Models

1:20 Sectional Model of Pier and Walkway underneath

I made this model with the intention to show both how people will interact with these 2 spaces but also show the concrete construction which makes up the parts of the building.

I have also drawn in the lights which are there to represent the old piles that held up the Coogee Pier. These lights will project straight up looking like ghostly piles and will contribute to the overall aesthetic of the walkway under the pier.


1:200 Model 

This is a close aerial view showing how well the buildings blend in with the landscape and the surrounding context.  


East Elevation   

This birds eye view shows the fluidity of the landscape and subtlety of the buildings with their flat roofs. 

In this photo I took out a section of my model so that the interior of the gym can be seen as well as the quality of light that permeates throughout the building from the skylights and the windows on the North and South side of the building. 

This is the section that I took out, it shows the ribbed ceiling and the height change that takes place on the left of the dividing wall in the middle.

In this photo you can see the extension that I made to the back of the grandstand, the walkway with the feature wall, the grandstand and pier as well as the other buildings on the right.

This is a clear view of the entrance showing how it aligns with the stairs of the pier. The contours of the landscape are also visible showing how they engulf the gym building.

East Elevation without Context

North Elevation showing the interior of the gym. 

View from the street.

Final Submission - Drawings

Introduction

My approach to this assignment is to use the history of the Coogee Pier and the experience of the beach to the new community centre. But more importantly when viewing an I found a photo of Coogee's famous amusement pier I paid close attention to the amount of people visiting the beach and the pier, its linear shape and the landscape that created a nice backdrop to this photo. These three ideas formed the basis of my design precedent towards the new communty centre.




Deriving the Final Plan

From left to right the 1st drawing shows an array of Parti plans that helped me finalise my design proposal. The first parti plan and the rendered one point perspective drawing of the grandstand below it inform the initial design precedent that began the development of my final scheme. The Parti plan presents some of the geometry whilst the perspective drawing captures the wave-like form of the existing Grandstand. The reason why I included this drawing is to represent the destructive winter waves of Coogee and therefore became the starting point in my search into using the "destruction and linear shape of Coogee Pier and the experience of the beach" as the core influence on my design proposal.

I used the next parti drawing to show all the lines that influenced the geometry of where the major walls were placed and what views would be most important. The thickest lines indicate these two themes. All these lines were influenced by the linear shape of the Pier.

The third drawing indicates the final shapes of all solids and viods. The darker shade of grey shows parts of the buildings that are deeper within the ground. This drawing also helped me realise the two main pathways created, one was the entrance and the other is the route to the multi-purpose rooms under the pier and the change rooms at the back of the grandstand.

The last drawing shows all the contours of the grass hills and overall landscape that will be produced for the new site and engulf the new buildings further exploring the idea of Reciprocity as the dominance of landscape or nature over architecture and Threshold where an area of movement or change is introduced.

The first drawing on the 2nd page is the final plan at 1:100 showing my resolution to the brief in the placement of the different areas required for the day to day activities of the community centre. It also shows the final shape and where the influence to this shape came from with the use of an image taken in 1928 of Coogee Pier laid out in the same way as its linear shape and a 1:500 site plan that has the Pier drawn in with projection lines towards the plan as if to suggest its importance on the overall shape and scheme of the new community centre.

The overall schemes is made of 3 buildings with an extension to the back of the Grandstand. From top to bottom ,in the plan view, there is the Community kitchen placed near the entrance for its easy access to the public, the gym and the administration area. The first building to the south is the cafe with its open outdoor area and all multipurpose rooms are next to cafe. Behind the Grandstand I placed the workshop and its associated storage and on the level above is the change rooms, rub down rooms with access to the main stairs of the Grandstand that allow the players to walk down and along the pier to reach the oval. This would involve the community's involvement in cheering for the players and allowing them to use the new pier.




Sections and Elevations

Some parts of the building in section were influenced by the linear patterns produced in plan and because I didn't want to obstruct the views of the Coogee Pensioners Club directly behind my gym the buildings have flat roofs and are embedded into the ground or just above. I increased the scale of the drawings to 1:100 in order to show the new building and its context more clearly. All sections have been drawn in a Poch'e style to show how it is grounded and the context in elevation and section are there to show how the building blends in and what views are being influenced if any at all.

