AAVS Journal

AA VISITING SCHOOL CRYSTAL CAVERNS

Matko Matkovic 587464

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CRYSTAL CAVERNS 3

Matko Matkovic 587464 Winter 2017 / Melbourne AA Visiting School: Unit 1 Interior Urbanism: From Laneway to Arcade Tutors: Paul Loh & Filippos Filippidis Group Members: Sara Shi Min Tan & Sebastian Song

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CONTENTS 0.0 Introduction 1.0 Precedent Study 2.0 Site Analysis 3.0 Design Methods 4.0 Reflection 5.0 Appendix 5.1 Biography 5.2 Credit 5.3 Bibliography

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0.0 Introduction The seed idea for the studio spawned through raw experimentation of materiality and how it could generate unprecedented and uncalculated forms using plaster as a base material. We experimented with polystyrene and plaster, creating solid and void spaces, testing the physical boundaries of the material whilst also interrogating the potential the derived forms could have in real life.

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1.0 Precedent Study Throughout week 1, physical experimentation with plaster as a form generative tool gave us an insight into the chosen path of exploration and further investigation over the two week period.

A range of precedent projects were specifically selected. Some of the main projects include analysed were Cappadocia - the ancient tunnels in Turkey, The Truffle House

by Ensamble Studio and the famous kaleidoscope escalator entrance in Harajuku, Tokyo.

Each of these projects captured particular atmospheres, environments and features which we saw value in and sought to incorportate into our design experiments and iterative process.

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Cappadocia - Central Anatolia 499BC “In Cappadocia, Turkey, architecture has for the past 3.000 years been created by removing material.

The landscape of Cappadocia is dominated by tuff formations resulting from volcanic eruptions hundreds of thousands of years ago.

Since then, erosion has caused the soft tuff to develop into numerous different forms, from soft rolling slopes, conic “fairy chimneys” to penis-like columns.”

Through our invstigation of this ancient precedent we begun to understand how voids can relate to one another spatially, as well as how the delineation between floors, walls and stairs can be blurred creating richer and more dynamic experiences within a building. This also led us to explore how varying program can occupy the same space through the interrrogation of standard typologies.

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The Truffle House - Ensamble Studio Ensamble Studio’s Truffle House inspired us to thiunk about how solid and void spaces could be achieved through a subtractive process from a mass as oppposed to an additive process which is typically the formula adopted to create the built environment we live in.

The concrete materiality used to create the house also drew resemblance and connections to our own iterations having been built out of plaster - also a heavy material.

Much like our own experiments the the interior volume of this project was also achieved through raw experimentation, soil was used to create the irregular external concrete form, whilst hay bales where used to form the negative interior space.

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Tokyu Plaza Omotesando Harajuku - Hiroshi Nakamura The kaleidoscope like escalator entrance in harajuku is constructed of tilted mirror panels which reflect surroundings and allow the general public to see different fragmented views simultaneously which are typically outside their peripheral vision.

We thought this project was a good starting point to explore how we could utilise mirrors in our own project to reflect light and allow people to see around corners in irregular shaped spaces, fostering a sense of safety and security which is typically absent in Melbourne’s laneways.

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2.0 Site While experimenting with plaster and exploring the potentials of the material and project as well as analysing the site and its history and proposed plans for its future, we also analysed several precedent projects to give greater depth to our stratgey.

We explored the site to get a better grasp on how we could link formal experimentation with needs and potentials for the site.

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RRY

THE

EET

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QUEEN STRE ET

SITE

11:00 AM

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11:00 AM 10:55 AM

11:05 AM

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NKL

FRA

E STR

11:15 AM

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11:10 AM

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11:20 AM 11:15 AM

11:25 AM

11:30 AM 11:25 AM

11:30 AM

11:35 AM

11:35 AM

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Reflection

Diffusion

DYNAMIC ACTIVITY STATIC ACTIVITY INTERFACE INTERACTION

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3.0 Design Method The seed idea for the studio spawned through raw experimentation of materiality and how it could generate unprecedented and uncalculated forms using plaster as a base material. We experimented with polystyrene and plaster, creating solid and void spaces, testing the physical boundaries of the material whilst also interrogating the potential the derived forms could have in real life.

