Flower Tower Sand Helsel RMIT Architecture Lower Pool Design Studio Semester 02, 2006 Tutor: Sand Helsel & Melissa Bright Exhibited Students: DayneTrower Tarryn Boden Millie Cattlin
The studio often sets projects that have no existing architectural typologies, or are set in industrial and agricultural environments where architects traditionally do not operate. We find this territory liberating and allows (or requires) our students to invent and appropriate from other disciplines. We privilege systems and operation over the object. The wholesale market is a distribution centre: a logistics operation where larger quantities of goods (flowers from the fields) interface with smaller retail outlets (and the vase on your table): from large trucks to vans and cars via forklifts and trolleys. The studio is about contrasts, from the tough (trucks) to the delicate (flowers); between heavy (earthworks) and lightweight (structures); between the mobile and fixed; from large (warehouses) to small (flowers); and from full (on market days) to empty. We encourage the poetic as well as the pragmatic. We have established design strategies over a suite of studios that enable first, second and third year students to engage in large scale and urban design projects, and that make the process less daunting. The studio works at three scales (small, medium, and large) through a range of (at least three) types of media and representation. (This conforms to our thesis that the architectural project exists ‘somewhere’ between 1:1 and the map of the world, so that we do not preclude the sites and scale of intervention). We focus on design processes through to detail design in three linked projects: Small: at the scale of the flower, container and stall; and at the scale of the truck, van, forklift, and trolley. We require the detailed and material design of a set of component parts and connections. This scale focuses on conceptual development, representation, and the development of a tectonic and material language. (There is a site visit to Kuoomen Flower Farm.) Large: at the scale of logistics and infrastructure, the movement of goods: parking lots, slip roads and loading bays. The exercise focuses on site planning and diagramming; the modelling of earthworks and urban landscape – sculpting the ground. This scale investigates the larger issues, sources relevant data, and is represented through diagramming and modelling. (There is a site visit to IPEC: Toll Logistics.) Medium: at the scale of the market building and ancillary programs: the mediation of the small and large scale designs. The existing programmatic requirements of the flower market are doubled; ancillary programs are added that respond to individual student interpretations of the issues arising. Density strategies include stacking, bending, extruding, multiplying, folding, compressing – flower towers, perhaps. (There is a site visit to Melbourne Wholesale Markets.)
‘Flower Tower’ is an issue-based studio that requires students to take a position – on social and environmental issues – and to speculate on the future shape of our cities. The brief was inspired by a local newspaper item and a report on ABC Stateline: stallholders angered by the proposed relocation of the wholesale fish, flower, and fruit and vegetable markets. The poster mounted on the accompanying image of a forklift read “WE ARE NOT MOVING”. We phrase our brief (similarly) as a polemic, or battle cry, to provoke response. We respond to the plans to move the Melbourne Wholesale Flower Market from its central location in Footscray to the suburban fringes of Epping. “WE PROPOSE THAT IT STAYS”. We believe that these ‘large’ programs should continue to exist within the city and not be continually pushed to the periphery for a number of reasons - social, political, economic, and environmental. There is a need to maintain jobs and a cultural mix, and to preserve public (or state) ownership. There are environmental imperatives to save on fuel and road use; logistics considers the most economic and efficient distribution of goods and services. We seek to arrest urban sprawl and the move to the periphery; and to maintain the ‘big’ things that allow the city to function, and are a key component of the urban landscape. We consider issues of density (or the lack thereof) and propose new typologies for industry in addition to the existing residential models. We plan to meet the demand for expansion space from both the port and the wholesale markets by doubling the density on the site. We maintain the existing footprint of the site and reinvent the shed and the parking lot.
It is interesting to note how the students found their individual trajectories at varying phases of this process. Tarryn Boden (illustrated) found a design language and method through the unfolding and unpacking of a flower stall in the ‘small’ stage of her project. She was able to develop this over the subsequent scales of investigation with a program and site strategy that unfolded and unpacked over a 24-hour cycle. Dayne Trower (also illustrated) found a resonance between a folded flower container and the complex infrastructure on the site – trains, highway, and access roads – which encouraged him to take on the port expansion along with the market densification at the ‘large’ scale. Jock Gilbert’s fastidious research and data enabled him to redesign the market operation into a more effective auction system that cut out the wholesalers completely (and the requirements of the brief!); and Bo David Chu rigourously took on logistics (as a first year student) and incorporated the operations of IPEC in addition to the market requirements. (There were no dumb sheds set in an expanse of tarmac to be found.) One can question the validity of such a design studio. How often (if ever) would one be called upon to design such a building? Probably never, but through the process of designing the studio we necessarily become more conscious of the skilling agendas that we set (in the context of an architectural school): a critical approach to and use of representation, site analysis and design strategies, research and data techniques, and the ability to negotiate a series of scales to a material resolution. Furthermore we believe that there are conceptual agendas that require us to shift from the object-nature of our traditional activities as architects. The complexity of urban and environmental issues that we face today necessitates that we cross disciplinary boundaries into landscape architecture, urban design, engineering, and in this case, logistics. Our studios attempt to preclude the fact that the answer is a building (as in Jock Gilbert’s case) in the hope that we might be able to pose better questions, such as how, why, and at what scale we operate.
010
resting stop
night marke
cafe unit
table unit
display unit
night market attachment
Lift entry
Entry
Bikes
Forklift / Pallet s
City bound traffic
Proposed port storage site
011
Parking and lift
SECTION E
Lift entry
Market entry
Bikes
Forklift / Pallet s
City bound traffic
Proposed port storage site
Market
Proposed port freight train Line Bikes
SECTION D
Lift entry
Entry
Proposed port storage site
Parking
City bound traffic
Bikes
Cafe an
et
flower market
footscray road connection diagram
Tarryn Boden
Lift entry
Lift entry
Bus pick up
road
flower market
carpark
subsidiary program
all
West bound traffic
storage
Existing Port storage site
Lift entry
storage
nd toilets
012
Lift entry
Market
West bound traffic
Existing Port storage site
Lift entry
Entry
West bound traffic
Existing Port storage site
Millie Cattlin
DayneTrower