Speech Writing

The city hotel encompasses what we would normally experience in a typical urban environment. The entrance of the building is a set of chaotic stairs. These must be walked upon in order to reach peace, yet this is not a comfortable task. The orthogonal pattern of the stairs represents the sense of linear trajectory one has during the journey of it, in a sense that represents the monotonous tone of the life of a city as well as its infrastructure. The steps are abstract and are inspired by an aerial view of the city at night. The rushing lights of the stairs imitate the movement of lights whizzing by. An overwhelming noise emanating from the stairs imitates the sounds of traffic rushing by.

Once the traveller has reached the top of our Rush Hour stairs, they find themselves in a square, surrounded by screens. These screens flash billboards, similar to those found in Times Square, New York. This Times Square effect is enhanced by the fact that this square can act as a meeting point for all the occupants, and hence can become very crowded. In situ concrete is used as the load bearing walls of the building, reflecting on the industrialized era of architecture, while keeping a sense of modernism with its functional manipulation of light (mesh).

The entire hotel is enclosed by a mesh, which acts as an envelope for the hotel. It can also be thought of as an intriguing space to explore once inside the building. Its abstractness makes it luck of the draw as to the amount of habitable space of the mesh is available to each room.

The conventional usage of the hotel can be interpreted as a way to question the real meaning of what we would claim to be a utopian set out. The entrance of the hotel is a checkpoint to where the person is able to subjectively judge its surroundings in comparison to its expectations. As we escape from one place to another, one must first conquer a set of tasks before reaching its destination, during then the person is able to imagine his/her future environment. It is only reasonable to think that the harder it is to escape from one place to another, the expectation level increases. To what extent can we truly say about what escaping really is? The person arriving at the hotel should learn how to enjoy what is offer in front of him. Sumarising this, it is more about the escape rather than its destination.


Sitting on top of the hotel is the plant room. It is a representation of the orthogonal infrastructure of the urban city. Its pattern of vertical lines creates a play with the angle of sunlight at different times of the day, thus creating an exquisite spatial experience within. The plant room is partially inspired by the cultural side of the ‘Institut du monde Arabe” by Jean Nouvelle. Privacy is considered, as it is difficult to see the inside of the room whilst standing from the outside through the thin gaps of the walls. The moving rafters of the roof act as a sunlight filter, as the wooden rafters can be moved freely in relation to the angle of the sun.
 

Plantroom Section

Mesh Matrix

Transmaterial Card Parametric Mesh

Parametric Meshes

First mesh created onto second life. Wasn't kept as it needed to be more orthogonal rather than curvy

Second mesh created. Implies more onto the city like architecture 

Parametric Design: Going Through Analysis

Here are some rather deep philosophies that could be thought over and integrated into our design regarding the use of parametric forms, (distruptive components) credits goes for Viktor Frankl. The reflection of social current paradigm tells that we are largely determined by conditioning and conditions (or that we have no control over it) Stimulus and response: Viktor Frankl Psychologist/psychiatrist. Suffered experience of holocaust. Found freedom although the Nazis controlled his environment. Between the stimulus and his response, he decided to choose his response to be free. Found internal power to exercise his freedom, became an inspiration to others, including guards. "Between stimulus and response, lies our power and freedom to choose". In those choices lies our growth and happiness. The ability to create in our own mind our imagination beyond the presence of reality. Independent will, the ability to act based on our self-awareness Free of all other influences. Conscience: a deep awareness of right and wrong of the principles that govern our behavior and a sense of a degree of our thoughts and actions are in harmony with them= integrity

Group 44

We reviewed the last workshop that consisted of the use of second life as a way to express the fundamental ideas of the hotels design. Although second life encountered a glitch problem during that time at which the students were investing their time on, group 44 successfully demonstrated a clear idea of what their journey was all about.

The basic ethic of both hotels addressed a particular interest towards the classism age of the 19^th century. Those were referred to the structure of the building (one situated on the island side especially), in particular the visual aspect of the doric columns and how it was evenly spaced in a circular manner that formed a coliseum as a whole. Looking at its elevation, the columns supporting the structure of the building formed a curvilinear paradigm, ones that closer to its center from the middle, while spreading as they further themselves away from its center and thus creating different length of balconies at different heights.  Interesting use of space and therefore different size of atriums was also another important aspect of their design, which as a whole generated different journey experience in different parts of the building.

