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FADY GHABBOUR
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ARCHITECTURE MASTER STUDIO 14
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DESIGNER\MAKER
MELBOURNE SCHOO OF DESIGN, UNIVERSITY OF MELBOURNE
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INTRODUCTION
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RESEARCH TASKS
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SITE RESPONSE
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CONCEPTUAL RESPONSE
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DESIGN DEVELOPMENT
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CONSTRUCTION
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FINAL INSTALLATION
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BUDGET BREAKDOWN
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This booklet showcases the documentation and realisation of the 2028 installation. Special thanks to my awesome group members who made this possible; Tom, Muzhi and Michelle, and to my awesome tutors; Sensei Adam and Sensei Chris who through their experience provided us with the skills and knowledge to complete this studio.
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My name is Fady Ghabbour, a current Master of Architecture candidate at the University of Melbourne. This research booklet covers my work undertaking Architecture Masters Studio 14: Designer / Maker. The studio is founded on the premise that in order for architects and designers to engage the full potential of their work they should make physical making a part of their design process. In order for our imagination to come into existence, they must be materialised and turned into a physical reality. A physical reality that embodies our emotions and our reasoning for why something should be what it is. A physical reality that shines a light on something unmaterialstic; an idea. Ideas are what drive people forward in whatever path in life they choose to undertake. This journal explores my attempt at realising an idea - engaging with real, materialistic factors, to embody a thought process. This studio invited students to design and build an architectural intervention for an underutilised space at the Melbourne School of Design.
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The first research task; architectural interventions. We were required to find a project that we defined as an intervention and reflect on its implications on its context and surroundings. Looking at Peter Zumthor’s Steilneset Memorial in Vardo, Norway, I can appreciate the way this driftwood structure meets its site. A silk cacoon is suspended within a repeated driftwood timber frame elevating it off the ground. The memorial comemorates the memory of the 91 victims burnt on the stake for suspiscion of witchcraft in the 17th century. Zumthor’s memorial carries 91 steel framed windows puncturing the cacoon at different heights. Each window has a biography and a name next to it. Names and stories of these victims are not associated with faces, but is associated with the site itself. Each biography has a light suspended in front of the window. A poetic memorial crafted out of the context itself. Peter Zumthor ties the memory of these victims to place, a much stronger bond. The soft black textile walls resonate in the wind and the light flickers slightly. An architectural intervention that is completely site specific. Being opened to the elements, having a minimal structure and skin, the eye is drawn to the lights in the windows and eventually drawn outside to the site again.
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STEILNESET MEMORIAL, VARDO, NORWAY Peter Zumtor 4
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STANDING SQUAT SEAT USAGE (NTS) diagram 01
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Second research task was to find an example of a poorly considered design decision that had implications of the comfort and/or intended usage of a certain object or space. I decided to look at leaning benches that you find at some training stations in Melbourne. I decided to call them the standing squat seats. These are temporary waiting spaces, which are designed for shorter period of use, they are not meant to be comfortable benches. However, for some reason it is very difficult to remain leaning on these rails without have to hold your own weight up in your thights the entire time. At the beginning I thought it might be due to the height of the rails, maybe they are too high? However after looking at its dimensions, a 700mm high rail is a comfortable height for leaning. Upon closer inspections you find that the leaning area provided is only 110mm, not providing enough space to take enough of your weight off your legs and rest on the rails, but leaning on a round stainless steel rail you are constantly fighting gravity and sliding off on top of that. My proposed solution was simply increasing the width of that leaning space as well as using a square section rail for the lean (a rounded off edge for comfort). The solution would work with stainless steel rail or even better, a timber rail where there would more grip
DIAGRAMMATIC SECTION (NTS) diagram 02
PROPOSED SOLUTION diagram 03 6
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OUR LADY OF THE SOUTHERN CROSS CHAPEL Branch Studo & Orchard Design Studio
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The third and final task was to look at a design practice that employed the designer-maker methodology. I decided to look at Branch Studio Architects, a small Melbourne based multidisciplinary design practice that usually works in close collaboration with Orchard Design Studio and Brad Wray Workshop (both sculpture/furniture/designer-maker practices) which are other business the directors of the Branch are involved in. Their work shows a beautiful display of material palettes, joints and detailing. Their understanding of how materials work with one another and meet is remarkable. You often notice that their furniture pieces and sculptural/liturgical work are smaller tests of bigger ideas and material palettes you find in their larger buildings. Being directly associated with building workshops and having the resources they need to physically test concepts and materials, you see that there is a hollistic approach to their work. All details are considered. There is no “ugly� side when you follow a designermaker approach to your work. You try to test all possibilities and through pysical making whilst designing, you constantly solve more problems and solidify your ideas.
