Residual, Masters of Architecture Project

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r e s i d u a lMasters of ArchitectureUniversity of Newcastle

Cho Ling

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Acknowledgements

Thank you to all the beautiful friends and family that have helped me through the last 5 years of uni. I can honestly say, without that unconditional love and support, I wouldn’t be here today.

To my mentors, tutors and collegues, I thank you for your patience, guidance and all the memories.

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As we look, the eye touches, and before we see an object we have already touched it and judged its weight, temperature and surface texture.

Juhani Pallasmaa

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Contents

Project Summary 7

Introduct ion 10

Si te Analysis 14

Vis ion and Other Senses 32

Derive 46

Concept 50

Schematic 60

Compl iance 86

Developed 92

Atmosphere 114

Detai ls 120

1 : 1 N o o d l e B a r B e n c h To p 1 2 6

Working Drawings 134

Synesthest ia and the Enhanced Real i ty 144

Final 150

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Project Summary

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The project investigates the uses of an urban space that would otherwise remain largely disused and inaccessible. The project explores how the empty and unexplored buildings and public spaces could be re-visioned to enable intrigue and discovery; as an alternate (but necessary) space in the city, whilst unifying areas of the city that have been severed by urban renewal.Investigating how left over space, or poorly designed building blocks have left the nature of public spaces in Newcastle in a state where it barely exists. This proposal aims to re-define an existing Newcastle inner city block, through an evolving process over time of varied back of building programming.

Through the process of the project, and continued research into fields of Phenomenology, Situationist theory of Derive, and influential insight from the condition of Synesthesia, all have contributed to the evolution of the scheme to flourish as my understanding and overall vision.

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Introduct ion

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The project is situated in Newcastle, Australia, on an inner city block bounded by Hunter, King and Darby Street. This part of the city is in a state of disuse, decay and inaccessibility and is a significant portion of the city, that is in dire need of consideration.

Due to the location and its proximity to the surrounding buildings, namely; Civic Town Hall, Newcastle City Council, Australian Taxation Office, Civic Parkland, Newcastle Art Gallery and Museum, CBD, and Cultural-Food precinct, this intersection marks a point in the city of transition, landmark and for alternate function.

Current uses of the buildings on site, range from small commercial offices, small to medium retail, and small hospitality retail. There is a large portion of the King Street edge buildings that are currently empty, that line from the edge of Crown Street toward the beginning of Darby Street.

Being a major pedestrian link between Hunter and Darby means the journey between the two points become an important experiential link. However, with the lack of activity, functions and interest, generates a mundane, seemingly long and dull fragmentation. The distance of the walk is 200m, which requires a break point between to break up the visual journey.

An exploration of ways to enhance this experience that generate a sensory delight, is a major driver to the project.

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Si te Analysis

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There are several exisiting buildings on site, a small car park facing King Street, with majority of King Street facing buildings under utilised and undergoing future works for development.Adjoining King Street is a one way narrow Crown Street, which is also a meeting point for pedestrians.A change in vehicular speed begins from this point onward toward the junction to Darby Street, where the transition along these points are lined with poor linkages, very little public activity and particularly at night time, an unsafe transition between major Streets.

There is a definite opportunity to explore ways to break up the journey between Streets, allow for a more enriched city walking experience and to inject activity on a public scale to increase overall activity.Alongside with these opportunities, a key characteristic lacking in the city, and a component that could be explored, are moments of discovery, intrigue and unpredictability. It is these moments that generate a much richer experience of the place and add layers of detail to what should be a finer grained part of the city.

Left: Site photographs showing key characteristics , taken by Cho Ling

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Site photographs showing key characteristics , taken by Cho Ling

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Site photographs showing key characteristics , taken by Cho Ling

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Directly opposite Government Taxation Office (Left), diagonal from King Edward Park, and across from the rail line.A major point of transition between precincts, Honeysuckle (Blue), and Civic (Green) and fomally CBD (Yellow)

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Fusing new building program at the back of exisiting buildings and diverting toward the new access way, creates a new type place in the city.

