Architectural Opportunity

Queen Street Mall, shopping In the heart of Brisbane city.  Originally the main artery of shopping retail in city, social system core and international location.  Circumstance has lead to a shift in the value of retail space and Agricultural Land.  Agricultural Land become more valuable.  There is a strong demand for residential due the population increase.  The Myers centre has been pinpointed as an possible catalyst for this change in direction. Integrating existing retail, residential and commercial in a urban cultural centre. The architectural opportunity exists here and is to begin immediately.

Week 04: Reading

Week 04: Character Development

See's the introduction of two main characters. The first is Peter a Farmer who over a period of time see's his farm land bought out by foreign investors. Forced to move to the city.  The second character Paul is a successfully business man directly involved, at times unwittingly, in the forced exodus of Rural areas through his business operations.  

Both characters go through changes in lifestyle and see's their socio-economic status evolve over time.
The story sees their journeys intertwine without knowing until they are put in the same urban setting the Queen street mall context.

Week 03: Sustainable Future

2038 - new government legislation is put in place whereby business law/policy dictates that a portion of every city commercial space/office area has to be allocated to agricultural production to sustain workers and families. New initiative aims to put responsibility onto each individual as opposed to rural farmers and foreign investors. 

Week 03: Reading

As stated by Brand (1997) buildings have layers that experience different time scales in there evolution and change.  A building is an element of the environment and is inclusive within an eco-system. Compare a forest to a site, a building to a tree, a piece of furniture to a bird. These all have different rates of growth, evolution and decay.  This also applies to scale within a context. Region, city, precinct, site, building, space, furniture and human occupants.

Consider the reason for a design we look at context which changes over time and the usage may evolve also as will the society that uses it and social system that influence it. However the original construct the fundamental principal was to connect the building to its surrounding landscape and social system. Shelter from the elements of earth. 

Reference:

Brand, S. 1997. Shearing Layers, in How Buildings learn: what happens after they're built, London: Phoenix Illustrated. pp12-23

Week 03: Pattern Language

Urban design and community liveability, architecture made by people through patterns envisaged by the people. Patterns are not fixed or finite but “are all tentative, all free to evolve under the impact of new experience and observation” (Alexander, 1977).  Relevance to the task.......Architecture Fiction: Context is forever changing but can still be relevant if the universal principal directs the design pattern which relates to the context. Helps to relate to the fictional story.

Reference: 

Alexander, C. 1977. A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction. US: Oxford University Press.

Week 02: Future Scenario Development

2015 - See’s reduction of Australian owned agricultural land. Foreign owners take control of Australian grown produce and begin to export produce to their mother lands.

Rapid increase in migration to Australia driven by foreign investors and Corporations to support their own interests.  This had been legalized by the Federal government due to the economic growth stimulated via the Foreign Corps operations.  The government concerned with making a quick buck and lack foresight thus allowing Foreign Companies to gain unprecedented power and influence over the government.

2020 - Lack of documentation from government into ownership land lead to foreign investment increasing with out being scrutinized enough

opened up australia to too many foreign investors who are buying up too much of our rural land for farming purposes

2015 - 2025 - investors start exporting directly to own countries. Australia could no longer provide enough produce for there own populations. Prices in supermarkets has gone up exponentially and families are finding it hard to source food needs.

2025 - Smaller supermarket companies and fruit shop owners/grocery shops are starting to decrease and go out of business.

2026 - government introduces car tax to drive out vehicles in city areas which is intended to become possible areas of growing agricultural crops. They find small success in this scheme in the core central city area.

all retail space in the cities are now redundant.  No food/produce coming into stalls to sell = no need for retail space. smaller fruit shop businesses are now closed. only two options are Woolworths and Coles, who are also vying for limited agricultural stock. 

Families living in the city can no longer support themselves or struggle to provide basic food needs for children.

  

Week 02: Data Population density

Most of Australia’s population is concentrated in two widely separated coastal regions – the south-east and east, and the south-west. Of the two regions, the south-east and east is by far the largest in area and population. The population within these regions is concentrated in urban centres, particularly the capital cities.

Reference:

Australian Bureau of Statistics. 2012. "Year Book Australia, 2012: Population." Australian Bureau of Statistics:1-4.

