A.3 PRECEDENTS
BATESSMART; CANBERRA AIRPORT HOTEL 2015
What really interested me about the Batessmart Canberra Airport Hotel was the way in which the building’s form responded to the particularities of Canberra as a designed City. Batessmart cite the geometry of Walter Burley Griffin’s original urban plans of Canberra as the driving influence used to inform not only the forms of the building but also the treatment of the site’s multiple and varied access points. Researching this project, I found that by having such a strong and articulated formal focus for the design, it encouraged a holistic approach to other disparate elements such as the façade treatments, interior spaces and furnishing. The importance of the theme of circularity is outlined in Batessmart’s brief write up on their website; “The circular theme is echoed throughout the building in the facade and interior detailing. A glazed curtain wall screen with circular aluminium hoops wraps the form and ties it together as a singular object. The hoops act as a privacy screen for guests without loss of view.” (Batessmart 2016) I found the Canberra Airport Hotel whilst fulfilling the functional requirements of a hotel, for example having private rooms for separate guests, also included social/public spaces made formally inclusive by the continued theme of circular space.
Project Details Client; Canberra Airport Pty Ltd Area; 12,000sqm (GBA) Cost; $50 million (worth)
RiCHARD MEiER & PARTNERS ARCHiTECTS; REFORMA TOWERS
This example is not exclusively a retail space but rather a mixed-use development, I thought that it would be even more appropriate given our design brief is also a mixed-use building. The project by Richard Meier & Partners; Reform Towers Mexico City, is an example of a contemporary architectural development concerned with maintaining links to the historical past and the existing urban form of the city. The site for the project is Paseo de la Reforma, a major boulevard which celebrates the history of the Americas and illustrates the cultural and architectural tendency towards celebration not through monument but through space (Galindo and Galindo 2002). This is explored throughout the design of the Reforma Towers by the incorporation of a large courtyard area within one tower, this creates both a social space and allows greater amounts of natural light to be filtered into the building, something which Bernhard Karpf, one of the head designers noted as being an integral part of the building’s “celebration of space, form and light.” (McManus 2014). Project Details Major Materials: Aluminum curtain wall, glass, white architectural concrete, pre-cast concrete panels Program: Office, Hotel, Retail, Restaurant, Gym, Parking Building Height Office Tower: 180m Building Height Hotel Tower: 110m Floors: 40 Office| 27 Hotel Floor Area: 120,000m2 total 101,500m2 above ground 48,500 m2 office tower (Above 9th floor) 11,500 m2 hotel tower (Above 9th floor)