Easter Holidays Part I

It's amazing what a week away from uni can do. I've been doing long days of work every day but it's been more relaxed and I've managed to get so much done. My final plans have been updates. All that's left to do on the technical drawings front is the 1:5 sections and updating my site section. Once these are done, I can get them printed and work on their aesthetics. 
I decided to put Revit on hold as I started to see it as a time waster - I was spending hours working it out but I still don't have a model that I can use. It's much more worth my time to get my sections done through AutoCAD.

As well as finishing the first daft of my essay, I have also finished Part A of the IDR and made a good start on Part B. This section consists mainly on images and diagrams so I have had to work on them before anything else. From reading the brief, I can see many similarities between this part and the tech case study so I'm going to approach it the same way - similar diagrams and images. I plan on having this section finished, at least in draft form, by tomorrow.

Next week I am going away so I won't be able to do any work at all. Except for maybe a little bit of reading (although I tried that last year and it even that didn't happen). With this being the case, I want to make sure I get enough done this week while I am still in Manchester with very few distractions.

At this stage, I think the visuals and IDR are the most important things for me to be concentrating on but I also need to start thinking about what to exhibit. This is something for the week after next though.

I have a tutorial this afternoon but for now, I'm going to get my section details done.

Revit Funtimes

Started playing around on Revit last night and re-familiarising myself with the programme by trying to build my design. I'm really please with what I have so far but it's made me realise that I need to know exactly what is going on with my building in order to build it. It's the kind of programme that I'm going to be obsessive about - making sure I know every measurement and wall construction so that I can translate it onto the programme. Which can't be a bad thing. So first thing first is knowing exactly what is used and how it is used to construct it.

Back to the Tech Stuff

Having now more or less finalised my roof designs. I've needed to go back to thinking about the construction of my building. This involved looking back at the tech case studies and my understanding of the Ritblat Building. Essentially, my building can stand up without the aid of the existing facade. I really wanted to continue to use timber, mainly for the creche, and I think I came to the conclusion that I could use timber for the structure of my previous design so I am going to carry on with this idea. I have then been able to use a similar construction as the Ritblat Building. Having worked through this, I should be able to finally start CADding them up!
I need to finish working out how to join the existing facade to the new structure but I took a couple of books out of the library a dew weeks ago so these will hopefully help me to resolve this problem. 

I have a lot to do over Easter. One of the main things is my visuals. I've been told to find a style I love and essentially copy that style. There are a couple of styles that I really like and hopefully I can incorporate both of them. The first is Frank Lloyd Wright's drawings. Obviously, they were done by hand but I'm better at sketching than at photoshop anyway so this will be better for me. The other one isn't architecture related but not too unlike Wright's style. Being a hiker, I love looking at Wainwright's sketches of the Lake District and have tried to imitate them in my own sketches. While he very rarely, if ever, even includes a building in his sketches, the pen and ink style is definitely something I'd like to do.

Another thing that I'm going to have a go at is Revit. Now that I know the construction and form of my design, I think I can have another go at Revit. I did basic tutorials over the summer to get an idea of the program but not used it since, so if nothing else, I need to re-familiarise myself with it. 

Outside my Comfort Zone

After my tutorial yesterday, I have taken my tutors advice to go a little bit crazy with my roof. Last week I had been using physical models but Sketch up has been more useful this time around as I can easily and quickly manipulate the shapes.

I usually go for the more subtle (and I guess, fairly boring - which is where my problem was) design but this has really pushed me away from that and I've started playing around with forms that I would normally keep away from. But I kinda like where it's taking me and it really makes sense to have this disordered roof line which is in complete contrast to the formal style of the existing facade.

By playing around with the roof and, as my tutor described it, being more playful, it's started to influence the way my building interacts with the existing facade and how much of it I actually keep. Very slowly, I am loosing more and more of it, which is something I definitely didn't want to be doing a couple of months ago, but it actually seems to be the right thing to be doing, especially if I am going to keep down this route. 

I'm really curious to see where it's going to go next.