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11 07 - Brad Wray Workshop 08- Bridge house, Branch Studio
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12 09-12 - Our Lady of the Southern Cross Chapel, Branch Studio Architects & Orchard Design Studio 8
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The site allocated to our group in the new MSD building is in one of the two entry foyers to the largest lecture theatre in the historic campus; theatre B117. The site is located in the lower basement of the building, B2, and is quite expressive in its raw material palette which gave it a unique ambience. Looking at the site, two things directly stick out - firstly, it’s volume. The 8m ceiling heights and large plain walls inforce its geometric shape and it’s scale in relation to the human body. Secondly, there is not really a space for seating! Looking at the adjacencies of our site and the fact that there is no built in joinery, it can be safely assumed that the architects did not want this to be a space occupied constantly by students “hanging out”. A 500 people lecture theatre that has only two entrances explains why these foyers on B1 and B2 are essentially large voids - they need to have the capacity to hold 250 people each at a time. Yet, there is a certain level of intimacy that is associated with our site, and that is something that attracted me from the beginning. There is a sense of stillness and privacy roaming about this space and it is quite special.
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EXISTING CONDITIONS SITE PLAN Scale: As shown
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Circulation through the site is mainly students, lecturers and staff navigating their way in and out the lecture theatre. The site is mainly occupied directly before and after lectures. Heavy egress and ingress through the areas indicated on diagram --. The B2 lower foyer also provides the only lift / disabled access to the front of the theatre B117. This imposes serious considerations to be taken when designing our architectural intervention and how it will take place within the site. Disabled access as well as emergency egress are examples of design constraints to be taken into account. The green spaces highlighted in diagram -- are simply the negative space from the users’ observed circulation patterns. It is mainly where students wait and/or sit whilst waiting for their lectures to commence. This makes sense in a functional way - if someone wants to wait somewhere, they will wait out of pedestrians or traffic’s way. However, I suggest that there is more to why users occupy those spots specifically in our site.
CIRCULATAION / PEDESTRIAN PATHS diagram 04
OCCUPATION ZONES diagram 05
C I R C U L A T I O N
My interests in their essence lie in the social aspects of design. I am interested in people and in their behavioural patterns, and how design can influence the way people behave and feel.
A sense of disembodiment from their physical context sometimes appears to be the case. People are usually on their phones, headphones in, or simply in a state of idle waiting.
There is something worth noting about the kind of people who come down to the site, and that is that they usually behave as if they are sitting in a silent library. You’ll notice students are often unvolintarily whispering while they talk to their colleagues. They are often waiting alone, but occasionally you would find two or three people waiting together.
Juhanni Pallasmaa speaks in the Thinking Hand about the link between our minds and bodies and how we experience the world with our bodies, yet you find that as technology advances and students get deeper into their academic lives, they move more and more into their heads. Our bodies becomes simply a means of transport for our heads.
It is quite important to keep in mind that the students who wait in the lower basement are the students who usually sit at the front of their lectures. They are the most interactive and engaging students during their lectures through asking questions and making the effort to speak to their professors. However, there is something quite odd about why these proactive students usually act quite asocially in the context of waiting for their lectures.
