STUDIO AIR2015, SEMESTER 1, ALESSANDROJIAYUN LI (CATHERINE)

I was born in China, and came to Melbourne for University 3years ago. Now it is my last year of Bachelor study.

Choosing Architecture as my major is not an accident, when I was about to graduate from high school, a friend of mine who have already started to study at university told me that, ‘choosing a major you are really interested in and truly willing to work hard on will make your uni life much easier.’ I took that advice, and I looked at myself: many of my hobbies and interest are related to designing, painting, craft-making etc., and I was appealed by those kind of jobs which has certain amount of freedom, and not repetitive or boring. So finally, I chose Architecture, and I guess this is the best choice I ever made in my life.

Studying architecture really changes people. It is not like any other subjects where you just finish the homework and safely pass all the exams, it requires a lot of time and energy inside and outside the classes. People who study architecture tend to think about architecture all the time, I go somewhere and start looking at materials, form, massing, lighting, architecture has became a lifestyle,

Besides, it is also a profession that evolves constantly, in recent decades of years, the ability to handle softwares like CAD, Rhino, Revit becomes more and more important. In terms of parametric design and programming, I have only learned basic concepts from previous studios like Virtual Environment and Water, Earth… and only know little about grasshopper. It will be a tough semester, but I believe no pains, no gains. Hope through Air studio, I can become more proficient in using technology to communicate my design.

Self introduction:Jiayun (Catherine) Li3rd Year Bachelor of Environment, majoring in architecture.

Table of ContentsPart A CONCEPTUALISATION

A 1.0 Design Futuring p5A 1.1 Precedent project : Seed Cathedral p7

A 1.2 Precedent project : Cloud Powerhouse p9A 1.3 References p11

Part B CRITERIA DESIGN

Part C DETAILED DESIGN

4 CONCEPTUALISATION

PART A : CONCEPTUALISATION“Conceptualisation begins to determine WHAT is to be built and HOW it will be built...”

CONCEPTUALISATION 5

Architecture as a discipline that tightly related with human

everyday life, has always contributes ideas to the ongoing disciplinary discourse and culture at large through design practices. Design is a complex system, the designer, designed object itself, image, form, material, operation, appearance… all those consisted as an entirety[1] .

The relationship between environment and design is of great importance, design has always contains social, historical and cultural impacts as well as influences to the development of future. Like Fry said, that history frequently repeats itself in tragic ways, a modern design was largely a product of appropriation of what was tacit in pre-industrial craft[2],

many of the problem we nowadays confronted with is a result of our past activities. Architecture as a form of design has undeniable responsibility to create things that help keep the sustainability of the earth.

Sustainability can be considered locally, nationally, and globally, designing a building is the same. Aside from pure fine-art design and the pursuing of the historic precedents, many other aspect of an architecture can be considered, like: whether it is material-efficient under the background of global shortage of energy and resource, what value has in brought to the site and its inhabitants, what can it bring to the future design. Only when we cares about those, can we start to design our future.

A 1.0 DESIGN FUTURING:Sustainability, Ethics and New Practice

“When we were small in number and our technological means of appropriating recourses were very limited, the impacts of out actions were low. But now we are numbered in billion, have extractive and materials processing technologies of absolutely enormous capacity coupled with an economy with an insatiable appetite, we are now confronting our nemesis- a defuturing condition of unsustainability.”

- Tony Fry (2009)

FIG.1: Environment and us, design futuring

6 CONCEPTUALISATION

FIG.2: Silvery hairs of the pavilion

The Expo is an annual event that introduce visitors with urban best practices and concepts from all

over the world. The organisers hope that it will be a lasting legacy for better urban life. The Expo 2010 was hold in Shanghai. The theme of the exposition at that year was “Better City – Better Life”. Among all the projects, the Seed Pavilion(Cathedral) is really impressive. This cube designed by Heatherwick studio is eye-catching, innovative and, unlike many of the other pavilions which lack any real point, combines both environmental awareness on agriculture, energy-saving with dazzling architecture and design.

Unique and revolutionary technology is put into the expression of design. The Seed Cathedral is a box, 15 metres high and 10 metres tall. From every surface protrude silvery hairs (see fig.2), consisting of 60,000 identical rods of clear acrylic, 7.5 metres long, which extend through the walls of the box and lift it into the air. Inside the pavilion, the geometry of the rods forms a space described by a curvaceous undulating surface. There are 250,000 seeds cast into the glassy tips of all the hairs.

The part I like very much about this design is its different beauty created during different times. By day, the pavilion’s interior is lit by the sunlight that comes in along the length of each rod and lights up the seed ends. cisitors can track the daily movement of the sun and pick out the shadows of passing clouds and birds and, when you move around, the light moves with you, glowing most strongly from the hairs that point directly towards you. By night, light sources inside each rod illuminate not only the seed ends inside the structure, but the tips of the hairs outside it, covering the pavilion in tiny points of light that dance and tingle in the breeze [3].