Strategy for Site

Dissecting between existing buildings to create new access-way, and pedestrian movement

in between

Exisiting site block with rigid layout, pedestrian access at the

front facings of building

This becomes a new node in the city that is hidden and has unique spatial qualities that differ from the spaces surrounding it. An opportunity to explore the hidden intricacies of city spaces.

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Strategy diagrams: Inverting activity, fragmentation of existing building to insert activity on key edges, creating intimate clusters of activity

Strategy diagram: Fragmentation of existing building to insert activity in an alter-nate form to disrupt mundane experience of entering a new space

Strategy diagram: Displacement (removing what is exisiting from its original place on site), causing discontinuity, a fundamental aspect of the urban environ-ment. Transpose, reversing orders, enables a sense of uncertainty with entrance points or orientation of functions within a building. Superimpose (overlaying) is a strategy of mrging functions into one another that flow together as a consistent story of the building and its overall character in the city.

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Strategy sketches and diagrams: indictating vision of character, usage of ground floor access and activity and spilling out onto public walkway/street. Night time activity spilling onto walkway.Alternate placement of activity, parallel or adjacent to current activity strip, to introduce unpredictability. Fragmentation of activity in demand, dispersing key activities over all of site, to enable a discovery to explore.Existing site plan sketch showing nature of large scale blocks and lack of fine grain.

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Introducing inconsistency with block fragmentation. This explores the overlaying patterns of other city plans with fine grain. This results in unpredictable positive and negative spaces sitting by one another, enabling alternate functions to occur.Functions may include emotional functions as well as specific activity.

Site broken down into smaller grid blocks that introduce a human scale aspect to the overall block, allow for finer grained activity and insertions to occur on a more human spirited and intimate level.

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Vision sketch of fine grained activity, intricate surface and visual discontinuity. Key character of vision for the site, include discovery, mystery and intrigue to explore

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v i s i o n a n d o t h e r s e n s e s

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“The Renaissance system of the senses was related with the image of the cosmic body; vision was correlated to fire and light, hearing to air, smell to vapour, taste to water , and touch to earth.” (Pallasmaa, The Eyes of the Skin)

Due to the over-taking culture of technology, it has inevitably taken on an order and division of the senses.

“Vision and hearing are now the priviledged sociable senses, whereas the other three are considered as archaic sensory remnants with a merely private function, as they are usually suppressed by the code of culture”. (Pallasmaa, The Eyes of the Skin)As a result of this deprivation, the dominating culture of vision over the other senses means our knowledge and engagement with our surroundings are ‘vision-generated’

According to Pallasmaa, “the inhumanity of contemporary architecture and cities can be understood as the consequence of the negligence of the body and the senses, and an imbalance in our sensory system. The growing experiences of alienation, detachment and solitude in the technological world today, for instance, may be related with a certain pathology of the senses”.Walter Benjamin also states the 20th Century, “ as the age of alienation” due to much more than technology advancing, but due to the loss of human spirit in architectural spaces.

It is in the interest of this project, to explore the issues of cities and the sense of detach-ment from the senses, and thus the experience of people within their environments. For without the consideration of the senses, “it [can] leave the body and the other senses, as well as our memories, imagination and dreams, homeless.” (Pal-lasmaa, The Eyes of the Skin)

Left: Senses (Pallasmaa)

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Exploring steam and the sensory experience of food in the street. The total experience of the urban environment are captivated by the sensory delights.

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Remembering the Anonymous with Teresa Mar-golles, artist and creator of art piece for Memorial installation. Capturing the essence of her work, Plancha (2010) in Mexico City, water used to cleanse corpses-drips sporadically from above to a heated metallic surface below, where the impact produces a ‘hiss’ and the water evaporates in the air.This concept materialises with the details of the work, and becomes a power connection for us to be engaging the air, smells and engulfing nature of the space.

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The Sayamalke Museum, Osaka, Tadao Ando

This part of the museum exemplied the archi-tecture in relation to man and his environment. He tries to engage the visitor with the conscious nature of water to express that relationship

The details of this moment capture the sensory delight of water and the significance of stimulating the other senses in doing so.