So if someone is waiting there alone, they seem to prefer avoiding interactions with others. Yet, a different sense of awareness arises in the users waiting in this space. I’m going to call it stranger’s paranoia. Users in the site are usually conscious of who is around them. As soon as someone walks down the stairs or moves, most people take note of that and look to see who is there. This is to do with the idea of passive surveillance. PERSONAL ZONE diagram 06
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Passive surveillance is the most common type of humanatarian surveillance. If you look at the lower basement in comparision, for example, to the MSD atrium space in terms of their architectural planning you will notice obviously that the atrium space was designed to be a collabarative work space, an exhibition space, a meeting space. People in the atrium tend to work in groups and on their own, seem to be able to concentrate and simply be much more comfortable simply because as a person sitting in the atrium space, I know there are others around who can see and look at what is happening. With the privacy and sense of being tucked away that comes with the lower basement space, 9 out of 10 users will sit in the corners, or with their backs against the wall. That ensures that they can see who is around, who is coming in and out and simply give them a peace of mind. This is an important observation to keep in mind regarding the dynamics of the space and why people site in certain areas rather than others. It also makes strong suggestions about potential spaces for our intervention to go.
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PASSIVE SURVEILLANCE diagram 07
MSD atrium
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One of the factors that create this sense of intimacy in the lower basement is the fact that it has such controlled lighting, that throughout the entire day, regardless of whatever season it is, the quality of light does not change. It is always and constantly the same. One noticable thing was the way one’s shadows seem to be layers of shade overlayed - from the darkest and expanding out to lighter tones at the edge of the shadow. Therefore, we conducted a study and traced our own shadows at different points on a straight path walking away from the light pendant. Having a fixed light source has it’s advantages, it means we can really tailor a design response that plays on that quality of light that is availble.
EXPANSE OF SELF diagram 08 Model: Tom Jones
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The site has quite the minimalist material palette. Very monochromatic, very rough materials that remain in their natural finishes. The palette carries quite an immense textural variety on close inspection. The concrete walls still have brush marks. The concrete floor exposes the aggregate in certain spots from the levelling of the floor by the builders. This large and plain site actually has a very rich skin. It is lovely to have this layering in the surfaces, it is like an aging factor in the materials, with the maker’s mark permanently left on them.
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TONAL VARIETY diagram 09 Credits: Tom Jones 18
c After reaching a certain depth in analysis of a certain site, you think that most of the common users will never appreciate a space in the same way you do. My basic intuition is to find a way to relay that experience to someone who does not have an architectural or a design background. That is the challenge. The qualities of the site, such as its lighting, textural tones and its sense of stillness, are not exactly things that a commerce or biology student would be able to identify with in their heads upon entering the site. Therefore, we want to exacerbate and exaggerate these qualities. Empatyhy in design is key. It is much more important to have the ability to imagine the human situations that would take place in a certain space, rather than than the ability to imagine that space itself. The designer-maker methodology helped me as a designer in that sense. It balances the scales of imagination and reality, adding another layer of consideration to our design work.
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In order to design something that is considerate of its context and of its users, it is important to break down the site analysis findings even further and decide on certain design constraints to respond to. There must be a set of parameters and a logic guiding the conceptual response and guiding the way we could underpin all that is beautiful in our site into a single beautiful object that unites all the ideas and feelings! These design constraints go as follows: - Accessibility to theatre - ingress & egress. - Proxemic interactions - people do not want to feel encroached upon in their personal space. - Visual awareness - being able to see who is around you. These early sketches begin to look at how the space could be further broken down to accomodate for more than one user without imposing any confronting interactions. I was interested in combining seating, and a mind stimulating activity that would encourage that state of mental wandering that users seem to be in within the space.
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The idea of breaking down this small space into even smaller spaces is something that intrigued me. I am invested in how the space could be broken down, without partitions that would make it seem like cubicles. This is where designing and making became to really come together. Testing ideas with small models of how a wall or a patition can be diffused. The fact that the lower basement was a place of solitude was one of the driving factors for our conceptual response. The idea of an intervention that didn’t take someone’s peace of mind, but gave the opportunity to even remain in the site for hours interacting with it was what intrigued me the most. That was really the birth of the concept. An intervention that was like a doodling board, that allowed people to unload mental energy and physically interact with it without having to necessarily speak. Something that a single user could use, but if someone else interacts with it at the same time it happens without encroaching on one another’s personal space.