CONCEPTUALISATION 7

A 1.1 PRECEDENT WORKS: SEED CATHEDRAL

Shanghai Expo 2010, Heatherwick studio

FIG.3:Exterior looking of the pavilion

FIG.4: Internal looking of the pavilion

8 CONCEPTUALISATION

The Seed Cathedral is actually an upgrade of Heatherwick’s previous design , the Barnards Farm Sitooterie (a Scottish term for a small building to literally “sit oot” in.)The aluminium staves on the surface are arranged radially, the origin point being the centre of the cube. A single light source located at this central point emits light at night through every tube, causing the windows to glow. Even in the different situation, the basic design idea is still valued in a similar way to help exploring new way of solar energy use.

The Pavilion’s Afterlife is also imteresting, Heatherwick Studio reports that the Seed Cathedral has already found favour with the Chinese public, who have nick-named the pavilion ‘Pu Gong Ying’, which translates as ‘The Dandelion’ [4],”After the Expo, just as dandelion seeds are blown away and disperse on the breeze, the Seed Cathedral’s 60,000 optic hairs, each one containing the huge potential of life, will be distributed across China and the UK to hundreds of schools as a special legacy of the UK Pavilion at the 2010 Shanghai Expo.”

FIG.5:The Barnard Farm Sitooterie FIG.6: Internal looking of Barnard Farm Sitooterie

8 CONCEPTUALISATION

CONCEPTUALISATION 9

A 1.2 PRECEDENT WORKS: CLOUD POWERHOUSE

Mikolaj Scibisz, Cracow University of Technology

FIG.7 The Cloudhouse-Mikolaj Scibisz

10 CONCEPTUALISATION

Sustainability means not just durability and use of natural energy resources such as natural lighting, but to create

a place that people of the local community and visitors can identify and accept as theirs. With the rapidly growing of megacities and the need for new energy sources, climate change becomes an issue that need to be resolved in the urban context.

Designed by Mikolaj Scibisz, the main topic of the project Cloud Powerhouse is to revitalize a historic powerhouse building. The modern architectural design of the new part will represent dynamic sustainable development of technology and the social lifestyle with the respect to the historical building. Project scope involves analysis of the existing wall fragments to determine elements to preserve, together with the concept of the new part of the object. Motivation behind this project is to rise social awareness on importance of sustainability and alternatives energy sources [5] .

FIG.8: The Cloudhouse -West Elevation

FIG.9: The Cloudhouse-East Elevation

FIG.10: The Cloudhouse-Enery concept

The cloudhouse is a design under this background: as the warm air rises to the top, it unloads heat into the shell. The heat then radiates back down the shell thus generating only a two to four degrees variance in temperature from the bottom to the top of the dome. Rainwater is collected in water tanks in three massive steel legs, later used as a irrigation for the urban Garden. Big Flat rooF is covered with photovoltaic panels.

Reference:

Journals:

[1] Fry, Tony,’ Design Futuring: Sustainability, Ethics and New Practice ‘ , Oxford: Berg (2008), p2.

[2]Fry, Tony,’ Design Futuring: Sustainability, Ethics and New Practice ‘ , Oxford: Berg (2008), p18

[3]Heatherwick Studio, ‘UK Pavilion’, Heatherwick studio, (2010), http://www.heatherwick.com/uk-pavilion/

[4]Leonora Oppenheim, ‘Awe Inspiring Seed Cathedral Wows at Shanghai World Expo 2010’, (2010) http://www.treehugger. com/sustainable-product-design/awe-inspiring-seed-cathedral-wows-at-shanghai-world-expo-2010-photos.html

[5] Mikolaj Scibisz, ‘Cloud Power House’, Sustainability,(2012). http://www.arch2o.com/cloud-power-house-mikolaj-scibisz/

Figures:

Fig.1: Environment and us, design futuring , http://www.sustainable.com.au

Fig.2: Silvery hairs of the pavilion, http://www.heatherwick.com/uk-pavilion/

Fig.3:Exterior looking of the pavilion, http://www.heatherwick.com/uk-pavilion/

Fig.4: internal looking of the pavilion, http://www.heatherwick.com/uk-pavilion/

Fig.5:the Barnard Farm Sitooterie, http://www.heatherwick.com/barnards-farm-sitooterie/

Fig.6: Internal looking of Barnard Farm Sitooterie, http://www.heatherwick.com/barnards-farm-sitooterie/

Fig.7 The Cloudhouse-Mikolaj Scibisz, http://www.super-deformed.net/cloud/

Fig.8: The Cloudhouse -West Elevation, http://www.super-deformed.net/cloud/

Fig.9: The Cloudhouse-East Elevation, http://www.super-deformed.net/cloud/

Fig.10: The Cloudhouse-Enery concept, http://www.super-deformed.net/cloud/

CONCEPTUALISATION 11