4 - Entry Towers
4 - Amenities 4.1 - Cinema 4.2 - Restaurant 4.3 - Retail 4.4 - GYM 4.5 - Supermarket
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2 - SKA Science Compound 2.1 - Bike & Cart Silos 2.2 - Very Large Telescopes 5 - Guests Accomodations 2.3 - VLT Interferometers & Ctrl. 5.1 - Dwellings 2.4 - Image Processing 5.2 - Circulations & Viewpoints 2.5 - Convention Centre 6 - Power Plant 2.6 - Mirror Reapir Workshop 6.1 - Turbines 2.7 - Outdoor Reapir Yard 6.2 - Pumps 3 - Planetarium / HQ´s / Labs 6.3 - Power Storage 3.1 - Research Labs 6.4 - Generators 3.2 - SKA HQ´s 6.5 - Cooling Towers 3.3 - Link 3.4 - Planetarium A
Physical Entry / Exit
A´ Data Entry TA
1.4
Telescope Array 1.1
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. SKA Complex .
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SQUARE KILOMETER ARRAY COMPLEX Western Australia 2017
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GENERAL PROJECT DESCRIPTION
he SKA Complex is an array of buildings for a new T radio telescope array in the WA desert, approximately 17 hrs drive from Perth.
The Chatsworth House was scaled to 1.5 times to result in the Planetarium, and retained its 1 to 1 scale for the Power Plant.
The six independent buildings, all with different functions to accommodate the wide range of programs needed to run this kind of community are:
The Bendigo Asylum was scaled to 2.5 times resulting in the Data and Visitors Centre building and retained its original scale in the Amenities building.
1 - Data & Visitors Centre (Complex Entry) 2 - Science Building (Central Building) 3 - Power Plant 4 - Planetarium & Headquarters 5 - Amenities 6 - Guest Accommodation
The Ozone Coffee Palace was scaled 5 times resulting in the Science Building and retained its 1 to 1 scale for the Accommodation Building.
Formally, functionally, and spatially, the complex responds, as faithfully as possible, to my initial investigation on the three precedent buildings mentioned before, and the resulting pairs of twin studies generated during the first half of the semester. My final investigation followed two guiding principles to position each individual study in space. First, a rigorous modification of scale to test the limits and relationships between -and within- each precedent study. In other words, what happens when a room is scaled to the point that it becomes a building and what are the steps in between. The final arrangement is the result of the several iterations shown on the previous pages.
The second guiding principle in the SKA Complex was to use an inverse frontality, and the common spaces in the original studies, as the main tool to locate the individual buildings in space. Here, the studies are arranged using what originally used to be the back of the original precedents as the new front, inverting the original strong sense of frontality found o the precedent studies. This configuration generated a sense of tension by suspending the buildings around a central (larger) volume that contains the main program of the complex. •
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SKA COMPLEX LOCATION
SPENCER
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For the final arrangement, one study remained on the original scale from its precedent and its twin was scaled up as follows: 1 - SKA COMPLEX SITE 2 - PERTH
90 - SKA
91 - SKA
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DATA & VISITORS CENTRE EXTERIOR VIEW
1 - Data & Visitors Center 2 - SKA Science Compound 3 - Planetarium / HQ´s / Labs 4 - Amenities 5 - Guests Accomodations 6 - Power Plant A
Physical Entry / Exit
A´ Data Entry TA
1
Telescope Array
A´
TA
A
To Airstrip
DATA CENTRE - SERVER ROOM
6
2
SPENCER
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DATA CENTRE - SERVER ROOM
SITE PLAN 1 - DATA & VISITORS CENTRE 2 - SCIENCE BUILDING 3 - PLANETARIUM & HEADQUARTERS 4 - AMENITIES BUILDING 5 - GUEST ACCOMMODATION BUILDING 6 - POWER PLANT
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3 TA
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94 - SKA
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95 - SKA
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PLANETARIUM - SHARED TERRACE
FINAL PRESENTATION AXON
1 - Data & Visitors Center 1.1 - Data Storage 1.2 - Data & Pedestrian Bridge 1.3 - Reception & Visitors Center 1.4 - Entry Towers
4 - Amenities 4.1 - Cinema 4.2 - Restaurant 4.3 - Retail 4.4 - GYM
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2 - SKA Science Compound 5 - Guests Accomodations 2.1 - Bike & Cart Silos 5.1 - Dwellings 2.2 - Very Large Telescopes 5.2 - Circulations & Viewpoints 2.3 - VLT Interferometers & Ctrl. 2.4 - Mirror Reapir Workshop 6 - Power Plant 2.5 - Outdoor Reapir Yard 6.1 - Turbines 6.2 - Pumps 3 - Planetarium / HQ´s / Labs 6.3 - Power Storage 3.1 - Research Labs 6.4 - Generators 3.2 - SKA HQ´s 6.5 - Cooling Towers 3.3 - HQ’s Terrace 6.6 - Transformers 3.4 - Planetarium Exhibition 6.7 - Control Room 3.5 - Planetarium Dome
PROJECT WALK-AROUND
D
ue to its programmatic needs, the complex is set in a remote part of the desert tucked into a small valley where medium size mountains help keep the clouds away and provide clean air for the radio telescopes that are arrayed concentrically around the buildings.
