0 Design Research Topic

1.0 Introduction

The design project is focusing on morphing a surface through tensile force. From manipulating pulling points to pulling surfaces, a series of forms are tested in order to create an new organization of Queen Victoria Market.

The project started with machine making and prototypes, which is a bottom-up strategy to formulate design and construction procedure. Learnt from the failures and problems, the machine evolved and the making process was simplified and improved. The prototypes generated by the machine reflects a certain aspects of materiality and spatial qualities in real structure. Through this way, design itself is treated as an iteratively improving approach to the final design outcome.

At the same time, the form finding logic of machine also inspires the actual construction procedure, proposing a new construction method of concrete shell using fabric.

The design attempts to structure an open public space for Queen Victoria Market to optimize the current situation on the ecological and sociological level.