L I F E S T O R Y
ABPL 20038 Explorations: Landscape Studio 1
Final Project: ‘Life Sotry’ Yifei Qiu 825853
What is your story of life? Ask yourself Choose Your Story
Contents 1. Site Analysis 1.1 1:100 Plan Analysis 1.2 1:500 Plan Analysis
2. ‘Op-ject’ Iteration
2.1 Opportunities in Finding: Search for ‘Op-ject’ 2.2 Transformation Exploration: Verb Attempts 2.3 ‘Op-ject’ Iteration: Flatten(Melt) & Adapt & Freeze(Separate) 2.4 ‘Op-ject’ Iteration: Extrude & Rearrange & Integrate 2.5 ‘Op-ject’ Iteration: Squeeze & Invert & Lighten & Fluffy-up 2.6 ‘Op-ject’ Iteration: Other Attempts
3. Refining and Final Project
3.1 Reflecting to the Site: Ideation and Conceptualization 3.2 Ideation of ‘Life Story’: Four Stages of Life 3.3 ‘Life’ Actualization: Four Stages in Plan 3.4 ‘Life’ Actualization: Elevations and Sections 3.5 ‘Life’ Actualization: Elevations and Sections 3.6 ‘Life’ Actualization: Perspective Views and Close-ups
4. Finale
LEGEND
SITE ANALYSIS 1:100
Walk Paths Sea�ng Areas Planta�ons Exis�ng Buildings
Main Entr anc (Most Use e d)
Bunker Bo
undary
Store House GATE 2
Ulmus procera English Elm Ulmaceae
Dianella caerulea Paroo Lily Xanthorrhoeaceae
Eremophila glabra Tar bush Scrophulariaceae
Brachyscome multifida Cut-leaf Daisy Asteraceae
SITE ANALYSIS 1:500
LEGEND Site Office/Educa�on Building Road Traffic
Coffee Shop Ian Po�er Museum Walk Flow Bicycle Flow
Tram Traffic Road Traffic
Pedestrian Cro
ssing
2.1 ‘Op-ject’
- Opportunities in Finding First of all, being in a Op-shop itself is an experience to me; with all the items; or ‘stories’; around me. I like to find the ‘marks’ of the previous owners on the item so it gives me the opportunity to imagine what was happening to the object before. The item I found that was interesting to me was this pack of floating ball candles. The marks of usage from the previous owner can not be removed and they were shown on the object distinctively; which evoked my interests.
ABPL 20038 Explorations: Landscape Studio 1 Final Project: ‘Life Story’ Yifei Qiu 825853
2.2 Transformation Exploration - ‘Verb’ Attempts
I started off with several attempts to alter or transform my candles physically without considering the verbs given in the lecture; that way I find it more fun and creative. Since I had 6 pieces of my objects for me to play around with, I didn’t hesitate to destroy them at the very beginning.
After that I realized that the most significant property of my object is that it melts under heat; also it is very hard to cut in normal temperature. Thus I picked up a lighter to heat up the blade and to cut through the object.
The first attempt I made was to drill holes on the object with a cutting knife; this idea came to me as I was trying to take one of the candle out from the holder and I found out bits of the waxes ended up in my finger nails. And thus I decided to try to fragment it in some ways.
ABPL 20038 Explorations: Landscape Studio 1 Final Project: ‘Life Story’ Yifei Qiu 825853
Although the object was hard to cut through, but after my first attempt; I figured out that with a point pressure exerted on it the object can be penetrated easily. I was doing construction models at that time and I happened to have some steel wires around me so i decided to go through the object with them for a bit.
2.3 Flatten & Adapt & Freeze(Seperate) - ‘Op-ject’ Iterations
After the experiments I did; I started to realize what is interesting to me; and also; I had more tools at home for me to play around with temperatures. After research I found out the my oven is a ideal tool to melt the candle without lighting it up as the melting point for wax is 50-60 degrees. So I decided to melt it with my oven; and it was always my wish to melt it.
Once the object turns into liquid; it is easy for it to adapt to any shape I create; so I crushed a few cups and picked one randomly to forge the liquid.
After roughly around 20 minuets of processing in the oven the candle melted completely as the right image shows. The candlewick can still be found in it. The result of the action ended up with a flat plate of wax liquid so thus I considered it ‘flatten’ or ‘melt’.
ABPL 20038 Explorations: Landscape Studio 1 Final Project: ‘Life Story’ Yifei Qiu 825853
The hot liquid needs to cool down to form a shape; and I literally just put it into the freezer. Due to the different physical characteristic of plastic and wax; as they were froze straight from heat, the plastic cup became very easy to peel of. And that ended up with this form in the right image. To be honest it was very satisfying to peel the ‘skins’ off.