The second hotel comprised of two gigantic facades both using identical roman images. Blank pixelated squares could be seen on the façade that would infuse with the main image as we clicked on, in which helped creating a contrast of both private and public to its user within those occupying space that covered the surface area of the pixel. Despite the fact that the interior of the city hotel wasn’t entirely completed (due to the glitch problem), group 44 had the idea of using that space as a way to express both the effective impact of private and public within a building. Double height space was considered as part of their design, thus creating a sense of ambiguity within its occupying space that portrayed a deep feeling of ‘seeing while not being seen’.

As a whole, group 44 successfully demonstrated the ideals behind their design, where their architectural techniques clearly conveyed us what they were going after.

 

 

Path Map View of Vehicles

Transmaterial Seaweed

Mirror Stair of Rush Hour

Recreation of Hook on 3Ds Max

There was a small problem for the previous hook we created, the actual object itself fell apart as the plaster material was too thin to handle the cutting precision of the 3D printing. So we had to change some of the thicknesses while keeping everything else the same dimension (apart from the height of the hook as it had to increase for it to fit in the pulley).

Peer Review

The group we previously overviewed consisted of the making of two vehicles, each joining from a landing point to another (Auckland and Waiheke); ones function revolved around the use of non-renewable energy in order to travel from one side to the other, while the other relied on renewable energy. The first compulsory vehicle they used was a lantern that operated by the combustion of hydrogen produced from the flames created underneath of the lantern. Few modifications had to be made in order to improve the function ability of the vehicle, including the idea of adding and removing parts of the object, as well as distorting the shape of it. Materials such as seaweed and rice paper had to be involved for the process of modifying it. As we got to the part of testing the flying vehicle, the lantern unexpectedly caught fire and turned into ashes within seconds after the incident. That resulted from the distraction of the wind blowing the flames of the lantern too close from the actual paper material. The second vehicle consisted of a generated hydro powered water bottle attached from a horizontal rope (ones that connects to Auckland to its destination) from one point to another. The idea of this vehicle worked by the pressurized force applied within the bottle originated by an air pump, which was then released once the bottle was as its maximum pressure load capacity, creating a powerful forward force, dragging the vehicle in front in a very quick motion. Although this idea was well thought, one major default could be spotted, and that is the question on how does the vehicle keeps moving when no more forces is being applied to the vehicle during its trajectory.

From what we have learned from the group, lots of research experiments were made in which most of them ended up being drastic failures for the sake of finding a way on how to improve the flying ability of the lantern. Useful information such as learning about the weight of the materials in relation with the lantern had to be considered, in which they concluded that adding pieces of seaweed ended up increasing the downward force of the flying vehicle when being lifted in the air. At the end of the day, we left knowing that the amount of choices we had on improving the lantern was very limited due to the increase rate of risks having the paper material (of the lantern) being caught on fire. Learning the ‘hard way’ through try outs and failures seemed to be the best appeal the vehicle workshop had to provide in order for us to succeeding in making a decent flying object.

Interior Hotel Renders (Revit)

Single/Doulbe Pulley 3Ds Max

Research Analysis

Matrix

Rush Hour Stair

Hotel Development

Transmaterial card

Rush Hour Stairs

Rush Hour Stairs

I created this section after the hand-in of our CNC files (which worked, thank goodness!) The horizontal elements are meant to appear like rushing lines of motion, as if the entire stair is moving. This is enhanced by horizontal hollows on the insides of the walls which have LED lights set into them, so that they appear as rushing lines of traffic. 

Group 14 review

Group 14 consisted of the making of two different stairs, one that would blend in with the theme of a utopian city and the other dystopia. The use of fractal architecture was clearly expressed on the dystopian staircase, where a curve figure formed a statistical character creating a whole. The use of repeated self-similar patterns shaped an interesting organic form that appeared to be nearly the same looking from different scales. This idea perhaps helped creating an audacious significant landmark to the setting of the structure. From the novel, the stairs are supposed to create a sense of ‘happiness’ based from what we ought to call what an ‘ultimate city’ is. 

The second staircase consists of a utopian technological theme, where raw mechanics are being applied in order for it to function in a sophisticated manner. Raw materials like iron are being integrated into the structure which creates a sense of natural framework that fits with the ideal of what we would define a utopian city to be.

Transmaterial: Acrylic Perspex

GIF animation

Textures

                                       First texture is a representation of concrete masonry material

                                  Second texture is a representation of wood flooring material

Archicad

Creation of a coffee cup and a jandal on ArchiCAD

Atmospherical models

Claustrophobia.

Deception and illusion. From one side it appears like a whole, solid cube, but from the other we can see that it is in fact empty.

Claustrophobia. Lots of pins stuck in at different angles gives a crowded, intimidating appearance.