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The predominating character of vision in the understanding of our world, buildings and environment lends us to be visionary beings. As a consequence, the power of sight, over the other sensory qualities, has turned our relationship with architecture into an art form of an instant visual image.Environments and buildings that boast flatness of surfaces and materials, uniformity and uniformity of experiences, causes a sensory impoverishment. The buildings and environments around have lost their depth, opacity, sensory invitation, discovery, mystery and shadow.

In understanding the necessity of considering the senses, within the environments we design, it was important to gain a further knowledge base, of other creative innovations that allow the human spirit to be touched.

Ned Kahn’s work of fusing our understnading of atmospheric processes of wind, water, fog, sand and light, through the creations of art and Architectural moments, help enhance our perceptions of natural phenomena.

From his work, of capturing these moments, I believe to be the more significant aspects that architecture spaces lack, and thus lack human spirit and our grasp in experiencing our environment in its totality.

Ned Kahn, Wind VeilGateway Village, Charlotte, North Carolina, 200080,000 small aluminium panels hinged to move freely in the wind, giving the impres-sion of waves in a field of metallic grass.

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Understanding the public and private sphere helped me understand the intricacies of the spaces on the site, and how I went about approaching the spatial arrangements between buildings and its spaces.

Breaking up the site in terms of public and private had a lot of emphasis on the identification of boundaries, which allowed for the defence and encroachment of private and public.It was from these boundaries that developed the play and exploration of “concealment and exposure” (Ali Madanipour, Public and Private Spaces of the City)

An exerpt from Madanipour’s Chapter 2: Exclusive space of the property describes very succinctly, the direction that carried me through from the pro-cesses of private and public, boundaries, to the character of spaces.

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“The separate identities of the public and private realms mainly result from the constructions of the boundary between them; if the boundary, to a large extent, on the way this boundary is artculated, as much as the configuration of what lies behind the boundary. To study these boundaries, it is essential to know how they are constructed, what they are made of, what they mean to signify, and how they relate to the spheres that lie on either side. There may be no in-trinsic qualities to the subsections of the space. It is only the way this space is subdivided through boundaries that creates its character...By defining space, enclosing it within boundaries which sperate the public and the private, the social relations take a spatial form; a concrete and relatively fixed representa-tion of constantly changing social phenomena.”

It is therefore crucial that in relation to city arrangements of spaces, the bound-aries and the division of spaces create different meanings, and also redefine areas to take on new or different functions.

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An unplanned journey through an urban landscape, of which you are lead through based purely off what architecture and geography you are subcon-scioudly attracted too, with the ultimate goal of encountering an entirely new and original experience. Situationist theorist Guy Debord defines the Dérive as “a mode of experimental behaviour linked to the conditions of urban society: a technique of rapid passage through varied ambiances”.

This concept was taken on board to inform the project in the way of interpret-ing the idea as not an explanatory word for a way to move through a space, but rather as an action.In applying this action to the project, the spatial arrangements through and around the exisiting buildings were loosely considering the degrees and ef-fectiveness of Dérive.

The potential of this application allowed for a different means of experienc-ing the ‘everyday spaces’ of the city. Increasing the unpredicatbility of the ‘everyday’ and providing an alternate and authentic experience of a new atmpsohere and character of the urban landscape.

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In order for the project to have evolved, there were a few aspects that needed to be considered. It was mentioned that the strength of the scheme lay within the bounds of buildings both existing and new, which was essentially the public space.

It was from this suggestion that there was also no requirement to make the selected site as large as it was, and that there was a way in which the project could flourish in a much more detailed sense in a smaller scaled area. By the process of weaving the public space through and amongst the site, this then created much stronger links with public interaction and therefore, space(s) created for the public in mind.

There was an approach in which the site was to be organised and arranged, which originally came from the ideas of overlaying patterns of mapping, typically those that had a very fine grained city arrangement.

