ArchiBJZ Plant Rooms review

Ingrid Anna:

For their final workshop, ArchiBJZ had very little to show us. This was due to the fact that they had been concentrating more on work for another class. However, there were some very interesting moments in the two plant room models they did display.

Their city plant room juxtaposed an exquisite curving façade with a more rigid, triangulated enclosure. The model was not quite complete, with their connection methods not yet fully realised, but on the curving side they had rather elegant slender columns running through their curved mass. The pieces which made up this curving mass were numerous, laser cut from a mesh model. They decided that plants would either grow on the mesh or within it, and that the mass of this over all object also allowed it to be inhabited by humans, and are working on developing the mesh interiors as stairs, a concept we found quite original.

On the other hand, the enclosure on the other side of their city plant room was intended to contrast with the calming, curving mass, and act as a more hostile space. Small triangular pieces of semi transparent plastic were stuck together to form an enclosure. Originally, ArchiBJZ were intending on having these pieces laser cut as well, however they decided that they liked the opacity of their final material, as it would let in sunlight, vital for plant life, as well as cause a greater contrast between the more solid curving mass. We believe that this was quite a good decision and that the difference between both sides was more clear due to their decision. This side of their model was not yet fully complete complete, however, with their connection methods lacking in intricacy. Currently they are just stuck together with blu-tac, however ArchiBJZ informed us that they do intend to come up with a more elegant solution: drilling tiny holes into the sides of the plastic pieces and hence connecting them.

Similarly, ArchiBJZ's Waiheke plant room was also incomplete. They did, however, have a very interesting concept for what they finally wished it to be. Inspired by the 2011 Serpentine Gallery, ArchiBJZ had part of their plant room going underground. They wished to create a very interesting spatial experience on the interior through the use of light. The Waiheke plant room was constructed of multitudes of laser cut circles, all slightly moved to the side. This meant that the roof would be fully covered and that light would be able to filter through the gaps. They also intended this to give the building an over all sense of movement, with the sliding of the circles. The connection methods of this model are currently very poor, as these rings were held together with masking tape. However, ArchiBJZ did have the interesting idea of holding the rings together with one solid element to one side, which would create an undulating, curving wall. We hope to be able to see this when complete as this sounds like quite a sophisticated solution.

Both plant rooms had a strong relation to their respective hotels. Their city plant room was intended to be placed between two parts of their hotel components, acting as a bridge between them. Their Waiheke plant room actually was the hotel, with only the top few levels being occupied by plants. Over all, we believe that ArchiBJZ have some very interesting ideas and lots of potential, however they will really have to sit down and work in order to fully realise these before our final deadline in one week. We look forward to see what they produce.

44 Grey Between 2 Walls Review

Manu:
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.

Ingrid Anna:

Despite issues with Secondlife that were beyond their control, 44 Grey had a very impressive presentation that demonstrated just how much thought had been put into the details of their design. Their island hotel is intended to be a day spa made up of different microclimates, and had a very well considered interior. Their city hotel plays with the notions of privacy and publicity and considered the façade as a screen made up of many interactive pixels.

Rejuvenation was one of the main points of the island hotel. An internally focused day spa, the island hotel is made up of atriums with differing microclimate. The atriums in the centre of the hotel contain facilities, and none of the atriums contain windows to the outside- this is a very introspective design. Balconies lead between undulating atrium forms and the exterior, filling the voids between the atrium and the façade with useable space. The entrance is hidden: the bottom levels of the island hotel are flooded, and one enters the hotel via boat. This increases the overall privacy of the hotel These were the concepts that 44 Grey showed us, but they certainly hadn't been their only ones. 44 Grey had spent much time discussing their ideas and it showed. They had considered many things, from moving floors and the use of figures as both ornamentation and as structural elements; with figures acting like columns on their interior. The effort put into the idea behind this design was admirable and their outcome was beautifully elegant.

Their city hotel unfortunately didn't really show up on Secondlife due to issues with the server, yet it appeared to be well thought out as well. The city hotel has a massive façade with images covering it like a film strip. These images relate back to the treatment of the figure in Classicism, looking at Romantic paintings and the like. They also helped to portray one of the themes in the building, the thin line between privacy and publicity. When a light is turned on in the building, the image on the façade turns off, like a dying pixel. This means that whoever is in the room is now completely visible to the outside world. The plan of the rooms enhance this notion. Similar to designs by Le Corbusier, 44 Grey had a hallway on every 3rd floor, with rooms above and below this. These rooms have some double-height spaces, and the plan gives the occupant the ability to move on both sides of the building- the public and private sides. 44 Grey did express that they weren't yet entirely happy with the simple, box like shape of the design, but they do seem to have a lot of good concepts to work with. We are very much looking forward to see what they produce in the future.