Week 02: Planning Systems

One could say that urban form is a product of political, social, cultural, economic and environmental idealistic sustainable future visions.  These future visions however vary as result of multiple planning strategies championed by different social groups and government.  For instance, as highlighted by Barton (2000), “eco-Idealist” would argue that strategic dispersed, decentralized, low density settlements be established with self-sufficient communities with diverse eco-systems focusing on consumption at a sustainable level. “Urban revivalists" Barton (2000), largely the government, consider this as urban sprawl resulting in higher transportation resource consumption to connect segregated areas. They propose a more centralized urban form, concentrating high-density neighbourhoods near transportation hubs that link to economic zones with revitalization to identified zones.  This does however raise the issue of the degradation to the immediate eco-system with heightened energy consumption in heavily dense regions. 

Reference:

Barton, H., 2000. Urban form and Locality. In H. Barton, ed. Sustainable communities: the potential for eco-neighbourhoods. London: Earthscan, pp. 105-122

Week 02: Future Scenarios Linked to Economy/Society

Looked at how the 4 different Future Scenarios would impact on the economy. The image that was established here captures the areas of society most affected.

Week 01: Endless Architecture

“Endless Architecture” (Sadler, 2005). What if all architecture was modular and interconnectable.  The architecture used would have “Infinite extension” capabilities like Mies van der Rohe’s “infinite grids” as stated by Sadler (2005). The modular orthogonal shape or squares efficiently connects together forming architectural extension whilst considering the space outside.  This could be applied into a context of a large scale for instance an entire city, or section of a city, or suburban area, or in a regional setting, or a single module, or even to the finite detail of the module it’s self.

Image 1: Infinite Grids

Futuristic visions of robot and machine driven controlled assembly production lines.  Producing mass produced architectural entities.  These entities are all interchangeable, connectable and moveable.  The Cities, suburban regions and regional areas all have buildings, architecture that are easily replaced, connected, interchangeable, expansive and moveable.  The ability to readily expand and add on and interchange existing architectural entities give a sense of endlessness.  It see’s the city expand and rise up into the sky’s they dominate the surrounding scenery with capabilities of relocating.  Humans living in these architectural entities have greater connectivity, community wise, living, working, entertainment. The modular architecture also houses infrastructure, transportation nodes in the form of super fast vertical, horizontal elevators/transporters.  Spaces or left out entity nodes allow for outdoor areas, vertical farming spaces.  Strategically placed voids control natural light to penetrate from the cities stratosphere to the foundations and entities submerged in the ground.

This raises the question how are the entities and the function/operation planned and organized within the entire entity.  Maybe you decide who you neighbors will be? Controlled socio-grouping selection.

Is the decision controlled by human governance?

Maybe it is a decision determined by Robots or artificial intelligence.

Through years of war etc. brought on by human desire to consume, greed and individuality/deference that results in detrimental conflict to all civilization.  United Nations and world leaders agreed that a system would be put in place that would make decisions for humans. Based on what would be the most beneficial for the majority.  Resources, trade, food production, and economies governed by a single entity.

The role of the architect could be planning and arranging the connective entities from the behind the scenes, the architect disappears. Not literally but from the public eye. Machine implement changes.  

                                     

                                                       Image 2: Infinite Module Reproduction

References: 

Sadler, S., 2005. Beyond Architecture. In Archigram: Architecture Without Architecture, Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press. pp90-138. Accessed via QUT blackboard website. 

Week 01: Reading - ArchiGram

About unknown, unestablished or undefined visionary futures incorporating unconventional architecture or architecture entities. Challenges the existing and known providing alternate possibilities for social space and building technologies, redefining the purpose of architecture. Archigram’s document inspires one to remove conventional thinking about traditional architectural physical restraints such as walls and the subsequent resultant spaces and places.  Instead it looks at visions of Architectural entities/equipment designed for a heightened lifestyle experience accepting any cultural change that may occur.  Examples of propositions and scenarios include cities that move and houses worn like suits of clothes.

Disbanding and freeing one’s self from the constraints of conventional principals of architectural entities and engaging in futuristic visions allows one to envisage and dream of idealistic future scenarios.