To ramp or not to ramp

The bridge will be spanning a main road and two footpaths on either side, which is approximately 20m. So using a clearance height of 4.4m, the ramp will need to be 61.6m. I'm thinking that this is actually ok. No, seriously. The travel to the bridge will account for 3/4 of the actual bridge, it could actually be somewhat of a poetic gesture.

On the New Sarugaku side, it will attach to the existing second floor. On the the james street mall side, it will sprawl into it, like a sculpture. I think that it connects both sides quite well. The art precinct is given a nod, as is the second floor of the shopping district.

The 85m ramp

Using the Building Code of Australia's maximum of 1:14 slope for ramps, I'll need 85.4m of ramp to get people onto the bridge.

Which is about 4-5 Cullity Galleries. Yeah. Ridiculous.

I googled the clearance height for trucks, and it's apparently 4.4m, or thereabouts, if you live in Victoria: http://www.vicroads.vic.gov.au/NR/rdonlyres/72300C50-019A-42F5-A952-4559482F7ECF/0/tr1999024.pdf

Which still requires a 61.6m ramp.

Bridge height reference

I actually don't know how high to make this bridge. Fortunately, as with most things, here's one that's been prepared earlier. It's the pedestrian bridge linking james street mall with the perth train station.

Convenientastic.

Since I know that it will accomodate trucks etc, I can use the same height difference knowing that my bridge should be able to do the same. Unless Landgate have lied to me. the cad drawings on the bottom show that there's a 6.1m difference in height. You know, just in case a dinosaur needs to travel underneath or something.

Hypothetical sarugaku in context

So this is how I would propose it would work.



Obviously, there's questions about how the retail space actually fits into the existing rick hart site (like the fact that it's obviously an internally focused space and has some trouble relating to its context).

But.

This is about setting up a narrative for the bridge. You have the relationship between the civic/public space of james street mall and how the bridge connects that to the internalised, but very exciting retail space of sarugaku on beaufort street.

Sarugaku on beaufort street

Who likes spending their hard earned cash? sukkaz!! people who will travel on my wonder-skin bridge towards the proposed site.

But why would they do that? They'd need a fairly attractive retail space, right?

I give you a massively cool project by japanese architect, Akihisa Hirata, it's a retail space in Sarugaku. Completed in 2007.

Wait. Wait. Wait.

For those that are listening to triple j right now (5:09pm) who the heck is destroying "where is my mind" by the pixies? that's just terrible... Oh. It's Illy. I'm so very underwhelmed.

Aaaanyway:

Site analysis 1

ok, so I'm going to try and "construct a narrative" (my latte and appropriately arty scarf and beret at the ready).

these are civic buildings (in dark blue) on the james street mall which will inform the start of the bridge (in red) towards the site (in light blue).

You could imagine that people would come from Northbridge/Perth Train station/CBD and get some culture, then after relaxing a bit might go for a bit of shopping at the site.

Focus, focus, focus

Feedback on my research proposal confirmed with me that I may have been trying to bite off more than I can chew with 3 different projects. I really would have liked to see how they interacted with each other, but a full time schedule and with 4/5 weeks left until the major project is due would mean that I would most likely produce 3 undercooked projects.

So.

It leaves me with the choice of what scale to do. I think that the bus stop would be too small as I'm trying to explore how skin is viewed at various distances (far, near, within). The bus stop is limited to interpretations close to it. I'm not entirely convinced that in the chosen site, exploring skin on a building would be the right choice either.

Beaufort street is one way and moves traffic quite quickly, so I think that viewing and interpretations are predominantly at a pedestrian scale.

Therefore.

A bridge is probably a better option. I will replace the rick hart building with something that would ideally attract pedestrians from the james street mall to it.

Physical site model

the plan for where the studies will take place...

Project Site

So, testing parameters set in stone (somewhat), I need further context. I was originally going to do the bus stop in Tokyo, a city I enjoyed very much. The bridge in Venice, as bridges are... well... nearly mandatory. And the building to be in an interesting place. Maybe like Palestine where skin is needed for completely out of the ordinary reasons.

However, it occurred to me in a sudden flash of brilliance (ie. laziness) that the site for my honours project has need for all three parameters. Why invest so much time into constructing a scene in three different, albeit absolutely rockin' sites? The focus will be on the skin, how it is formed by its contexts, and its evolutionary process. So why not use a site I'm really familiar with? (and have already constructed a physical model of)

I give you the rick hart super-duper-mart on beaufort/stirling street opposite the perth train station:



The bus stop will be on beaufort street just in front of the james street mall, the building will be on the existing rick hart uber-concrete paradise, the bridge will connect the new building to the james street mall.

Project brief

Ok, so I'm still on a break from reading large, heavy books about New Urbanism (you crazy kids, going up against established urban planning views and codes... didn't modernism teach ya anything?) and thought that I'd plan out my advanced computing research topic.

So.

Interested in skin. Check.

Will be testing skin in various contexts. Check.

What contexts?

small: bus stop



medium: bridge



large: building

Some sage advice

As we're nearing the halfway mark of our semester (in 2 and a half days from the time of this post) I thought I'd post this.

12 reasons not to render...

we've all been there haven't we? a week away from folio, still refining parts of the project and you're still stuffing around with the lighting and materials. I'd like to think that I don't bother with that stuff anymore, but we'll find out in 5 weeks time, won't we?