A nearby landing strip serves as the main way to link the project to the rest of the country, a short 15 minute drive though the desert locates the visitors and researchers at the gates of the complex where they are welcomed at the Data & visitors Centre that acts as the main people and data threshold of the project. Here, on the northern wing of the building, data from all telescopes is stored in a very large server room connected to a cooling station. In the south wing, connected by a long spanning bridge, people check in to the complex in a double height foyer. Next to the foyer, an exhibition center displays the current findings of the researchers on duty. On level one of the southern wing, a data control Centre takes care of the information linking between the server room and the rest of the complex. From there, visitors proceed to walk down the pedestrian ramp towards the Science Building, here they are able to borrow either bikes or small electric carts to travel around the rest of the complex. The Science Building holds a large conventions centre that sits on top of a telescope repair workshop in the ground floor. This workshop is linked to the large open space created behind the building as a repair and scrap-yard. On each of its four towers, the Science Building hosts 4 Very Large Telescopes (VLT). These are controlled independently on each tower and connected by image processing rooms on the upper bridges and by a pedestrian promenade on the lower bridges. The smaller towers to the back are bike and cart silos where this 2 transport methods are stored and made available to all users. Visitors can then walk, bike or cart on the ground floor promenade, under the convention centre or explore the building vertically in order to connect to the 2 remaining areas of the complex.
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To the front of the complex, three buildings form the informal area, where scientific spaces blend into dwellings and recreational programs. The Planetarium and Headquarters Building serves as the first transition between the Science Building and the informal area of the project. Here, the research headquarters share a three program building with a public planetarium and two semi public experiment laboratories.
A
Linking these programs together, an elevated terrace allows visitors to grasp the size of the VLT’s sitting on top of the Science Building. To the front of the building, the planetarium host a research and exhibition library that wraps around a central volume that contains a suspended sphere where dome projections are played and that using its operable roof doubles as a stargazing theatre.
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Physical Entry / Exit
A´ Data Entry TA
1.2
Telescope Array A´
TA
to Airstrip
A
1.4
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Connected to the Planetarium and Headquarters Building, the Amenities Building serves as the link to the Guests Accommodation building. It includes a restaurant, a movie theatre, a gymnasium, a few retail points and a groceries shop or small supermarket to stock the complex with its basic needs. The main spaces of the Amenities Building face the large radio telescope array on the ground with the valley as a backdrop while its main plaza faces and links visitors to the Science Building behind.
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The last building in this sector is the Guest Accommodation Building. Here, visitors can book one of the three types of small apartments depending on their needs. The options include a one bedroom studio, a two bedroom, and double storey three bedroom apartment. A total of 15 apartments are connected by an exterior walkway that doubles as the vertical circulation and that serves as an extension of the living rooms where guests can spend time looking at the telescope array or interacting with other parties. This building is intended to be used solely by short term visitors, for researchers are hosted in the Science Building during longer stints to be closer to their research and work with the telescopes.
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To the back of the SKA Complex a small power plant generates and stores power for the complex. Using a double system, the power plant collects energy from the earth (geothermal) and from the sun (solar thermal) to be transformed and used around the complex. A small double battery storage system is also available as a safety measure. Generally, users are not welcome in this building, that is why its located on a different sector, but it still needs to sit close to he Science Building and occasionally uses the large repair yard to perform works on generators, transformers, pumps and so on hosted inside. Visitors, scientist and operators use the data centre to exit the complex and on their way to the airstrip when their time in the SKA is done. •
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DETAIL PLAN 0
100 - SKA
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101 - SKA
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DATA & VISITORS CENTRE - DATA CONTROL ROOM LOUNGE
GUEST ACCOMMODATION - GROUND FLOOR DWELLING
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PLANETARIUM - EXTERIOR VIEW
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5 SCIENCE BUILDING DETAIL SECTION 1 - IMAGE PROCESSING ROOMS (UPPER BRIDGE) 2 - HORIZONTAL CIRCULATION (LOWER BRIDGE) 3 - TRAFFICABLE ROOFTOP 4 - CONVENTION CENTRE 5 - TELESCOPE REPAIR WORKSHOPS 6 - PEDESTRIAN PROMENADE 7 - SCRAP & REPAIR YARD
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105 - SKA
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SCIENCE BUILDING - TELESCOPE REPAIR WORKSHOP
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ELEVATIONS
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POWER PLANT - TURBINE HALL