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[ DESIGN PROCESS | 3.1 WEEK 1 ] 1

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MODEL MAKING

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COMPUTATIONAL FORM FINDING

MODEL MAKING

[ DESIGN PROCESS | 3.2 WEEK 2 ] 1

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3 Child Care

Light Shafts

Rock Climbing

Cafe

Tunnel

Market

CONTEXT STUDY | CONCEPT

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3D FUNCTION PLANNING

COMPUTATIONAL D

DESIGN

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MODEL SECTIONING & SCANNING

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COMPUTATIONAL POINT CLOUDS

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MODELLING

POINT CLOUDS 25

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Agent Behaviours

Matrix

Align

Cohere

No. of Agent

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Time 60 s

Agent Paths

Time 60 s

Cube Subdivision

Agent Paths

Cube Subdivision

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Time 90 s

Agent Paths

Time 90 s

Cube Subdivision

Agent Paths

Cube Subdivision

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Time 120 s

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Agent Paths

Time 120 s

Cube Subdivision

Agent Paths

Cube Subdivision

Matrix

Separate

Contain

Time 60 s

Time 60 s

Cube Subdivision Cube Subdivision

Agent Paths

Agent Paths

Time 90 s

Time 90 s

Cube Subdivision

Agent Paths

Time 120 s

Agent Paths

Cube Subdivision

Agent Paths

Time 120 s

Cube Subdivision

Agent Paths

Cube Subdivision

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Logic 01

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Quela was used to simulate swarm behavior that will generate the paths.

These paths were used as a guideline for cube erosion.

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The original cube was sliced into boxes to prepare for erosion.

Pull point and cul set an erosion of

ll pattern was used to a given radius.

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Sin and remap was used to grow geometry along path curves. Constant rotation and scaling of geometry.

Using pull point and cull patern, an erosion of a given radius was set.

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Week 1 Iteration Impressions

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Laneway Studies The proposition aims to reinvent Melboune’s Laneways. The site provided was in victoria market.

The CIty council plans to regenerate the site and inject growth into the area with 9000 new jobs at the market and 12,000 Jobs in the Surrounding Context. The proposition aims to create better streets, improve public realm, balance the heritage fabric, Instigating new development, Taller builidngs to accommodate for more use and space control. In addition to the councils vision, Victoria Market also has a Pending National Heritage application.

Our scheme aims to interrogate the Melbourne laneway typology in its use in and place in the current and future Melbourne city. This is done through the analysis of how positive and negative space relates to the urban fabric, with laneways as a void to the surrounding environment. The understanding of positive and negative space is done through the use of plaster models.

Interior Urbanism - “The point is the same design principles apply whether the hunk of environment involved is indoors or out. Environmental design was about lowering the difference between inside and outside, ‘sometimes by placing only transparent glass walls between them, sometimes by plans that unite indoor and outdoor space’ ( Charles, 2016, p.69). The point clouds were use to present the ideas of interior urbanism with imagery that takes away the boundary between interior and exterior. The excavation and faceting in the proposition adds an emotional ephemeral quality to spatial experiences through the builidng.

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Week 1 Pointcloud Visualisations

RIGID SPACE

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ORGANIC SPACE

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Week 2 Logic

Child Care Rock Climbing

Ba

ng ck bi Ro im Cl

r

Second Floor

Bar Office Building

Light Shafts ce fi g Of din il BU

d il Ch re Ca

First Floor

Rock Climbing

fe Ca

Cafe Child Care

Cafe

Tunnel

l ne

n Tu

Tunnel

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n ou

gr ay Pl

M AT

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ATM

t le

Playground

rk Ma

Market

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Ground Floor

Toilet

Market

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Office Area Rock Climbing

Cafe

Office Area

Tunnel Market

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Week 2 Pointcloud Visualisations

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4.0 Reflection The final outcome of our studio work was definitely unprecedented and could not have been anticipated given the workflow and design methodology implemented throughout the two week period. It was clear from the very first day that a different style of thinking had to be implemented in order to reap the fruits of the ‘process’ The design process begun through raw experimentation with the casting of a plaster model in a form ply box, the method by which the mass was deducted served as the biggest challenge. Establishing a rule set/ framework to inform a generative process over the course of the week, was personally a challenging task. Trying to balance the physical art of model making, computation to inform future iterations and conducting relevant site analysis concurrently was challenging but in a way mimicked working in practice - having to think about different factors and facets related to the design.

This multi-dimensional approach lead us to start thinking about how the iterations that were being generated could feed into a design concept. The site we were given was in Victoria market where Melbourne City Council has a plan to regenerate the site and inject more growth In the area, with 9000 new jobs at the market and 12,000 jobs in the surrounding context. -Some of the plans for the site include: better streets, new laneways, improving the public realm, balancing the heritage fabric, instigating the “right type” of new development, taller buildings with setbacks from the streets & tower space controls. Our scheme sought to interrogate the standard typology of Melbourne’s laneway, its use and place in our city and society. We analysed how positive and negative space directly relates to the urban fabric of Melbourne’s laneways’ relationship acting as the void to its adjoining built environment.