These interactive partitions will serve as a means of indirect interaction between people. By making the object as minimal as possible and focusing on the experience itself, the intervention can transcend from something that is a “one-liner” to a beautiful object that provides a layered fabric. A partiton that is changed over time with every single user’s interaction. 15
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SKETCH MODEL 1.0 interactive blocks
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THE BIG IDEA - Leave your thoughts here! diagram 10 Credits: Michelle Chang
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Working as a designer-maker is actually quite a liberating process. Initially, the knowledge that we would have to build our intervention at 1:1 scale brought to my mind a list of constraints such as budget, materials, timeframe etc. However in the earlier research tasks in the studio looking at a number of artists, architects and designers who follow this approach to design and studying their hollistic approach to their work, I learnt that working as a designer-maker means problem solving through making. Facing challenges and difficulties in realising design is a given, but assimilating to these challenges and responding to them through making, testing ideas and prototyping is where the liberation of ideas come in. At a certain point in the semester we came across a timber recycling company that has a huge amount of Tasmanian Oak dowels which were factory off cuts. The material was new, and was to be wood-chipped if no one was to make use of it. Very quickly we saw this as an opportunity to resolve budget issues, but
also to recycle this beautiful timber and incorporate it in our design. Through model making and sketching, very quickly the physical manifestation of our concept was able to be tailored and refined to incorporate this beautiful material into it. It was at this stage really that I realised that being a designer-maker is about making the best use of your available resources. A slight change in the tectonics of our design through model making, rather than changing the concept itself, gave us the opportunity to make this project more special. 20
SCHEMATIC SKETCHES dowel tectonics
SKETCH MODEL 2.0 interactive dowels
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22 MATERIAL TRANSPORTATION Credits: Waste Converters, Dandenong
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The focus now being on the interactive play with the dowel partition itself and on this idea of passive interaction between people through the same object we decided to go for the simplest form possible in order to make the focus on the experience itself. A simple L-shaped wall that broke our site into two spaces, an inner more private space and an outer more social space. Drawing inspiration from Mies Van Der Rohe’s Barcelona Pavilion, the form was rationalised and pushed further for a more site specific response. Through a number of iterations of the form (diagram --) and testing the shape of the plan we decided to move away from the sharp 90 degree angle and widen the private space. The decision was made to allow wheelchair access behind the wall.
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BASIC SPATIAL CONFIGURATION diagram 11
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It becomes more and more obvious as you take a look at the site that architects did not want this to be a space where students hung out and spent time. There is not built in joinery or seating anywhere in the space. But that is not how the space functions today. It has become a spot of relatively short period inhabitations, generally speaking. Whereas you still do find the odd user that stays in the site for longer periods of time, say longer than just waiting 10 minutes for lecture. The space cries out for seating, and therefore we experimented with the idea of intergrating seating into the wall. However it seemed to me that the two did not blend well. I agreed with the notion of the value of providing seating in the space and the experience provided, but I did not think the two were integrated well. Rather, making the seat part of the wall did not make sense to me as it detracted from the experience of interacting with the dowels. The seat was culled after the mid-semester presentations for exactly that reason; we would not have the time to resolve the seating to the level of detailing that would do the design justice. Therefore we focused on the wall. 26
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The idea that there would be an ongoing interaction with this object fascinated me. It is my hope that people would take some sort of ownershop over the marks or patterns they leave here and that they would return and find that someone else has changed it or added to it. It may be still there, it may be totally gone, or it may have evolved into something else. I want to draw on the tactility of the materials in the site and therefore touch is something really key to this installation. The fact that there is intentional physical interaction is a key driver in the conceptual response, and to me it is the most important thing.
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ONGOING CONVERSATION diagram 13
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DIFFUSED VISIBILITY diagram 14
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Playing on the lighting and shadows of the space, one idea that ingrigued was the idea of proxemic interactions between people through this architectural intervention. It seemed much more interesting if you were able to catch the glimpse or a shadow of someone by looking through the wall, if there were small openings scattered between the dowels allowing those who make the effort to catch a glimpse of the other side.
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It is at this phase of the project that I truly learnt what it is to be a designer-maker. Letting different creative process solely take control at different stages - conventional ways of designing that I’m used to: sketching, 3D modelling, drawings, personal journal etc. and introducing a new process at this phase: Making and full scale prototyping. By getting into each process and giving each one its fair share, the entire workflow is balanced out. The two compliment each other, and designing through making and testing our ideas at their full scale is the entire premise of this studio.