Another reason why the buildings are embedded into the ground is because it is to suggest that aspects of the pier are being dug up and out of the ground. A metaphor exploring the idea of death and life of the pier as if it were a human dug out of the ground with only bones remaining. This can be seen in the section drawing of the gym where the ceiling is made of concrete T beams that run across the entire 20m span to meet the structural posts.

The drawing on the bottom right of the second page shows a small shadow analysis taken in the mid- afternoon. It displays the shadows of the buildings located directly behind the community centre. These shadows wont affect the natural light that enters the buildings too much until it is late afternoon.



Sectional Perspective

This 1:20 sectional perspective displays the interior of the administration area that is covered by the landscape and the oval on the right. It visualises the different ways that people will interact with the architecture and the landscape showing the workers, how the light enters the building and the oval as well as the crowd that are there to support the players. This harmonious view of the interaction between the people, the landscape and the architecture is what I envisaged throughout the design of the new Coogee Community Centre.

The Concrete roof and ceiling can be seen more closely in this drawing but the reason why I chose Concrete and Glass for the materiality of this building is because both materials use sand, something that I have brought over to this site from the experience of going to the beach.

Perspectives

Each of these perspective drawings frame views from the most important areas of the new community centre. The middle drawing shows the view from the entrance looking towards the oval and seeing the grandstand on the right. The top left drawing shows the end of this pathway at the entrance with the outdoor area of the cafe on the right and gym on the left. The shadows in this image are formed by the steel mullions placed to hold up the sloped glazing that encloses this area. The array of concrete posts running down the facade of the gym also add to this play of light therefore enhancing this walkway and further exploring the idea of bringing life back into the design of this new centre.

The top right drawing is a view when standing on the pier looking onto the oval. The design of this pier is also different from a traditional pier, it has angled glass on the edges and steel posts that help hold up the glass.

The bottom left drawing captures the view from the entrance of the gym looking straight across to the North where the combination of Concrete posts and glass allow people to see out. There also 5 skylights on the roof in order to allow more natural light into the building.

Finally the drawing on the bottom right is a feature wall that I have designed using extrusions coming out and into the wall so that in certain viod areas images of the history of Coogee can be viewed. There will also be the use of lights to illuminate this area and enhance the quality of this open space.

Exercise 3 - Submission

Drawing 1 - Submitted Plan sheet



In this A1 sheet I included a site plan, the three plans from the previous drawing and a perspective view in front of the grandstand. The perspective view of the walkway was lacking movement and this is the reason why I drew in modules of triangulated walls. Though my tutor and I agreed to work on other methods of enhancing this space using techniques such as texture, the addition of a feature wall or using illumination. We also decided that the pier itself was lacking innovation and that the piles interruped the view to the end of this walkway.


Drawing 2 - Submitted Section & Elevation



The East - West section (top left) show the main area of my design such as the grandstand, change-rooms, pier and multipurpose rooms. Next to this section is another section showing the community kitchen, gym/hall and administration area. The reason why I added this in is because I wanted to show the roof structure and that the administration area goes further into the ground compared to the rest of the building. On the right of this section you can also see the window that I drew in my previous blog post.

The North - South section shows the building from left to right mainly focusing on the North side of the building. In this drawing it became apparent that the roofs were too different and began to lose part of the overall scheme.

In both elevations I included some context such as the trees, roads, and surrounding buildings to show the scale of my building design and how it blends in with its surroundings. The building heights don't rise so high to prevent the Senior Citizens Club behind from losing their precious views.

Drawing 3 - Plans



This drawing consists of a series of plans showing my PARTI and how the final plan was derived.

On the top left is a drawing of the linear shape of Coogee pier and below it are the lines that helped shape the final plan. The darkest lines and the thickest lines are the most important as they make up the major walls and spaces.

The middle drawing is another PARTI drawing showing what solids/voids create the shape of the buildings and walkways. In this drawing the darkest shades represent the buildings that are embedded further in the ground.

