ARCHITECTURE DESIGN STUDIO:

EARTH

JENNA LEONG | 609357SEMESTER 2 | 2015TUTOR: BRADLEY ELIAS

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CONTENTS

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INTRODUCTION

My name is Jenna Leong. I am Chinese, by blood, and South African, by nationality, and was born and raised in the sunny city Johannesburg. I am currently completing my final year of a Bachelor of Environments undergraduate degree with a major in architecture at the University of Melbourne.

Growing up in South Africa – a country attempting to establish its identity as a ‘Rainbow Nation’ emerging from the harrowing journey to the end of apartheid – exposed me to an exceptionally diverse range of cultures and the rapid development of a new nation. This meant that I was con-stantly surrounded by the construction of new buildings and infrastructure needed to facilitate an emerging nation, which ultimately revealed the impact of the built environment on communities involved and its potential to influence the social, economic and political state of society.

Subsequently, my design philosophy has thus far been relatively anthropocentric where the final product is designed closely around its relationship with the end-user. This is demonstrated in my final design project in Virtual Environments, a digital design based module in first year, where the materiality, form and function of a ‘second-skin’ product was based entirely on the desired experience of the user. The design process of this project was based on a section and profiling methodology applied in the digital modelling program Rhinoceros.

I currently have a basic understanding and technical knowledge of Rhinoceros and no experience in Grasshopper. I look forward to broadening my understanding of digital modelling tools and its role in architecture as it has a reaso nably new topic to me and I am greatly interested in its capabilities and potential to optimise and enhance the design process as well as the impact that it will have for the future of designing environments.

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PART A. CONCEPTUALISATION

A.1. DESIGN FUTURING

PRECEDENT I

BARCLAYS CENTER BROOKLYN, NEW YORKCOMPLETED 2012

Barclay Center is an indoor multi-purpose arena based in Brooklyn, New York, and home to the NBA basketball team, the Brooklyn Nets. The building is a redesign of the Bankers Life Fieldhouse indoor arena, in Indianapolis, where the pre-ordered steel parts of this existing design, due to time and monetary constraints, required SHoP Architects to generate an entirely new design based on these existing components.

SHoP Architects were successfully able to break down existing design to form an entirely different structure that achieved “a striking balance between iconic form and performative engagement” with its surrounding environment.

The industrial history of Brooklyn, in its use of raw materials and development of new technologies, heavily influence the design of the arena and is displayed in the materiality of the weathered steel and the linearity of the interior fittings used to reproduce the effect of railway lines forming a major part of the arena’s iconic stature.

The users’ experience throughout the arena and its reaction to its surrounding residential community form the basis of its ability to have a performative engagement with its surrounding environment. This user experience is executed in the consideration of views outside and into the stadium with ribbons of glass windows wrapped around the face of the building, forming a conservatory effect, as well as a large oculus cantilevered from the front of the building, allowing those entering from the street and subway to look into the stadium and straight at the scoreboard. The external screens of the stadium are placed along the internal ring of the oculus in order to complement the residential setting of the stadium. The design further enhances the user experience by fitting the interior with a black box theatre theme creating a dramatic atmosphere that calls for performance.

It is the consideration of the context, function and experience of the building in relation to its users and surrounding environment that make this design considered as Design Futuring. This is because its function as an engaging design allows it to become sustainable to its users and its ability to thrive as an original design despite its initial limitations has resulted in the avoidance of copious amounts of wasted steel allowing it to contribute to environmental sustainability.

Additionally, the intentional exclusion of parking allocations allows the arena to prioritise those who come by public transport and thus encourage a society that is more ethically sustainable.

Finally, the most fundamental factor of the design contributing to its sustainability is the design and construction process of the building, which allowed the design and fabrication of the arena to be as optimal and efficient as possible. This was considered from the very start where the design was digitally modelled and then broken up into smaller components, which were panels that were digitally drawn, cut and labelled in order to optimize the production process. The labelling of the panels and other components were also able to be scanned using software developed by SHoP Architects in order for any party involved to be able to identify the piece, its location, view its 3D model, review information on where it is in the fabrication process and receive instructions on how and where to assemble the piece. A cloud scan was additionally used in order to align pieces to the digital model in order to ensure they were placed correctly and successfully avoid a misalignment that would result in many setbacks. This design and fabrication process was extremely innovative and made best use of the technology available that would allow the erection of this arena to be efficient and optimal. I believe that the thinking that places emphasis the process and techniques of how something is built rather than the final product itself, instigates Design Futuring as it gives us the opportunity to design buildings that consider sustainability from start to finish where the use of digital tools allow us to optimize as well as explore this process expanding future possibilities.

A.1. DESIGN FUTURING