Dubai island developments - How bizarre !

Ok this might seem a bit off da track,but actually it isn't.Because urban planning and the way we interact with our environment is very much married to archi.

Y on earth would you want to live like this (refers to da photo of da man made island below)!Ppl can be really sad.Money and ppl's egos continue to drive the world.

I find the whole concept so bizarre and particulary alarming having now joined da archi world even only as a student.I feel that being future practicing architects we should have some kind of obligations to the world around us,and promoting this sort of development is definately not on my agenda.Especially in an age when we are supposedly so 'environmentally conscious'.While the whole concept might be interesting.This type of development is completely unsustainable! Environmental impact huge!Let alone cramming people in such a arid region that depends so heavily on desalinated water to survive - which is so energy intensive in itself.........(could go on further!)

I believe having to meet customers demands will be a real problem for me in my future profession,should da client start requesting for unsustainable finishes which stem from say old growth forests like mountain ash .

I could go on ranting but I'll save u!

my fav archi - zaha hadid

Below I have attached some images of Zaha Hadid's work.I was first introduced to her last year in the monumentality project .Her monumental deconstructavist work seems to almost defy gravity itself,which is why alot of her work has perhaps never actually left the drawing board.I'm particulary fond of the way she plays with light in her structures using the most random of slits.Her designs never seem to follow the same kind of prototype as you would find with say Mies.I find her work very conceptual as she works with a degree of unpredictability of scale and manipulates geometry.She expresses the true fluid nature of concrete.Moreover Zaha was chosen as the first female pritzker prize winner in 2004,along with a long list other international awards in her design portfolio.I find her particularly inspiring considering that most of the greats in archi seem to belong to an 'exclusive mens club'.Furthermore she is a great all rounder dabbling in visual arts like painting,creating installations,furniture right through to product design.

Domus Domus Domus Domus Domus

Wow, after weeks of hard work, domus has ended. ha terminado. it was a big challenge to try and bring together everyones ideas, especially with a larger group, but we soldiered through and produced a project which someone in the barn mistook for a 4th years! yesss! the critiquers had a few issues but overall labelled it a 'strong project', so well done to all of sangath 7! luke, top work on the posters and all the 3d modelling along the way; leigh, the site model got lots of praise from fellow students and looks pretty cool in the images below; ilce, all the hours patiently trying to glue the rib to the base paid off, coz the critiquers loved our model.

I've included some images of the model below. enjoy. adios.
Sophie

more developmental work for domus.................

project three: DOMUS

What can i say about the final project for archi 2a, apart from awesome. Richard kept the best til last. Being a group assignment i initially thought it would be challenging, especially because im so stubborn and very opinionated. But i was proven wrong, beacuse the group i was part of (sangath 7) worked remarkably well together. We managed to utilise everyone's strenghts and understood everyone's weaknesses. In our group's case, someones strenght was anothers weakness and vise evrsa, which meant that we formed a unified and strong group. Even though we all had different distinct styles, we managed to create a house that had great concept, a great plan, and excelltn presentation. By far, DOMUS was the best project of the semester.

Good job Sangath 7. WELL DONE

These are some my developmental drawings for Domus.

Final Presentation for project two: minimal

project two: minimal

PROJECT TWO: MINIMAL



some developmental work for project two.

second poster for project 1: Minima

Finally, ive come around to posting some of my work on our blog. Its taken me this long to work out to use this blogging business. So, yeh, below you will see all of my final presentations, and some of my develpomental work, the succesful and the complete and utter failures.

Man, project one, what a challenge, pressure gallore. One sleepless night, turned into a sleepless week, and i think the fact that we had to produce a project that required so much in such a short of time was the main reason aas towards why i felt the pressure. I feel like i produced a good result overall, but i could have done better.

These are the posters for Project 1: MINIMA

DOMUS Final Submission

Hey ppl !

Below you will find our groups final submission for DOMUS. Poster 1 - elevations , Poster 2 - site plan,floor/roof plan, Poster 3-section & 1 pt persepective with photo montage & further 1:50 physical model. Enjoy!

Cheers,

Nat

P.S. Thanks Mitch & Luc 4 all your hard efforts n sticking to our groups 'laws'.

here are our posters for Domus, good work team! ...Sangath 7

Domus design development

Well, our design is pretty much finalised, so i will post some of my sketches of our design development:

This idea is a design inspired by Denton Corker Marshall's house at Cape Schank. I thought that having a deep 'box' around the windows would be a solution for the need for eaves.



This idea involves separating the different areas of the house (refuge, prospect, and studio) into three different levels. We have kept the form relatively simple, and have included horizontal slats across the windows to act as a screen from the sun.



Developing this idea...elevations



Next, we came up with the idea of a more organic shape. As we wanted to base the idea on aboriginal x-ray art, this idea is supposed to represent the shape of a rib.



This page has two ideas on it: up the top, we explored the idea of putting pods in the curved shape we had came up with. Down the bottom of the page, the initial concept of the utility spine running through the building. The spine houses all the services: bathroom, toilet, laundry, BIR's, storage, part of the kitchen and stairs. The open areas off the spine are the 'served' areas.




This plan neatened up the 'spine' idea, organising the various areas more efficiently. This has became our final plan. The spine not only houses the services but also acts to divide the areas between prospect and refuge, public and private.At this point, we considered simplifying the shape, making it into a simple rectangle. however when we pinned up our curved plan in the tute, our collegues seemed to really respond to the curve, so we went back to that idea.
The Spine in 3d


A 3d sketch of the idea, with the spine running through the middle, and the ribs around it.