 

Roofs

Now that my tech case studies are out of the way, I've been able to resume project work. After scribbling ideas for the a last couple of weeks, I began by finally arranging the community space of my building. This has changed size since I created my programme and now has a number of spaces that can change - making larger areas or smaller ones as required. 

Resolving these spaces have let me start to resolve the roof. As I am using the site axes to design my building, I want to continue this to the roof. Tuesday saw me modelling my new design which then allowed me to start playing around with the roof yesterday. By starting with a straight forward single pitch in the roof, I could then move on and develop to get my designs modelled in paper. This was going well until I realised that my roof was South facing - meaning that there would be direct sunlight at different times of the day which I really didn't want. This meant back to the drawing board this morning and I've now taken this into consideration and as a deciding factor in the design. 

Despite being told to try and move away from a pitched roof, I have kept coming back to it. But I think I like the way it still reflects the original building and my design is beginning to do what I want it to - especially in terms of letting light into the building. I think it could still be developed further though but the paper models are definitely helping to resolve it. I need to get on with taking photos!

PDP and Beyond

While most of this week has been spent on the case studies, I had an intensive brainstorming evening last Thursday after my PDP meetings. I took a (not so quick) trip to the library and picked up a couple of books. One of which being a survey of adventure playgrounds in London. This has actually been a very happy accident and lead on to me going back to the start of my project, remembering that a key theme was street life. I was then able to come up with a statement that I can use to guide my project.

The circulation as 'street'
The creche as 'playground'
The cafe as 'street side cafe'
The community space as 'public square'

This has given me something to follow and means I can make my spaces more interesting than just being rectangular rooms - one of my problems. The idea of creating an indoors adventure playground is really appealing and I know its something that I can get really absorbed in. With it also being a space for children, I can be really informal and break the rules a bit, getting rid of the solid perimeter around each area. 

I also want to play around with the roof more. Last week it was commented on that my extension looked just that - an extension - and not part of the building. The idea was to bring the roof down to the creche. After modeling this, I saw it created additional space which allowed me to play around a bit more with the first floor spaces.

Today in my tutorial however, it was suggested that I completely ditch the idea of the pitched roof - something I planned in order to reflect the original roof. So this afternoon I'm going to have a go at modelling different roof shapes to help inform my design.

I am also going to look at public spaces in Manchester to help me develop my community space. I want to take aspects from them and use them within my design. 

Basically, this week, I just need to go a bit crazy and ignore boundaries etc to really get stuck into my design.

Tech/Studio Cross Over

So hand in number two has been and gone and this last couple of weeks has seen me trying to get on with my case studies and my IDR. After looking through the part B brief, I realised that I didn't actually have the work to talk about so in order to do that, I needed to work out exactly how my building is constructed. This is where my case study work came in.

The Ritblat building is my case study as well as a precedent. The timber construction is exactly what I want to achieve with mine. Therefore in order to help me construct my own building, I started to deconstruct that one. I'll admit the plans weren't easy to read at the beginning but I think I've picked it up now and have been able to work out the construction techniques involved. This in turn has really helped me with my project as I have used a similar work method.

The drawings produced by Hawkins\Brown are awesome and I am hoping to achieve something in a similar style with my own drawings. There is so much detail on them though and I'm not entirely sure I have all the time that would be required! Worth a shot though.

The biggest issue with my construction at the moment is the existing brick work of the library. While I don't want to interfere too much with it, I know very little of the actual make up of the wall, especially whether there is insulation in there already. This potentially could change the entire construction of the vertical elements of my building - and the interior finish - and this is something that I am hoping to discuss with my tutors on Thursday. Once that problem is solved, I can then resolve the roof and work on getting the formal drawings done. I am also hoping to start work on Revit at the end of the week: I think I have more or less resolved my house construction so I figured it would be a good place to start. 

While all of my tech is in sketches at the moment, they have really helped me to develop this and on Thursday, I'm hoping that I can get some help with the last details like DPMs etc and make sure everything is in it's place before I start to draw them up for real - and put it in Revit.

Currently feeling confident although this could all change on Thursday! Here's hoping