Visiting London

Camden Borough Council

A trip to London was organised for Friday 27th Feb, where we visited the new London Borough of Camden building. We met one of the architects from Bennetts Associates, who was involved in designing the building. He gave us a tour of the BREEAM ‘Outstanding’ building, and also explained how the building achieved the rating.

The visit to this site, I found, extremely interesting and was definitely relevant to my own design project (Vulcan Works). At this time we were specifying our environmental strategies, and ventilation systems for our own projects, and the information that was given to us seemed very useful.

The building itself was very interesting, and more importantly IT WORKED as a building.

We also had a quick tour of the plant room, which was very useful for my Tech and Services module as well as my design project. I didn’t understand much of what was going on, all a bit technical, but it was interesting and useful to see how the building services were provided.

The Design Process- Model Making

For those that are familiar with my blog, you will know that for my most recent design project I was to design an ‘add on’ building, to join a part of Senate House Library in London.

As part of the design process, I was required to make three forms of model. The first was just the skin of the building in which I had designed, the second was a structural model, which shows us how the building would be formed and constructed, and the third is a model of the final design.

After making the structural model, I had realised that I had added too many beams in to my structure. This then had to be changed on my AutoCAD drawings.

The first two models I made just from paper, and the final model is made from foam board, with self adhesive ‘pretend’ wood and mirrored glass effect. The building is steel frame with timber clad. The clad alternates with mirrored panels to give the effect of it being see through in certain areas. I hope I have shown my idea well from the model.

Pictures of models are below: All models are at scale 1:50

1. The skin-

                   

2. The structure-

         

Final model-

The Design Process

Following my visit to Senate House, London, I am required to start the design process of the ‘Add-on’ Project that I have spoken about in a previous blog.

I’ve really been keen to start on this project, however, I really have been struggling to come up with some unusual, eye catching ideas. I tend to struggle to open up my mind to my creative streak, even though I know it’s there, as it has been since I was a little girl. I really had to do a lot of research to get my mind thinking out side the box.

The first thing I looked at was the ‘Rucksack building’. This building was given to us as a class as an example of an ‘add-on’ type project, and actually, I found it quite interesting. I have found a website with a bit of info on the rucksack building (below)

http://www.convertiblecity.de/projekte_projekt02_en.html

After having a read on the rucksack building, I thought the best place to start to give me some real inspiraton was to research suspended tree houses. It sounds odd, but whilst looking I came accross some amazing architecture. While a few of these ideas are not really practical to include in my own design, I just had to include them in this blog. Some of them are just amazing!

        

Another few websites I looked at with interesting or similar ideas are listed below.

http://cubeme.com/suspended-meeting-room-by-schmidt-hammer-lassen-architect/

http://www.e-architect.co.uk/france/hanging-boxes-interior-in-avignon

After hours of reading and getting excited over things that were impossible to do (well in this design project anyway), I came accross some wonderful architecture on pinterest. I was just browsing through and something popped up that I just HAD to re-create in some ways to use in this design project.

http://www.mymodernmet.com/profiles/blogs/konrad-wojcik-primeval-symbiosis-single-pole-house

I really thought this was a stunning piece of architecture, and so with this I came up with a few similar ideas.

My other ideas are more simple and based around the rucksack building.

My design ideas are as shown below:

I am still unsure on what area of Senate house I will be attatching my structure on to, but I do know that my ‘Add-on’ will be an extra space for quiet reading.

Looking forward to blogging more on this interesting project! 🙂

Senate House, London

3D SoTA project 2.2

‘Add on’ project.

For my new project, I am to design an ‘Add on’ building to be attached to the library area of Senate House, in London.

The aims of my most recent project are to initiate understanding of technological relationship to build ability and speed of construction with minimum site impact. You will begin to work with existing buildings and consider the decision making and constraints process this causes. You will be assigned two sub briefs during this project that will test your response to each of these issues. You will be assessed on the analysis, design process, the formal quality of your intervention, the understanding you demonstrate of materials and structure and the quality of your finished outputs.

My first task was to do some research on Senate House. It is required to do as much research on this building before starting any planning and designing, as you are more likely to have a more positive outcome when you know as much as possible before you start. The understanding of this building will hopefully give me lots of thoughts and ideas on what possibilities there are, and will also help during the design process.

My first site visit is due shortly (17/10/2014)

To prepare myself I am going to write down a few questions that could have useful answers to help me in my design process. I will ask more questions specifically based on the library area of Senate House, as this is the area I will be designing my ‘Add on’ to be attached. I also get a tour around Senate House, in which i can hopefully take photos and sketches.

PROJECT TIMELINE:

• 10 Oct (week 2)- 2.2.1 introduction of project, research.
• 17 Oct (week 3)- 2.2.2 site visit, surveying, research, precedent study.
• 24 Oct (week 4)- 2.2.3 concept, planning strategy.
• 31 Oct (week 5)- 2.2.4 structural and materiality resolution.
• 14 Nov (week 7)- 2.2.5 technologically visual solution.
• 21 Nov (week 8)- 2.2.6 presentation.

I will be required to produce the following minimum finished work for this project:

Drawing pack

• Affected building Plan 1:100/1:50 with connection solutions to existing building
• Section(s) 1:100/1:50 to connection solutions to existing building
• Details 1:20 to connection between existing and new module
• Elevations of added module 1:100 including context
• Exploded axonometric of new module envelope

Concept + proposition communication

• Existing building analysis
• Precedent study

Models + experimentation [photographed/presented in portfolio]

• Model 1:100 to show external form & technology + immediate context

I will be blogging throughout this design project, to express my ideas, and thoughts.

My next blog related to the ‘Add on’ project will have information on my findings from Senate House, including photos and sketches! 🙂