2.4 Extrude & Rearrange & Integrate - ‘Op-ject’ Iterations
My fun with my oven didn’t end there; after the fully melted candle I went back and looked back at my previous attempts. I have chosen my favourite one to further develop which was the hole drilling one. I liked the texture that the drilled-out pieces creates and the relationship there with the drill-out and original object.
I tried different ways to arrange the pieces and the original objects around to show the relationship between them.
Like what I did in my attempt, I drilled more holes on the object and there were more drilled-out pieces for me to play with. I tried to do the drills as random as possible so it does not suggest any sort of patterns I would be implying in my mind.
ABPL 20038 Explorations: Landscape Studio 1 Final Project: ‘Life Story’ Yifei Qiu 825853
I have chosen this one because of the contact there they have and to me it shows that the pieces were previously a part of the large object. Again, I put them in the oven and the heat forged them together. Which, to me reflects back to the idea that they were once the same things.; The object went from a unity to segments and back to unity again but in another form.
2.5 Squeeze & Invert & Lighten & Fluffy-up - ‘Op-ject’ Iterations + others
After focusing a lot on physical model; I realized that all I have been doing was exploring in a physical manor and modelling it in the digital world. Thus I decided to start to explore more in the digital world. In those physical models; I focused on the mainly on the materiality of my object as it is in the real world to optimize it; so digitally; i chose to focus more on the verbs and actions I can optimize without the restrictions in real world and see what the algorithm can give me. I won’t explain much about the process as the from is way more interesting than the boring codes.
Squeeze
Some of these verbs are named by its look as like the first two ones ‘squeeze’ and ‘lighten’. Although the process has nothing to do with these verbs but the result just looks like it has been squeezed or lightened. The last one ‘fluffy-up’ was the one I kept attempting for but did not success due to my lack of advanced skills. The idea is to morph the voronoi bubbles I made onto the object, and give it a random factor for height so the object looks fluffy like a ballon.
Lighten
Fluffy-up
Invert
ABPL 20038 Explorations: Landscape Studio 1 Final Project: ‘Life Story’ Yifei Qiu 825853
2.6 Other Attempts Returning to Site - ‘Op-ject’ Iterations + others
After the Second presentation; with the feedbacks in my mind I went back to the site to gather some ‘connection’ between my found ‘Op-ject’ and the site. I found a coffee cup that was lying just aside from the site maybe was crushed by cars potentially. I used my remaining candles to forge out the shape of it and gave me some interesting shapes to play with.
ABPL 20038 Explorations: Landscape Studio 1 Final Project: ‘Life Story’ Yifei Qiu 825853
LIFE STORY
3.1 Reflecting to the Site - Ideation and Conceptualization
‘Postera Crescam Laude’
‘Growing in the Esteem of Future Generation’
‘Postera Crescam Laude’, it is the motto of our university; The University of Melbourne; also written on the logo of the university meaning growing in the esteem of future generation. As part of the future generation in the campus; one of our major mission here in university could be planing out a more desirable future life no matter what direction you are going towards. With this sort of environment in the mind I thought I could take this opportunity at this site; with many aspects around it; to evaluate a place that could allow people to ‘experience’ a choice of life and to ‘feel’ a story of life.
Sport Venue
Physical Building
Art Museum
ABPL 20038 Explorations: Landscape Studio 1 Final Project: ‘Life Story’ Yifei Qiu 825853
3.2 Ideation of ‘Life Story’ - The Four Stages of Life
With the idea of a life story in my mind; I sorted out 4 stages of life and iterated them with different functions or experiences according to my understanding of life.
The First stage is childhood. Where is the relaxing part of life; where we have nothing to worry about; no school works no relationship issues no salary pressures. I felt like at this stage of life the feeling should be light and chill; thus I wanted the first stage of the design to be a part that can relate to the function of lying down and freedom. The third stage is adult. The most common stage; where we finally have to face the cruel society and taste the reality of life. Some of us may settle down and keep some of the dreams we had just inside of our heart and some may still be on their way towards their dreams. I wanted to use the most common function; seating; to represent this stage, but also with some diversity to represent all the different approaches of people.
ABPL 20038 Explorations: Landscape Studio 1 Final Project: ‘Life Story’ Yifei Qiu 825853
The Second stage I concluded is teenage. Which is the stage most of us are at in the university. The theme I found for teenager is challenge. Teenagers are at the middle of kid and adult; where we are given the opportunity to dream big and aim big and have the strength to try to approach it; but also, need to take responsibilities. I found rock climbing a very interesting activity representing teenager where people go across all the difficulties, aiming the goal and risking their lives approaching it. The final stage is where we get old and start to look back on our lives. I wanted this stage to be at the top point of all the stages where people can look back at their life and the paths they took. Also, a place that can be spiritual and away from all the other functions and facilities that people can reflect on their life story.