The drawing on the right is the final 1:200 Plan of the abstract lines put together with the solids/voids drawings. This drawing also shows the walls that divide the spaces showing that I've considered the placement of each space thus satisfying the brief.

On the top the Gym/Hall has the admin area for staff on the very right and the community centre on the left. The cafe is situated in the middle of the drawing and the multipurpose rooms are underneath the pier. Behind the existing grandstand I have added in an extension 5 metres long to use the space for change-rooms, rub-down room on the top level and workshop and equipment area on ground floor.


Drawing 4 - Sections including Detailed 1:20 Section of Wall, Floor & Roof of Gym/Hall



After speaking to an engineer Waldo from ARCH1261 - Structures & Construction 2, I took his advise in using concrete T's that are precast and then concrete is poured in-situ above this precast system of T's thus forming the final shape of the roof. The system is structural and aesthetically great with good acoustics as well. The detail section shows this roof system as well as the floor slabs and wall connections.


Drawing 5 - Perspectives



These perspectives show the 3 main spaces.

It shows a view of the walkway in front of the grandstand and under the pier (left), the walkway that takes you through to the oval from the street (top right) and inside the gym under the skylight. (bottom right)

Model Photo 1


For this submission I made another rough 1:200 cardboard model to help me gain a better understanding of the building within the site and the depths and heights involved all over my design. I also cut through the building and site to see the inside spaces, how light enters the spaces and the scale and size of each space.


Model Photo 2


This is an aerial view of the model without a roof to show each new space that I've included in 3D.

Model Photo 3


In this model the part that is surrounded by the red highlight is the cafe (left) and gym, community kitchen and administration area (right) with a walkway/entrance dividing the two spaces. In the previous model this entire section of my design didn't as much a link to the core idea but now the geometry is linked making the design more meaningful, conceptual and practical.

Progress Drawings for Exercise 3 -Week 9

Image 1 - New Concept Plans



The previous plans for the community centre had no connection to the idea or the scheme and were only there because they had to take up space to fill the required areas. After recognising this I drew these 3 plans in class. I was really close to choosing the top right drawing though it became too complicated even at this conceptual stage. I chose to pursue the top left plan in my design solution because its link to the "core" area was so much more evident and the use of this continuity was more powerful than the broken up plan of the top-right sketch.

Image 2 - Progress Drawings 1



These two plans have the addition of the walkway/entrance to the oval providing a transitional space between two buildings. It runs perpendicular to the stairs of the pier framing it from the entrance right to when the onlooker walks onto the oval. At the lower end of the drawing are some ideas and concepts of what kind of roof would enclose this space.

The scale is another thing that I later addressed once I drew the new plan in Revit.

Image 3 - Section drawing of addition to existing Grandstand.



This flat roof placed at an angle (on the left side of the drawing) is another example of the use of the piers linear shape in my design. It takes from the existing shape of the roof and incorporates it with the new design proposal. The roof is facing towards North so I may also add in some skylights to enhance this new space.

Image 4 - Sections of Building & Grass hill



The entire wall will have soil and grass on its outside preventing any natural light from entering the building. These drawings are some concepts of how I'm going to allow light to enter this space. The final concept at the bottom-right of the page has the glass on the same slope as the hill to prevent water ingress and the backfilling of soil will help reduce this problem to the concrete walls as well.

Image 5 - Feature wall development



In this concept drawing it shows elevations, sections and plan views of the feature wall. The reason why I decided to change this wall is because I wanted to emphasise the transition between the beginning, middle and end thus further pushing for the idea of "threshold".

The shape of the modules that would make up this wall were going to be elliptical but I thought this would go against the linear design of the entire scheme so I chose to triangulate these modules. The sketch that derived this shape is vertically drawn in the middle of the page. The idea behind it is that it represent a heartbeat showing the pier but more importantly the community within Coogee is still alive.

At the very bottom left is also a concept drawing of the materiality of each pile. I would like to make them out of 100mm diameter reinforced concrete placed in a circular manner following the skin of a traditional pile. This concept for the new skeletal framed pile was derived from the idea that when people are buried and dug out only their bones remain. Once again it blends in with the core ideas of bringing back the pier to life.   