“This is what a sculptor must do. He must strive continually to think of, and use form in its full spatial completeness... He mentally visualises and complex form from all round itself; he know while he looks at one side what the other side will look like; he identifies himself with its center of gravity, its mass, its weight; he realises its volume...� H
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Providing two “entrances� to the installation is intended to provide different experiences. Coming down from the stairs and seeing the installation peaking out from around the corner, the user would enter through a narrow opening where their bodies would brush against the dowels. The other side is wider and more open to allow for a wheelchair to enter and do a full circle turn inside. Drawing on the verticality in the site and the height of the ceilings, it was key for our concept to maintain a taller than average height. Using an entire sheet of ply it would be at 2200mm high. However soon enough it was important to start testing the stability the of the
PROPOSED CONDITIONS PLAN Scale: As shown
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Having the site within the MSD building is very convenient; it allowed us to very easly begin experimenting ideas physically at a very early stage. This was an essential exercise in understanding the relationships between the interventional spaces and the existing space. I found through this exercise, that due to the fixed lighting in the space, we had created quite two different atmoshperes between those open and private spaces. It was mainly the shadow play from the form of the intervention and the light spilling over the top that made the two spaces feel different.
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With increasing the height of the intervention, we increased the privacy of that inner space. However the image on the lift, shows maybe a bit of an uncomfrtable zone at that corner. However, you could imagine that personal interaction with a wall filled with dowels. Maybe increasing the heigt and having that angle at exactly 90 degrees will encroach on people’s personal spaces and make them rather uncomfortable in there. Therefore with increasing the height, it was important to understand that we would have to make the private more generous also allowing for a move holistic experience within our architectural intervention space
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Whilst other forms were slightly considered, we did not spend too much time looking into them. However, it would have been interesting to consider the implications of other forms and shapes on the positive and negative spaces they created. Nevertheless, what I mainly learnt from these exercises was that the concept itself could have been communicated through other forms and spatial arrangements. The configuration of the space and the setout in this corner has a huge implication on the way interaction would take place with the intervention. The concept itself is quite pure and simple that I believe it could have been realised in more than one way.
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Due to the height of the wall there would be a tipping point towards the top of the wall once force was applied. In order to measure and assess the risk - a 1:2 prototype of the wall’s structure was buildt. Ensuring the structure’s form and shape in plan was stiff enough was a crucial exercise for the safety of the project. Given that the installation relies on people physically pushing dowels in and out and impacting the structure. Even though the 1:2 prototype was good means for testing the structural integrity of the wall, it was not the most accurate representation of the installation since it did not include the weight of the dowels. However, although it did not exactly represent the conditions of our installation, it did give us ideas for improving the stability of our installation and giving it better standing.
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Through the 1:2 prototype, smaller models were built testing tigher angles and thickening the form at the base to increase the stability. Knowing our site is completely sheltered from the elements is a great advantage, as it means that through a number of small modifications, we would significantly increase the stability of our installation. TIPPING POINT 300mm
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DOWEL TAPERING diagram 15
Firstly, the form was stiffenned by increasing the thickness of the wall from 200mm to 300mm. Secondly, a 600mm base plate to make it more difficult to create a tipping moment from the top of the wall. Finally, common construction techniques in tall buildings and structures rely on having a thicker base, whilst the top does not need to have the same thickness or size in footprint. Therefore, as a final measure we decided that the dowels should be tapered from the top to bottom. Having the dowels tapering from 50mm extension at the top to 300mm extension at the bottom also meant that there’s less of a risk that someone can hold onto the dowels and pull down on the structure.
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Very quickly we were able to understand that we will have to build the walls in modules, simply for means of efficient assembly given the resources available. Early prototypes were great in terms of understanding the mechanisms of the modules. How will the dowels stop? what different lengths of extrusion feel like and allow easy enough pulling and pushing of the dowels? What density and spacings are good and will not tear out the plywood face panels? More importantly, these prototypes gave us great satisfaction upon taking them down to the site. Seeing part of the wall installation in its context helped us further understand how the entire installation will look and feel on the site. It did not feel like an alien object. The natural plywood finish and Tas Oak dowels compliment the concrete walls and floor. The early prototypes were also a confirmation that users will be able to see through the wall into the other side just enough to catch a glimpse of what is behind.
