Week 6 - Project 2: From Folie to Building

Lead way into project 2 

Theme
A focus on the design of a primary school environmental education center. 

Think back to when you were a kid, what was your favourite museum? Your favourite toy? Your favourite game? Imagine encapsulating that experience of wonder in a place. How would you teach someone why you liked something, not the thing itself, but rather the emotion of gazing in wonder andjoy at your favourite thing. Time is not important, technology is unlimited, now; design your wonder...

The first part of the studio time was focused on regressing back into our own childhood. What I call "experiential thinking," - we recalled our earliest memory of learning, first primary school experience and first scholastic excursion. The goal of the exercise was to retrospect on how we learned when we were children and to further explore: how do children learn?
Our tutor mentioned five main emotive learning experiences, I only caught four which were:: Anger, Shame, Sadness and Happiness  

Concept Parameters :: From Folie to Building

So far we have developed our concept, narrative and formalised them into a folie, the following project is to design learning spaces that critically respond to issues introduced by your theme leader together with those identified by you through your own investigation.

For project 2, it is encouraged to re-extermination of the site, users and surrounding areas. Brisbane as a whole [subtropical] city, and further social and cultural contexts based on the theme you are given to work with. This project will serve as a research and initial design proposal phase of your project.The ultimate aim at this stage is to define core concept parameters. According to the assessment brief.

"Parameters provide a means to identify your core interests and help you to focus your attention to specific issues with your subjects. For example, a parameter can be set to understand the quality of shadow. Parameters of shadow can be intensity, darkness, tone, temperature, and anything that can measure the quality of shadow. They can be factual and/or conceptual."

Or, a parameter can be set to measure something more abstract such as connectivity. By identifying several good parameters for the subjects of your interest, you can begin to identify a clear conceptual goal(s) for your project. In other words, they are to rigorously and creatively limit the scope of what you will study for the rest of this semester. The self imposed "limit", is a creative framework to allow you to investigate specific issues without losing focus. 

A reanalysis of the site which reflects our own unique research aims to identify issues beyond what everyone can see as obvious facts. 

To Do List: 
- Revisit contextual, geographical and social issues you investigated in Project 1 again, 
- Identify key issues relevant to your theme and investigate further. 
- Extend the scope of the folie into a building that serves more purposes for a group of general public (and beyond).

Core Concepts From Folie-> Scale - Materiality

-> Learning through experience
-> Views/Frames
-> Changing people's perspectives, gain new knowledge of the site
-> Light
-> Future expansions = full use of the bridge, therefore bridge plays an important role.

Exploring Parameters and Metaphors

The core concepts that appeals to me most are: scale + materiality, light and views. I want to explore scale and material. Going back to the site analysis, one of the key points is the magnitude of the story bridge in relation to the users. So I thought perhaps one of the parameters for project 2 is the exploration of materials ... manipulated by scale. I found this exemplar called "Horizon" by Donald Judd. 

The installation finds its inspiration in the three themes that came from observations made during the immersive trip into the desert landscape: scale/scalelessness, density & the phenomenon of the horizon.

The first two, scale and density act as the vehicles for revealing the last, the phenomena of the horizon. 

The resulting form, composed of repetitive laminated plywood sticks and bent conduit pipe define both a field of space and a fulcrum through changes in scale and density

Night view of installation.