Image 6 - Revit drawing of Final Conceptual Plan



Drawing the plan in Revit helped me reduce the scale of the building as it were too large in the initial sketches. It also allows the better access to the entrance and produces more space outside the community kitchen. All the lines that represent the major walls are linked in some way to the "pier" and the plan has evolved from an abstract idea to a scheme with much more reasoning behind its design solution. 

Progress Model Week 8

Aerial View



I made the model out of regular cardboard to a scale of 1:200. It helped me realise that the overall size of the building is exceeding the limit of 1000 m (squared). The roofs of the main building on the bottom left of the image are going to have grass placed on top.

Aerial views without roofs



This image serves to show the interior spaces of the building. This allowed me to get more of a feel for the spaces and gave me a better idea of WHERE certain activities should be placed and WHY.

Close-up shot of tunnel/entrance to underground buildings



Before you reach the small open top tunnel there is an entrance to the field, in the model I noticed that it was a little too small though it was derived from the idea of filtering people through this small space. But the idea of practicality and allowing disabled people through ramps would also be a good feature to add to this entrance.

Through this opening, the community can have their first look at the grand stand and its granduer scale in comparison to the added pier. This would help emphasise the idea of the giant waves destructing the pier by pausing and capturing an iconic or symbolic moment in Coogee's forgotten past. As a person moves closer and closer to the tunnel they would move down as there will be ramps enforcing that idea that the onlooker must go deeper and deeper into the tunnel to have a look and experience being under the pier by either entering the building underneath or walking right to the end the tunnel and enter the from the second entrance.


Close-up Plan of Pier




The area underneath the pier are going to be used for the small multipurpose rooms and maybe the inclusion of one large multipurpose room. I'd like the logs to either be made of divisions of smaller logs so that there is more transparency and lighting effects give them more of a ghostly appeal. If not then the logs will be rendered to give them an aged look. The logs will also be incorporated within the spaces that make up these underground rooms so the interaction of this element will be important on the experience of the space.

The pier is a large part of the design and its history is the core idea for the influence of the forms that will eventually make up my version of the Coogee Community Centre. This is why this space underneath, above and the tunnel are linked to the pier.

Exercise 1 - Submission 2

3 chosen Sections

1. CODA STUDIO - Simon Anderson

This section shows threshold as it is an area that informs a change from inside to outside and inside again. The section also illustrates infrastructure showing carpark facilites, a tree and the units of the building. This section also shows some people interacting with the spaces making the section more lively.



2. BARCELONA & the SATELLITE CITY - RETHINKING GROWTH PROJECT - Jennifer Chen and Liam Young

The interesting thing about this cross section is that the buildings have been built into the landscape and the architecture separated by transitional spaces filled with trees and shrubbery. The section is also interesting in that there are many height variations so the buildings and the landscape are intertwined. The extent to which the section undergoes in the horizontal direction is also another interesting feature showing that landscape and architecture have been intertwined.



3. NATIONAL AQUATIC CENTRE (WATERCUBE) - PTW Architects

This sections is a great example of materiality. The walls and roof are representing "water bubbles" but are made of ETFE and steel reinforcement. The bubbles act as a filter to sunlight and light up at night to make the building more entertaining.



This section is taken from my first trial at designing coogee community centre showing the edge and the Managers office. The section shows more materiality than threshold because I used different hatching and shading to represent the materials that make up the building.

Second Design Proposal for Coogee

“The new community centre will be a tribute to the PIER of Coogee beach. The pier and the beach were a large part of the community and I’d like to remind them by capturing the entire site within a historical moment of significance. The moment when Coogee began to lose the pier.”

This idea will influence the form of the buildings as they will consist of wave-like form,in section, placed in certain areas to symbolically represent the waves that contributed to the destruction of the pier. There is also an added mini-pier, built into a grassy hill in front of the grandstand. This is to represent the idea that the pier is being brought back to life through the grand stand and its involvement in the new community centre.



The pier had an interesting shape and the sketch below shows the shape of the pier in plan. This was incorporated in plan and can be seen in the stairs in front of the entrance, the mini-pier and the ramp. The buildings surrounding them are meant to look abstractly like the waves engulfing the pier, the grandstand already looks like the wave and is the major historical building on the site therefore the link between this new pier is important.