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Getting CNC cut prototypes early in the design development stage helped us make some crucial desicions. For example we found out that using a full sheet of plywood to cut our modules, they would have to be 550 x 550mm instead of 600 x 600mm in order to accomodate for the router bit in the CNC machine. Knowing this early one, we knew that it would affect the overall height of our installation, as well as change the pattern spacings for the dowels. Thus, we prototyped smarter and more efficiently and learnt a great deal from CNC cutting one single prototype.
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Following the designer-maker methodology and designing through making, we were able to further evolve the modules and there assembly process. Being able to assess how much material will be required to join them, the strengths and weaknesses of each joining system, as well as how much time it requires to assemble each module.
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CNC CUT PANEL 1:1 SCALE
Engaging with physical making and prototyping, we were not only aided in making design decisions based on finishes and aesthetics but also based on budget. In this scenario, CNC cutting all those secondary holes in order to be able to see through the wall added a significant amount of cutting time which multiplied our cutting cost. Therefore after doing quick costings and planning our budget, we were able to understand that we would have to eliminate the secondary holes from our original concept. Again, following in the methodology proposed by this studio, we are dealing with real world factors. We are restricted by budgets and by timeframes. Through making and designing we were able to make wise calls on how to proceed.
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JOINT 1 - L SHAPED TIMBER STUDS diagram 17 39
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Testing different methods of connecting the moduels to one another to form an overall structure was one of the most important parts in the prototyping process. The joints between the modules had to be rigid. The shorter the joints were between one another, the weaker the entire wall was. This system was quite good for getting the modules flush, as it modules could be adjusted according to one another without having to tie into an overall structure, however in testing it, we found it much weaker than planned and it would use a lot more timber studs than our budget could account for.
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JOINT 2 - STRUCTURAL PLYWOOD I-BEAM diagram 18 Prototyping the first system gave us the insight that it will be better if there is an overall internal structure that runs along the entire height of the installation. A governing skeleton to which all the modules are connected; a structural frame. This is a prime example on the influence of making and desining and how it has aided the development of our design. This was a pivotal point in the detailing of our installation on which the success of the structure and its integrity depended on. It was only through the failure of the earlier system to meet the structural needs of resisting lateral loads and carrying heavy timber dowels that we arrived at this solution; tailored and customised to our design.
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20mm-22mm dowels (40%) 23.5mm openings 68.5mm CCS between dowels evenly spaces across square panels 25mm dowels 26.5mm openings 68.5mm CCS between dowels evenly spaces across square panels GRAND TOTAL = 2028 DOWELS
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50 BLACK FORM PLYWOOD RENDER Credits: Muzhi Ji
FORM PLYWOOD vs. NATURAL PLYWOOD Light Play Comparison
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51 Part of our prototyping phase was testing the finishes of the dowels and the different plywoods we wanted to work with. We wanted to test ebonizing the dowels in order to make them darker, even completely black. I was very excited by the potential of this, mainly because having the installation in black will instill a sense of seriousness in this design. We are not designing a toy, and our site isn’t a playground. We want our work to be taken seriously and for people to be taken back by the beauty of it and how it works. If it was merely something that is for play and fun, the installation would be a mere “one-liner�; once people know what it does, it would lose its beauty.
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53 Ebonizing the timber dowels took about 3 days, just for the solution to simply settle. We also came to learn that we would need to apply another finish (such as Danish oil for example) in order to seal it. The implications this would have on the timeframe of our construction and assembly would be quite large given we have 1792 dowels to cut and 28 modules to assemble. The prototypes made using black form plywood and the ebonised dowels we beautiful and quite neat in their finish and the way they looked. However, I came to realise something as I looked at the prototypes in the site and took a closer at the ebonized dowels themselves; the had lost their individual
variety and beauty. This is something that is essential to me in realising our concept. The naturally finished dowels had the most beautiful textures at their saw-cut edges. The variety in the dowels from sitting in the rain exposed to the elements, and their slightly weathered exterior, was beautiful. They varied from ones that were heavily weathered to ones that were stored at the bottom of their piles and therefore looked brand new. Leaving the dowels naturally finished is a better argument for our conceptual forecast of how our installation will tie into its surroundings. It makes the intervention more site specific, a raw object in its raw context. 46
diagram 23 The base plate will provide stability against lateral forces at the top. Working to keep the moments always at zero, fighting the tipping points.
