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Architectural
AIR
STUDIO
The University of Melbourne By Dejun Xiang_349329
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C COONNT TE ENNT T Part A The Case For Innovation W1
1. 1 Architecture as discourse 1. 2 Personal Experience & Interests 1. 3 Previous Studio Work 1.4 Two Favorite Architectures
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1. 1 Architecture as discourse
The way of judging the performance of an arhitecture varies with time progressing, with changes of the composition of architects and with the change of the way how people see architectures. Basically, architecture is seen through art, spatial experience and symbolisation. It has been quite common that thinking the seniority of whether an architecture is good or bad is those professors’ exclusive right, other than the public, probably saying they do not understand the intention of architect or the cultural context behind back. The architecture has some nature of art, and that has been accepted by a lot of people including me, before I read this week article, which also made me be hesitive in studying architecture for a while. However, architecture is a kind of gigantic, expensive, heavy production and needs tremendous human and material resource and time to produce, and, it is built for people to live or use for a long period. It need social patronage and there are lots of customers using it. As a product, the experience of customer is an essential
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element in evaluation, and architecture does not only just about facade and outlook, but also about planing the space indoor, which, meanwhile, arranges the way of living and probably people’s luck. Besides, architecture also has to be interracted with surrouding environmental, which will contribute to the city development as well. It means these architectures compose the plan of city, which will , furthermore, establishes social order in some degree, and the architectures that designed and built under that context in the city may become a symble of that period, region or the people living the city, which is the way how architecture speaks as discourse
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1. 2 Personal Experience & Interests I am Dejun Xiang, but I prefer Derek, which is my name in Australia. I am doing Bechelor of Environment in the University of Melbourne and major in Architecture. I come from China, so, with some occasionally cause, FengShui theory popped into my eyes which is a branch of Chinese metaphysices. I am keen on ancient Chiese culture especially metaphysics, which is about how our behaiour and our surroundings affect our living experience. Therefore, I usually pay more attention on how the surrouding environments and the building itself influences people so that to it could be more possible to find a way to give people a better living experience. Furthermore, philosopgy is also one of my interests, and I always wonder how to demonstrate those thingking into architectucture design.
Digital Design Experience As for the digital design experience of mine, it is not a long history. The first design software is skethup, when I did the visual environment. I just learned how to desigin a paper folding model by using computer software, so here, computer is just a tool. Then, I design a building, which actually is a combination of some geometry graphs, by using the Rhino, which is my first time to touch Rhino. I found it much more usefull than the skethup, because it has three views to work, which makes design more essay and efficient.Also, other assesory software such as illustrato and photoshop has been brought to my design process more or less. Basically, what I found is that those tools I used are, in fact, kinds of tools to hepl me to bring my thoughts onto paper or model. However, the software we are going to study is a kind that can change the way of design, so definitly, l am looking forward to learning it.
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BOA T
1. 3 Previous Studio Work
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This is a design of a boathouse from Water Studio, which was located in Yarra Bend park next to the river. The aim of this practice is to design following Frank Loyd Wright’s principle. Therefore, by following his later design principle, which has more dynanmic and curve shape, I used three circular shape buildings with different heights and size, and two of them made of concrete with glass wall covering the around sides, and the middle serving core building withglass as skin mainly, but supported by
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concrete. Moreover, I also reshape the landscape there. Through building a circle-like road from high, where cars goes across under a waterfall, people can enjoy the views in 360 degree, and people also can walk or go riding to access the building through the entrance on the top floor or from the path on the bottom. This create several circles on the site, which gives the landscape, building, a same architectural language to make them more coherent.
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1. 4 Two of Favorite Architectures
The Falling Water is one of my favorite architecture, which is designed by Frank Loyd Wright, who is an architect in the period between modernism and classicalism. Therefore, a lot of classical style can be found in his design, which is what I like. He is not only a architect, but also a good landscape designer. Especially in terms of the Falling Water, It really fits the natural environment vary well. In particular, the little river flowing in front of the building , and the surrounding trees interacting with the building make the architecture have a friendly relationship with the envionment, no
matther what season it is on. What’s more, the overlapping roof and ground provide more level of spacial experience, and the yellow colour also makes the concrete warmer. The tile stone plays a role of tansition between the ground and building, which make it more natral. Overall, I like its locality and how it connects to the surrounding encironment. Standing where a river flowing in front and lush plants will bring people good luck.
The Falling Water
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The Bird’s Nest As Chinese national stadium, Bird’s Nest indeed fully demonstrates the inclusive nature of Chinese culture, harmony generous traditional and eclectic. To bigin with, the concept is vary warm. Bird’s nest represents home, hope, and any other object that can make people comfortable. Moreover, it is just designed by a simple nest shape, compact but not dull, which, inversely looks magnificent, and the steel ‘nest skin’ looks extremly dynanmic and morden. Furthermore, the semi-open roof welcomes sunshine, which makes the ‘nest’ more like the one in the nature, and the spetacular scale of this stadium, which is capable of containing about 100,000people, giving people an significantly impressive view, and that can also encourage the sportsman to perform best. I love it not only because it is a landmarker architecture in BeiJing, which conveys peace, warmth,happiness etc, but it also achieves a high level in on matter in the area of art, spacial experience or sybolism
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