ArchiBJZ vehicles review

Manu:

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.

Andy:

Recently, we have reviewed the work done by Group 38 - ArchiBJZ. This group focused on the vehicles, the journey and the landing area between the two hotels (cities）that were based heavily on working with 3d modeling such as 3dsMax and 3D printer. Compare to the other two work shops, this one seems more practical and realistic rather than thinking about the appearance. The ideas for these vehicles are also restricted by the rules of using renewable energy and non- renewable energy which makes the task even more complicate.

Through their blog, there is a huge amount of work evident showing their trials of the modified vehicle. From their first experiment to the final result they created, Group 38 used a variety of materials trying to improve the vehicle through different aspects. For instance, a number of seaweed and rice paper were attached on their lantern to change the proportion between the weight and the air within it. They also applied larger surface area on the lantern to adjust the gravitational force . With having such rich experience behind their vehicle, it provides our group a great opportunity to learn from their mistake and success.

In designing their vehicles, ArchiBJZ made the good decision of their garages and consider them not just a place where they could put into the hotels, but also how they could affect the overall shape of their hotels. Their two images of the landing area showed a clearly contrast between Auckland and Waiheke Island. Although they didn't pin up additional information of their hotels, we still can understand the differences between two sites and how they are contrast to each other giving distinct feeling to the people inside the hotels.

Ingrid Anna:

Trial and error, Ju An Teo, of ArchiBJZ told us, was the key to their work, 2 Vehicles.
ArchiBJZ went through a rather long process in order to produce their final outcomes: two vehicles; one rather elegant looking decorated lantern and a very effective bottle rocket. They also put great effort into their process, something which we learnt a lot from.

They experimented with using natural materials to renovate the cheap flying lantern, by cutting patterns out of seaweed, which were intended to reflect upon a utopian society, and sticking them onto the top of their lantern. This, they informed us with a rather beautiful description, would not only bring environmental ideas into their design, but also transformed the interior experience of the space. The travellers would be high up in the air enjoying life, tilting softly as they travel slowly between the sites. Light would shine onto their lantern as it transported their travellers, and the seaweed on its exterior would create shadows within, enhancing the interior space. This lantern would take off from a landing platform which had been equally considered; A screen around the space was designed to prevent wind from affecting the lighting of the paraffin, and they mimicked the city scape using a section of a hairbrush modelled in 123D Catch.

Their second vehicle, a bottle rocket, created a contrasting experience. With the aim of creating something that didn't need to be held, ArchiBJZ developed this rocket, which works with pressure, shooting away after being pressurised with water. The speed of the rocket contrasts with the relaxing experience of the lantern, hurtling the travellers to their destination in a parabolic manner. The path their rocket takes was shown on an extremely carefully drawn map, handdrawn on an A2 page with lots of intricate contour lines. The seaweed they had floating in their rocket not only linked this vehicle with the aesthetics of the lantern, but also created a lava lamp like effect. ArchiBJZ also got to make use of one of their transmaterials, moulded silicon, to create a cork for this rocket.

We learnt a lot from ArchiBJZ, who put a lot of effort into their process, which really showed how much trial and error had been a significant factor for them.

F.A.M.E. reviews our stairs

http://fast-ambitious-modern-endeavour.tumblr.com/post/33557347928/studio-lim-a-review

Steel Industries Review of our Plant Rooms

http://steelindustries.tumblr.com/tagged/%5BPeer-to-Peer-Review%5D

Group 14 Peer Review

Dystopian: A mechanical, moving stair. Clicking gears. A sense of rawness.
Utopian: A fractal, calming stair. Incremental growth. Organic.Focusing on these dualities, KripZ architects (Theja, Qiukang and Umer) explained their project, Between 2 floors, incredibly well, making it very easy for our group to understand what they have been up to for the last 2 weeks. Their presentation focused on two very delicate and beautiful sets of stairs, and their accompanying portfolio really demonstrated their ability to use ArchiCAD.

The city is dystopian. The city stairs were mechanical, focused on scale and rotation, and really expressed the rawness of the materials. Gears and chains made the stairs elaborately wind up and up, similar to the gears of a watch, which KripZ examined for inspiration. Raw materials such as iron were integrated with the structure, which fits with the idea of what we would define a dystopian city to be. We can imagine a world where production is the key and the humble citizen is of lesser importance than the continual movement of the manufacturing line. Their sketch page showed a number of thoughts that have been used in the detailing of the stairs, and how each component is assembled together to ensure that the stairs work well. KripZ grasp of ArchiCAD was really apparent in the detailing. They designed each individual piece themselves: learning how to use the mesh and extrusion tools to a high level, and thus producing a stunning 3D model. We were quite in awe by this attention to detail, skill and the delicate nature of their dystopian structure.