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The I-beams, underfixed, are the framing elements that will connect all the modules to one another and the base plate, unifying the entire structure.
18mm hardwood structural plywood (C-D) will also provide bracing to the structure and the framing once they are fixed the the I-beams.
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diagram 30
Modules will be assembled in rows from bottom to top, ensuring stability of the frame and structure as we reach full height.
Once all face panels are connected to the frame, we will have a structure that will act as a single unit able to resist forces imposed on it and increasing its safety.
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The connector plates at the corners sit on top of every row of modules, connecting them to one another avoiding having a point of structural weakness.
Timber spacer studs are used to further connect the face panels of the modules to one another, ensuring the module is a complete unit when inserted onto the frame.
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diagram 32
Structural plywood sheets will be used as “end caps� to close off the form of the installation.
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Finally, with the weight of all the dowels and their tapering shape (50mm - 300mm), the installation will be completely stable. Each module weighs approximately 15kg with the dowels in place.
diagram 28 Spacer studs will ensure that the all modules have consistent thickness of 300mm even if there is bending in the plywood used for the framing.
Please note that these diagrams do not depict the assembly of the installation, but are aimed to provide an understanding of the structural elements of the installation and its layered systems. All modules will have their dowels, according to their groups/rows, in place prior to their installation on the frame.
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The assembly process on site took approximately 5 days. It begain with the assembly of our 28 modules and cutting the elements of the structure, I-beams, base plate, corner joint plates etc. Sequencing was quite essential in the process of assembly. We needed to have all framing members and the bottom row of modules ready. The frame could not be installed and left on site withouth the the bottom row of modules installed in place to hold the I-beams still. Once the I-beams were underpinned to the base plate, they would be under a large amount of stress and really susceptible to bending moments at the top, meaning that they could potentially break. Once the bottom row of modules were installed and fixed onto the I-beams, we could then leave them on site and return to assembling the next three rows of modules and installing them as we go.
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Since the framing structure was made of a number of different elements that were perpindicular to one another, we used the Domino machine to align the different elements (i.e. I-beams and base and plates) prior to under screwing them on site. The domino pieces were not structural, but merely an aligning tool. The right tool for the job sped up the assembly process but it also allowed us to work with tolerances for when we get on site and begin fixing these elements to one another.
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It is at this stage that we should have checked the levels of the floor and made sure that it was flat. A large part of the learning curve in this studio took place during the assembly process as we came to learn that the ground is never flat. Builders use shadow lines and wedges/packers to deal with such issues. Having not accounted for a non-flat working surface we ran into some issues as we began assembling the modules. Our installation was designed without shadow lines between the modules. We wanted the modules to meet flush at the surface, what we did not know is how hard that is to do.
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61 Transporting the bottom row of modules down to the site, the next step is putting the modules onto the base plate and fixing them to the I-beams. Each two modules share an I-beam at their centre where they meet.
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As the bottom row of modules went onto the frame quite smoothly, it wasn’t until they were all fixed to their structure that we noticed larger than usual gaps at the joint between the last three modules towards the corner. The only logical explanation was that the ground was not flat, and given we did not account for that in our detailing due to lack of experience, the modules did not sit exactly square to one another. The gap at this level was not very noticable, given it is out of eye level and that it would be covered with three more levels of dowel modules that would be the main focus of interacting with the installation for the most part. However, getting the next row of modules levelled and square in relation to one another (not the ground) was the issue that required our attention in order for the gap to not get wider at eye level.
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68 As the next row of modules went on (Row C), we assembled all modules on and figured out the high points in the ground and we simply wedged our way upto those points. After we screwed the modules onto the structure, the mechanical fixings did their job and the wedges were removed. At this stage we were aligning the modules simply by eye. They were all within 1 - 2mm of one another, however they still looked consistent and almost perfectly flush at parts, but not quite the ideal perfect seamless joints - a small price to pay for learning. It is safe to assume that none of us will repeat that mistake again.