Having overlaid several types of mapping and patterns of spatial arrangements, the concept then evolved into looking at the spaces in between and around the buildings. There were cases of complex systems of street patterning that produced such intricate spaces of the left over, where building upon building butting up one another, left a gap of remaining space, forgotton.

It was from this point, that my interests directed toward the understanding and investigation of the opportunities of these spaces, what they might be represented as in our built environments, and particularly, for this project.

These Residual spaces would then become the focus for the elective project.

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Images of Rain Room by Random International (2012)

Consists of a hundred square metre field of falling water through which it is possible to walk, trusting that a path can be navigated, without being drenched in the process.

Through the journey of walking, the sound of water and the suggestion of moisture filling up in the air, there is a choreographed downpour of water that is responsive to the move-ments and precence of the visitor.

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This next phase of he project allowed me to explore the ideas of a streetscape that brought a 24 hour city concept into fruition. The research for this strategy of function and arrangement of spaces came heavily from the influences of the Vietnamese Culture and the character of the metropolis. The relationship between its people, community and the spaces that bounded them with daily living, was an inspiring characteristic that was interpreted into the projects evolution.

The study of the cultural aspects and focus on the peoples work ethics, gave the drive for the functions of the site to engage with longer trading hours to increase liv-lihood and activity on streetscape level. This then meant that the required functions for the spaces created would be unique to the spaces.

For the spaces between exisiting buildings and carved out, carried individual character, and captivated varied functions accordingly.

This became then, the nature of the project, in that the functions linked to the spaces, would change according to the demands of the occupants. They would alter depending on the relationship between people and its space.

There are spaces within the site that take on unique functions at this point in the project.In understanding function, was to accept that there were positive and negative spaces, where all positive spaces carried functions, even if they are positive emotional functions.

This later delved into the research domain of the experiential and phenomenology.

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These images are snapshots of the types of schematic spaces allocated, with an emphasis on the materials and character of the space beginning to be explored.Avenues of redirected spaces, that channel off into smaller more intimate areas create alternate functions and spatial experience. The transition between the exposed and enclosed spaces, and the unpredictabile changes in movement, allow for a more inconsistent and interesting journey of discovery or walking. The image to the right shows the Noodle Bars, on both sides. A semi enclosed and sensory delightful experience of passing by the building or entering, causes an alluring nature to the space, enticing the senses to explore.

The placement of the Noodle Bar, in close proximity to the major street front-age allows for activity to be seen on the stree level.

However, this strategy was one method explored in the means to generate intrigue, discovery and an alternate spatial arrangement that allowed for sensory delight to flourish.

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The images that are shown include the works of Carlo Scarpa, Castelvecchio, Verona, Italy, Tadao Ando, Koshino House, Fearon Hay, Imperial Cafe, Auckland, a2f Architects, Jonáš Barn

The types of work that are shown here, became very influential precedences to study, not so much for the functions within them, but their relationships between surfaces, existing buildings, and the nature of materials used in a human spirited way.

Each one, I felt, captured an aspect of my design intent, which helped me understand the context of my site, the materials I had to work with, as well as the character of those spaces, with which, I aimed to capture for the later stages of the project.

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Access laneway to the Imperial Cafem expresses a unique character carried by the relationship with exisiting building and alternate access -entry point.

This service-access way is a strategy that I have taken into consideration for the orientation of my buildings and the way the spaces designed are interacted with. The fine grain detail, surfaces and textures of materials play an important role in conveying a deep and sensory rich experience for the vision, smell, touch and sound. Combining these sensory tickles with the aromas of the function of the build-ing (being a Cafe), this particular precendent expressed many key characteristics crucial in my project.

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An existing service laneway on site, with intricate urban detail in relation to the brickwork and soft lighting touching the surfaces, is a character of the site that was a key moment in expressing the nature of projects intent to reveal attributes of the urban fabric that are often overlooked by the persons of the everyday.(unique to the Urban environment)

The exploration of the “Junkspace” (Rem Koolhaas) being very much part of the architecture also became a significant influence in the work, and carried many of the key characteristics of the overall vision.

