TASK 10

Proposal

Proposal of Site Re-development

My choosing site for assignment 3 is the site of the Bennelong Apartments. My purpose of the site re-development is to change the Toaster to an avant-garde architecture while remain the building occupancy. The form of the new building will highlight the character of harbor and pay more respect on interaction with the aquatic and the parkland behind the site.

I am planning to design the building to have a fluid shape to match the water front environment. Though fluid (liquid) shape is visually irregular, it does follow a certain deformation rule. But what it is and how can we model the shape? In the zero gravity situation, liquid stay in a sphere shape according to the surface tension. Therefore the fluid shape is a semi-regular shape that will always keep a smooth surface rather than sharp angles. To model such geometry form, we can play with any shape only avoid the sharp angle. In case of the site building design, the fluid shape will complement with elements of dynamic design. Dynamic here is refer as a visual feeling, if we scale the north face of the building then apply it to the south face of the building with a smooth transformation, and the building will have a dynamic feeling of movement. Elements that I might apply in the site design are scaling, rotation, stretching and twisting. The overall shape will be like a streamline in corresponding with the wave of the sea.

Consider with the pedestrian in front of the building and the road on the back of the building, I designed the building to have an open lower level. This will also be an advantage for the retail stores. Moreover, there will be an arc from the building that across the back street and finally sits in the parkland. This will make a connection between the aquatic and the parkland.

The surface of the building will construct under the parametric design method. The surface form will be a frame structure and will be design in the way of topology. Shape of the edges of frame unit will be linear to simulate the surface line of water wave, therefore the whole building will looks like frozen sea. The framework will utilize opaque material and the glass will be applied in the frame unit. The glass will reflect the view of the Bennelong point to create a natural image, and the glass can also reflect the sunshine to have the same look as water. The method I have experiment at first is to insert geometry unit into the frame, I assumed this will generate the right from, but unfortunately I got failure as every unit is too similar to meet the requirement of design. The better method that I have tested is using mass point to achieve structure cabling system as it is more flexible on modify the frame.