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The remainder of the assembly carried on quite smoothly once the modules were levelled in relation to one another again. The overall construction process ran sucessfully and within the timeframe we have allowed for it. I found that the key to having a relatively clear understanding of how our assembly was going to take place came from the design development and prototyping phase. The more we delved into the detailing of the modules, their connections and the framing system to be used, the more we could predict what kind of issues we would run into in the assembly. Of course these predictions were done to the best of our knowledge and experience; we were not always right as proved to be the case with getting consistent flush joints between all modules. Essentially, the more junk we produced and tested in the prototyping phase, the less junk we came up with in the final process. We want to take pride of the quality and standard of our work, and for four beginners, this was not a bad outcome.
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A major driver for the concept of this architectural intervention was the idea of engaging people’s minds and bodies in something that takes them out of their own spatial bubble. Being part of bringing this installation to life I know that many people will take joy in many different ways through this intervention. I think its greatest success is allowing a number of different opportunities and options for the diversity of minds that you would find at a university. An organised mind that would make the effort to go and align all the dowels and create something that looks perfect out of them, another that would take the time to create a pattern out of them, and to many others this will be an interaction that they would take part of with friends.
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Wanting to play off the existing lighting in the space, the final outcome of our intervention became an object for light play in itself. Although the original concept did not include any schematics for lighting up the installation or introducing any foreign lights to it, as it was completed we could not help but experiment the effect of shining ight directly on it from different angles and manipulate the lighting surrounding it. The light spilling through the dowels actually creates a mesmirising effect as the eye begins to try understanding the depth and density of this object and how light is moving around it the way it does. I believe that people will interact differently with this intervention and that its success lies in its ability to be a unique object for different users.
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A designer / maker... This studio has lead me to the strong belief that designing and making are inseparable. The hand is always eager to make what the mind dares to wander about and imagine. Although pen and paper and digital modelling software are a great means of understanding form, structure and space, delving more into making and taking a sculptor like approach to my design work lead to an overall wellconsidered and hollistic approach. It is through fully engaging with making that my design and thought processes have evolved. Being a designer-maker is about making a connection between the virtual world of imagination and conceptualisation, and the physical world. After this studio, I can truly understand the influence of making on design and I can call myself a designer-maker in the making.
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Please note that each group member spent approximately $270 in addition to the grant received from the university.
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1. Image 01, 02, 03 - Dezeen. 2012. Steilneset Memorial by Peter Zumthor and Louise Bourgeois. [ONLINE] Available at: http:// www.dezeen.com/2012/01/03/steilneset-memorial-by-peter-zumthor-and-louise-bourgeois/. [Accessed 7 March 2016]. 2. Image 04, 05 - Architecture AU. 2012. Peter Zumthor’s Vardø memorial. [ONLINE] Available at: http://architectureau.com/articles/witchcraft-memorial-vardo-norway/#img=1. [Accessed 7 March 2016]. 3. Image 06, 09, 10 - Branch Studio. 2014. Our Lady of The Southern Cross Chapel. [ONLINE] Available at: http://branchstudioarchitects.com/our-lady-of-the-southern-cross-chapel/. [Accessed 14 March 2016]. 4. Image 07 - Brad Wray Workshop. Moon Coffee Table. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.bradwrayworkshop.com/moon-coffeetable/bhsbgxnp6rtxq0wqkvca9717uej9b1. [Accessed 14 March 2016]. 5. Image 08 - Branch Studio. 2012. Bridge House. [ONLINE] Available at:http://branchstudioarchitects.com/bridge-house/. [Accessed 14 March 2016]. 6. Image 11, 12 - Orchard Design. 2014. Our Lady of The Southern Cross Chapel. [ONLINE] Available at: http://orcharddesign.com. au/liturgical-projects#/new-chapel-st-francis-xavier-college-st-catherines-primary-school/. [Accessed 14 March 2016]. 7. Image 13 - MSD. 2015. Melbourne School of Design. [ONLINE] Available at: https://msd.unimelb.edu.au/msd-building. [Accessed 01 June 2016].
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