From Rem Koolhaas (2006) essay Junkspace

“If space-junk is the human debris that litters the universe, junk-space is the residue mankind leaves on the planet. The built product of modernization is not modern architecture but junkspace.

Junkspace is what remains after modernization has run its course or, more precisely, what coagulates while modernization is in progress, its fall-out. Modernization had a rational program: to share the blessings of science, universally. Junkspace is its apotheosis, or meltdown… Although its individual parts are the outcome of brilliant inventions, lucidly planned by human intelligence, boosted by infinite computation, their sum spells the end of Enlightenment , its resurrection as farce, a low-grade purgatory… Junkspace is the sum total of our current achievement; we have built more than all previous generations together, but somehow we do not register on the same scales. We do not leave pyramids. According to a new gospel of ugliness, there is already more junkspace under construction in the 21st century than survived from the 20th…”

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Some exerpts from Spaces of Uncertainty, 2002, written by Mueller and Busikann Verlag explain the nature of the left over spaces being used as the major compo-nent of the scheme.The understanding of public space and the relationship with it city is also explained.

“In contemporary society, the modern citizen seems to be free by constitution and can, within the very reasonable limitts of a first world comfort, theoretically do whatever he or she likes. This naivety, seems to be successful in hiding the foggy precence of control, be it personified by Governments, Guardians or Property, or the Media Culture in our very living rooms.

Public Space -with its mechanisms of control, has its other situated in the fragility and indefiniteness of certain spaces and actiivities. It is both these atmospheres that influence us in the way we think.

Public Spaces are places where the individual and the community can, openly, and insecurely, meet. The margin is an essential aspect of public space conserving all the crucial characteristics of unpredictability and confrontation, as it is the pref-fered space of uncertainty in the contemporary city.”

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s i t e i n v e s t i g a t i o n“...The margin- as the immediate stage of Architecture’s side effects- offers a second persective to the specific nature of Architectural production.In opposition to Architecture, the space of the margin allows for a more direct idea of process. A continual one.

The physical leftover is a ground of ephermeral traces, and offers simultaneity of difference, stratified information that the places of Architectural development are lacking in their exclusiveness.In this respect, the margin functions as the delayed catalyst of urban culture. This extra dimension to Architecture’s instrumentality enables us to understand the margin as a local recollection of the other, a memorial testimony of tactical space occupied by whispering narratives rather than visual representation, this continuity in space and time is the enormous resource that marginal territiories present today as the ultimate buffer zone in the contemporary city.

The existence of these spaces of uncertainty is both a relief and a promise. The margins have become the last reminders that can possibly tell us who we are. The margins are ugly, beautiful.They laugh and they cry.They are full of energy and still remain calm.They are without sound while they speak.They stabilise, and still, exist through instability...”

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This section will identify the key issues regarding the NCC Compliance, with particular focus on access and egress for the former project, which has since evolved.

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This stage of the project focused primarily on the details, material, character of the spaces created and the overall vision of the scheme. The spaces that are shown in this part of the project demonstrate the between spaces of the existing buildings and public spaces carved out of the site. With the creation of these new spaces, meant an alternate character of place would be introduced/reformulated according to the functions, activity and spirit of the place.It was important, at this stage to formulate images that represented those visions in a way that captured architecture moments unique to the scheme.

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The images shown are parts of my developed presentation, showing the left over space in between buildings, the Noodle Bar, showing the exposed roof with evaporating and Steam pond, and Timber Stack wall feature.There is a way to tell time in the particular space of the Noodle Bar as you watch you light touch touch each surface of the space.

The Noodle Bar, intended to be used in all weather conditions, plays on the idea of capturing the element of rain, and channeling it into a system that re-cylcles the water to come back as steam. This visual stimuli is an atmospheric experience that enriches the mundane experience of the everyday (eating)

Left: Man standing in Lumberyard in Seattle Cedar Lumber Manufacturing, 1939

The experience of standing in a space with the stacked timber was a very inspiring image that I has taken on board with the details of the timber live wall.