PLAN



Isometric view of Grandstand



NEW ENTRANCE - Birds Eye View



ELEVATION

Design Studio 4- Submission 2

The image has been altered to make it look as if the drawing is from the past with the use of colour effects.

This is my 1:20 EDGE Section close to the entrance of the main building in my new design. This area will be used for the foyer and maybe the staff offices right behind. This part of the building is slightly buried into the ground (600mm) and will include most of the other interior spaces. The reason why the roof is curved is because it is representing one of many waves that contributed to the destriction of the pier. Since the overall design is linked to this moment, I thought it would be important to display this theme in section and in plan.

In this drawing I have represented the 5 major themes by using different hatching and shading in areas of the section and using a single point perspective to show some context of both interior and exterior.

This new entrance will be more welcoming than the current fence that prevents the free flow of people coming into the oval. The reason why I chose this section is because it shows the transition from outside to inside and also from higher ground to lower ground thus pointing out THRESHOLD. It also shows the grassy hill that will roof this main building allowing the crowd to enjoy a closer view of the field. The stairs are made of both concrete with grass infill and the grass above the building are apart of my idea to represent RECIPROCITY within the drawing and oveall design. INFRASTRUCTURE is set up by the stairs, the pathway set up by the stairs, the windows that allow light into the interior and the grassy hill for the crowd. MATERIALITY is represented in diagonal hatching and the more dense materials such as the concrete foundation are shaded in darker pencil.




This is the 1:200 sections through the site showing a section through the grand stand and the other section through the main building.

INSERTION is represented in the bottom plan where I have "dramatized" the trees of the site to match that of the height variances in the building. INSERTION is also showed where the darkest shading is in the drawing such as the new pier, the addition to the grandstand and the new main building.

The use of the 5 themes help make the architecure more exciting, they are the driving forces for some of the design choices I have made so far such as the height variations in the buildings. Not only does this interpretation of insertion help create areas for more openings, it gives reasoning for a site responsive design of a building.

Progress Model

This is a 1:200 scale conceptual model of my initial Coogee Design. The design idea came from a "broken lock" resembling the community centre's defiance against its surrounding context.

WHY: because every other building was squashed next to each other in boring blocks and fences and barriers were preventing the community from getting to know each other. My design would be more broken up and allow for transitional spaces as well as allowing better access to the community centre helping Coogee reunite. These transitional spaces were going to be the areas that incorporated landscape linking INFRASTURUCTURE,THRESHOLD and RECIPROCITY.

Design Studio 4 - Submission 1

Image 1 - pencil

This is what the drawing looked like before water colour rendering. The lines that haven't been removed after rendering are mutually there to show evidence of tracing and mapping of the site. I also chose to draw it at 1:1000 in order to show more of the surrounding environment.


Image 2 pencil and watercolour

I used different shades of black to represent two of the concepts based on THRESHOLD and INSERTION. They are both used like a colour chart for example, for threshold I began with a lighter tone of black at the lower contours and made them darker as the contours increased in height. For the buildings they were also representing both Insertion and Threshold for example, the closer the building was to the site, the darker shade of water colour. Though at the same time taller buildings were coloured a lighter colour so to help gain an understanding of a 3rd dimension in plan view.


Image 3 pencil and watercolour

The red watercoloured buildings and space in front of the beach are to represent the most important public spaces near the site. They are also the hotspots of the town, meaning they are the places that people visit most even on weeknights. Coogee Bay Palace is apart of Coogee's history and the iconic dome is of great value to the suburb and is a feature that I'd like to incorporate into my design at a later stage.


Drawings
Image 4 CAD and Photoshop

Due to time restrictions I wasn't able to complete this drawing in watercolour. Originally I was going to use the different shades of black to represent different areas where trees are placed and keep the buildings lightly coloured to question the idea of the dominance of landscape over architecture. Hatchings were also going to be used to represent and map out the different infrastructure on the site, eg roads, carpark, food, pathways, commercial buildings.