Towards the Plantroom

We continued to extend the idea of our hotels: how a person's view of utopia and dystopia is dependent on their experiences. As abstract as these plans seem, they explore the experience that the plantroom is trying to portray rather than giving us a distinct, solid understanding of the plantroom's overall structure. In all these images there is a sense of space and materiality, but its placement differs due to the viewers perception. We wanted to start abstract, as you would be open to many ideas rather than finalizing your ideas at an early stage. The form and function will simply follow during the process of analyzing, subtracting and adding to the drawings.

Here is a more practical and realistic plan/section of the Waiheke plant room. Most of it is embedded into the ground and only sections where light is to enter, is exposed to the surface. This way only certain parts of the structure will receive light which will create an interesting interior atmosphere. This plan also follows the hotels overall idea where the architecture especially interior is revealed to you bit by bit as you move inwards.

 Develop in realistic scale

Abstract models

The relationship between the exteior and the interior becomes extremely important in this design studio. Picking up our initial philosophy, we conveyed the idea of 'no fixation' by placing a 'utopic' plantroom in the city whereas a 'dystopic' plantroom in the waiheke hotel.This decision articulates our philosophy of how whether a hotel is dystopia or utopia depends on the persona's experience and feelings.

Texture rubbings

With the rubbings that we had collected, we scanned them and drew over them with paint, pen or pencil. We highlighted any moments and patterns that we could see within the drawings. The result turned out to be quite successful. The shapes and lines created can be used to laser cut or engrave on our plant room walls.

With the rubbings exercise we took tracing paper and placed it over different surfaces on our site, and rubbed media like crayons, charcoal etc over it. The surfaces varied from concrete to tree bark, just about any surface that when felt had texture and roughness to it.

The effect of these rubbings turned out to be quite dynamic, as each surface had its own particular pattern. If we concentrate on certain parts of the images then we can see patterns and shapes that could be used to laser cut for our plantrooms.

Studio Fous Five Overview

SPECIALIST FOCUS 

SEMPER 

DIGITAL PROCESS 

ANALOGUE PROCESS 

DIGITAL MACHINERY 

PERFORMANCE TEST 

'...They crossed a section of the roadway planted with poppies, the vivid but sinister flowers extending in front of them for three hundred yards. The bumper of the truck scythed through the flowers, and a dense cloud of petals billowed into the air, staining the sky like a miniature sunset. Halloway turned and made a second run through the poppies, almost standing at the wheel as they hurtled through the whirling petals...'

'There seemed to be something decadent about this obsessibe planting of vines and flowers, an unconscious but all the more sinister attempt to bring back a luric and over-bright nature red in tooth and claw. Halloway had begun to hate the carpets of blossoms, these creepers and climbing plants that threatened to strangle the city before he could release it. Already he was thinking of the defoliants he had noticed in a chemical supplies sotre. "I'm grateful to you, Halloway" Buckaster told him as they walked back to the hotel. "There's a sense of stylbe about you that I like."

From the handout
Atmosphere does not simply refer to the quality of air. It is not something which can be created simply by controlling the temperature, air flow and humidity. Throughout history, passive and mechanical systems that assist in the maintenance and alteration of atmospheric conditions such as admitting or restricting light, allowing the sun to warm a wall or floor and radiate heat, directing smoke or hot air to evacuate through a chimney or open window, or constructing a roof out of straw thatch to create a thick insulating layer trapping warm air inside have been used to create comfortable, habitable enviornments in response to varying climatic conditions. However atmosphere also refers to the mood or perception of quality of space. The atmosphere of a space might be awe inspiring, gloomy, exciting, regal, grotty, lively or bleak. Although a particular atmosphere is imparted, whether it is utopian or dystopian is not answered.

We must be able to create both of these atmpheres at once, being both warm and inviting, humid and oppressive, cold and forbidding. Thus, the sensory perception of space goes hand in hand with the sensory perception of atmosphere. Population density, sound and smell also infiltrate our sense adding or detracting from the pleasntness, familarity of an atmosphere. 

EXHIBITION CRIT- final

 

Rather than creating a transitioning journey between the two architectural profiles, we created two sections which focus on the experience itself rather than the structural elements of it. Both sections lack clarity of where and how the hotels sit in relation to the ground. They rather explore the idea of utopia and dystopia in terms of colour palettes. The collage composition of the sections focus on the atmosphere of each hotels and its refuge in its given surrounding.

EXHIBITION CRIT - BIMx

Waiheke Islad

The individual componenets build up to create an organic imagery. Each forms are derived from the greenery and therefore curves. Nothing in organic terms are orthogonal. Thus, the continuous use of curves and elegant moments can be vividly noted.

City

The city hotel elaborated the chaotic imagery that was inspired from the City in The Ultimate City. The ruins of the skyscrpaers running downwards towards the ground, its intersectioning lines and quadrilateral shapes create a chaotic imagery. However,

EXHIBITION CRIT - City process

EXHIBITION CRIT - Waiheke process

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