This image gave me the inspiration to delve into what the sensory experience would be like, given being in a space like this.

Interpreted to be used in a way that suited the requirements of the buildings, a timber stacked wall became a key architecture moment that told a deeper story.

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Images show between buildings, highlighing the services and the type of lighting that falls into this space. The texture and surfaces that I envision for this space have a lived in character that gives a sensory delightful experience.

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Changes of lighting with the focus on Junkspace

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Focus on Junkspace services and an image in adverse weather

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a t m o s p h e r e

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Left: Vietnamese public space, in between buildings, Right: Cloudscape by Tetsuo Kondo Architects and Transsolar.These two images were very inspirational and played a significant part in developing the character and details of my work.

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d e t a i l s

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1 : 1 N o o d l e B a r B e n c h To p

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As part of my final year project, I have designed and constructed a 3 piece- 1:1 furniture component I had envisioned for the use in my Noodle Bar.

There are 2 variations shown, two at 1500mm long, and one at 2200mm in length.

The materials used to construct these pieces included:

Meranti Timber BoardsRectangular Hollow Steel - 20 x 20 x 1.6 - 30 x 30 x 1.6Blast Powdercoated and Painted BlackTung Oil FinishM6 Bolt and Nuts

The table tops have also been used as part of the presentation critique and the exhibition in the Cathedral, Newcastle.

I’ve included some snapshots of the progress and final product.

Of course, a special mention is in order here, as this was not made possible without the help and continuous guidance of the Workshop Team, Dom, Dan and Ben. For pushing through the busy times, and still managing to be so helpful and patient.

Thank you for being part of this journey.

Also a thank you to the team that helped me put it together, the team work and bond we developed making these pieces are memories I’ll never forget.

Thank you.

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w o r k i n g d r a w i n g s

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This phase of the product focused primarily on the Noodle Bar, with details concerning the Timber stack wall, Copper Run off Wall, Evaporation & Steam Pond.

These set of drawings tell a story of how key components go through a process or result of recycling, particularly the element of Water, timber and ceramics.

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S y n e s t h e s i a a n d E n h a n c e d R e a l i t y

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syn·es·the·sia also syn·aes·the·sia (sns-thzh)n.Derived from the ancient Greek (syn), “together”, and (aisthesis), “sensation”, is a neurological condition in which stimulation of one sensory or cognitive pathway leads to automatic, involuntary experiences in a second sensory or cognitive pathway.

A condition in which one type of stimulation evokes the sensation of another, as when the hearing of a sound produces the visualization of a colour.

This condition has been a thought provoking inspiration for the way in which I have approached the communicating what the space and buildings could be experienced as.What I have gained from this condition, as a ‘union of senses’, is that the totality of our senses give a true indication as to what a space should be experienced as, and in reality, that isn’t always possible.

For presentation ideas, I have researched into this condition to help inspire the way I will communicate my work and imagery and attempt to take on some aspects of the condition to reveal what an everyday experience would appear as, as a person viewing an ehanced reality.

Wassily Kandinsky, Composition VII, Munich, Germany, 1913

Wassily Kandinsky, Composition VIII, Guggenheim Museum, New York, 1923

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The films, Perfume, Ratatouille, and Terri Timley’s Synesthesia- What does an Onion Sound Like are demonstrated examples of the condition Synesthesia. These works demonstrate dif-ferent ways in which to the visual, and multi-media are capable of expressing and capturing these experiences. Something I have taken to for my final presentation.

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f i n a l

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Enhanced Reality

The Poster for Exhibition I made communicates the unveiling and reveal of part of the city, to showcase an enhanced reality.

The poster was inspired by the condition of Synesthesia, and I was very interested in the way I could explore communicating a experiential space.

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Progress work of my final Model, an Axonometric model showing the residual space pulled out from the existing buildings.

A focus on surface and Junkspace was my inspiration for this model.

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It has been an amazingly ridiculous journey...but I made it.

“It’s kind of fun to do the impossible”-Walt Disney