Through the week 1 experiments, we explored the idea of void vs solid, public vs private and interior vs exterior. We simulated the pedestrian flows to generate new three dimensional paths in the block as per the guidelines provided. We sought to challenge the traditional vertical and horizontal relationship between slabs and walls. In order to revitalise the block, we used erosion of constantly changing shapes, scales and orientations along the paths quelea created according to the sin function, to create new and unprecedented spatial qualities. We managed to created a new spatial interface allowing people to interact with the building as infrastructure, hence triggering different behavioural patterns. Before we concluded on our desired arrangement, we analyse the sun exposure and acoustics.

We put the public space closer to the sun and the private space away from the bustle of the main streets and finally analyse the relationship between the different selected functions and how they could co-exist.

The Pointcloud exercise gave us an insight into how buildings are used through the emphasis of edges vs. surfaces, how most typically view and interpret buildings. When analysing laneways we observed some of the defining characteristics that differentiate one laneway from another as outlined in the lecture given by the phd student on laneways in week 1. Some of these include: Concealed vs visibility, impermeability vs permeability, short vs long, narrow vs wide & low density vs high density. Our project focused on how the delineation between these different categories could be dissolved, opening up the potential for a variety of program to be used in a space, fostering a sense of community through shared program such as incubator office spaces - hot desking and the dual occupancy of contrasting program, encouraged formally through the fluctuation in room sizes, lighting conditions and acoustic properties.

The final outcome from a computational perspective we felt was quite successful however due to limited polystyrene supplies, we lost a significant amount of time preparing and repreparing the CNC fabrication file. The milling process took an extensive amount of time and greatly diminished the mount of time we had to assemble the 20 or so polystyrene pieces to accurately reflect the negative void space constructed in rhino and grasshopper. Throughout the studio both the most challenging and the most rewarding aspect was utilising computation methods effectively and then figuring out how to fabricate the digital design outcome (ie. CNC milling both front and back due to complexity in faceted surfaces).

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5.0 Appendix Selected key sketches that inspired conversation and influenced our design’s trajectory.

As well as some model photos which captured desired atmospheric qualities.

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5.1 Biography Born in Croatia and educated in Melbourne, I have attended the University of Melbourne since 2012. I completed my Bachelor of Environments from 2012 - 2014 majoring in Architecture, taking particular interest fabrication. While completing my Bachelor I also worked at an architecture company called K2LD where i gained practical experience and developed a keen interest in design optimisation and parametric architecture.

In 2015 i worked full time for K2LD Architects gaining experience on large scale residential tower projects, civic projects and smaller scale residential (new houses and house extensions).

I began the Masters of Architecture program at the University of Melbourne in 2016, undertaking Studio 7: Love Hotel as well as Thesis Studio: Gold, where model making, prototyping and fabrication were greatly encouraged and also a requirement.

Through my studio experience at the university, I have become increasingly more interested in developing my fabrication skills I have acquired and now furthered through an intensive studio, such as the AA Melbourne Visiting School. The group setting and fast pace creates a very collaborative and interactive environment in which often unpredictable outcomes occur.

The AA Melbourne Visitng School has served as the capstone for my tertiary studies. Undertaking the subject as the final unit of my masters has opened my eyes to new concepts and a different design methodologies, which i hope to develop in my future goals and ventures.

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5.2 Credits Pages

Drawing/ 3D Model Photoshop/ Writing Diagrams Modelling Making Photography

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Matko Matkovic

Sara Shi Min Tan

Drawing/ 3D Model Photoshop/ Writing Diagrams Modelling Making Photography

Sebastian Song

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5.3 Biblography Melbourne.vic.gov.au. (2017). Queen Victoria Market Precinct Renewal - City of Melbourne. [online] Available at: http://www.melbourne.vic.gov.au/building-and-development/urban-planning/local-area-planning/queen-victoriamarket-precinct-renewal-plan/Pages/queen-victoria-market-precinct-renewal-plan.aspx [Accessed 28 Jul. 2017].

Rice, Charles. Interior Urbanism, Bloomsbury Publishing PLC, 2016. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral. proquest.com/lib/unimelb/detail.action?docID=4337987. com/2006/10/20/turkish-cave-architecture/ [Accessed 28 Jul. 2017].Jul. 2017].

Steinø, N. (2017). Turkish Cave Architecture. [online] Nic’s A&D blog. Available at: https://steino.wordpress.

The Age. (2017). Burial ground: historian slams Queen Vic carpark plans. [online] Available at: http://www.theage. com.au/victoria/burial-ground-historian-slams-queen-vic-carpark-plans-20110315-1bwch [Accessed 28 Jul. 2017].

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