The island is utopian. Inspired by fractal architecture, the island stairs used two similar shapes and repeated them, focusing on incremental growth. This use of repeated self-similar patterns created an interesting organic form, which was supposed to give a sense of calmness and peace as one ascended the stairs. We also saw how much KripZ had learnt when it came to ArchiCAD. The paua shell texture on these stairs not only related to their overall island setting, but also showed us that they were aware of how to import and edit materials in ArchiCAD. The concept and execution of this utopian stair case were both very successful.

The idea KriptZ used for utopia and dystopia was very respectable, with a clearly contrast between the geometrical shape of dystopia and the organic style of utopia. Both stairs have taken account of the human scale which gave us the dimensions of each stair. There is not much we can fault them on, as the group did exceedingly well with their stairs. Perhaps they could have shown us a bit more research on hotels, and fixed up the few spelling errors on their presentation sheets! Overall, we were really impressed by KriptZ work and look forward to seeing their progress in the future.

Lu-Man-Riches review of our work

Here is a link to Lu-Man-Riches review of our dystopian and utopian photo manipulations and sections: Lu-Man-Riches Peer Review

Review of Lu-man-Riches work

What is a city? This question rang as fundamental in our minds as we observed Lu-man-Riches work, Ultimate City. The interesting textures, small blotches of colour and unique use of quadrilateral collage immediately grabbed our attention, but something that we found infinitely more interesting was the way that the three pieces looked at the idea of a city, how it was concrete, cramped and artificial, and how this had a very dystopian feel to it.

Their first piece, a section, focused on materials, and the gap between the past and the present. Influenced by J.G. Ballard’s novella of the same title as their overall work, this section alluded back to the story with the presence of cars, sitting on front of the building as if abandoned. The building also appeared abandoned, and there was no human presence in this image, as if there was a lack of life in this dystopian world. However, it was the textures of this image really caught our eyes. Materials, Eman Al-azi, one of the architects from Lu-man-Riches informed me, show emotion. Different materials were expressed on the façade of the building, bringing out the contrast between the ‘natural’ and ‘artificial’ themes that represent the dissimilarity between the two environmental aspects of cityscapes and suburban areas. The imperfection on the façade highlighted the fact that a utopian environment can only be appreciated once we look through what we would consider to be imperfect. The use and combination of wood and concrete makes a connection between the two atmospheric changes: utopian and dystopian feeling. The window displays appear very utopian, or at least comfortable. However, these happy looking interiors were blurred, symbolising that they were something of the past.

In contrast, the final two pieces of Lu-man-Riches work seemed far from happy. At first glance, these two images looked rather gloomy with their high contrast on grey scale. The black and white photos connote the past and despair, where everything has come to a halt and shut itself down forever. However, these images have a secret. Throughout them there are small areas that remain coloured: poignant reminders that there is in fact something else to this city; it is not just a desolate, empty space. These colourful parts also hint back to the Garden City from Ballard’s novella, which is an ideal society where people live in a perfect socio-politico-legal system. The blue sky is associated with hope and peace, and the trees reflect nature and sustainability. These colours emphasize the idea that there are utopian elements within the dystopian environment. They remind us of the hope for a utopia. This idea is not obvious at first glance, so it helps to hold the attention of the viewer, who must then pose more questions on the very nature of a dystopia and utopia. Can there ever be just a dystopia or a utopia? Does one have parts of the other?

Furthermore, the iuse of collage in the form of squares as tiny components creating clouds added a detailed element to the images that made them more intriguing. These gave the space an overall more playful and friendly feel, which might make visitors more inclined to visit a place that seems so dreary and cheerless at first glance. This attention to detail will come in very useful for Lu-man-Riches future work and they are already researching obscure materials for two hotels, which they have been commissioned to design in the city and on an island site. This hotel project will refer back to this work, Ultimate City, but will focus more on the difference between an urban and a suburban area, with cities being industrialised and artificial, and suburbs being green and organic. Lu-man-Riches architects, Eman Al-azi, Alicia Lin and Richard Fiftia, expect to have completed the designs by November this year. If their designs have nearly the thought that went into Ultimate City, they will undoubtedly be very good. We await them with anticipation.