3.3 ‘Life’ Actualization
B
- Four Stages in Plan First Stage : Childhood The pattern of this stage came from one of the iteration from assignment 2. This part contains grass lawns that are sloghtly angled that people can lie on and also paved walk paths that allow circulation through the site.
C
A
Third Stage : Adult This part would be the main functioning area of the design with seating ranging from very normal seats to more ‘strange’ seats. After getting through the ‘dream’ fighting process in teenage; people finally realize that you may feel unique or special when you are young but at the end; most of us are just normal person. And that is the reason the landforms are relevantly smoother in this section; but still the variations of seats; from normal to abnormal; reflects the remaining of people’s young dream and how they chose to look at them when they are older. Also, function wise there is a stair way that allow people to access theses seats directly form the cafe without going through all the landforms. Again it is another choice to make whether to experience this site or not; just like life; many decisions to make. The main direction of the journey represented in this project is a diagonal line across the rectangular site; which is; from a corner to a corner; starting from a point to another point. All the options that completes the journey will have the same starting point and the same B finishing point; which reflects that we are all born the same; after we go through all the different lives we live; we all die the same again.
C
Second Stage : Teenage This part of land has more slope than the first part and also an implied landscape pattern that was inspired by assignment 2 results. The idea was directly inspired by rock climbing; by placing rocks along the implied pattern to create a ‘rock maze’. At some part the rocks are denser and some part are less dense, this implies the different path people choose; whether they chose to go the ‘hard’ way or the ‘easier’ way. This part of the project will be harder for people to get through; and that is the aim to let people experience and choose whether to go on the hard path. Also, this part has the largest width which represents that it is at teenage most creativities in human are evoked.
ABPL 20038 Explorations: Landscape Studio 1 Final Project: ‘Life Story’ PLAN : 100 @ A3 Yifei Qiu 1 825853
A
Final Stage : Getting Old The final section is just a elevated platform with only one seating bench and a glazed flooring. At this final stage, people get to look back at their ‘life’; although there may be others on the site at that time but what people can see is which way they chose to go; or which place they chose to sit on. At this point, all the decisions they made became clear to them and people get to reflect on their journey to this final destination. The only one bench allow people to have a uninterrupted space for them to reflect on their own ‘life’; and also limit the load on the glass for safety concerns. The glass flooring makes the area feels elevated and adds a bit spiritual atmosphere to the space.
3.4 ‘Life’ Actualization - Elevations and Sections
EAST ELEVATION 1 : 100 @ A3
NORTH ELEVATION 1 : 100 @ A3
ABPL 20038 Explorations: Landscape Studio 1 Final Project: ‘Life Story’ Yifei Qiu 825853
3.5 ‘Life’ Actualization - Elevations and Sections
SECTION A-A 1 : 100 @ A3
SECTION B-B 1 : 100 @ A3
ABPL 20038 Explorations: Landscape Studio 1 Final Project: ‘Life Story’ Yifei Qiu 825853
3.5 ‘Life’ Actualization - Elevations and Sections
SECTION C-C 1 : 100 @ A3
ABPL 20038 Explorations: Landscape Studio 1 Final Project: ‘Life Story’ Yifei Qiu 825853
3.6 ‘Life’ Actualization
- Perspective Views and Close-ups
Perspective view from a distance
ABPL 20038 Explorations: Landscape Studio 1 Final Project: ‘Life Story’ Yifei Qiu 825853
3.6 ‘Life’ Actualization
- Perspective Views and Close-ups
Perspective close-up at the bottom (Childhood stage)
ABPL 20038 Explorations: Landscape Studio 1 Final Project: ‘Life Story’ Yifei Qiu 825853
3.6 ‘Life’ Actualization
- Perspective Views and Close-ups
Perspective close-up at the top (Old people stage)
ABPL 20038 Explorations: Landscape Studio 1 Final Project: ‘Life Story’ Yifei Qiu 825853
3.6 ‘Life’ Actualization
- Perspective Views and Close-ups
Perspective close-up at the rock maze (Teenager stage)
ABPL 20038 Explorations: Landscape Studio 1 Final Project: ‘Life Story’ Yifei Qiu 825853
THIS STORY HAS ENDED
W H AT I S YO U R S TO RY ?
ABPL 20038 Explorations: Landscape Studio 1 Final Project: ‘Life Story’ Yifei Qiu 825853