Exhibition / Wallpaper Pattern 03

this is double layered pattern - one mirrored... i have no problem with these two patterns i would like leave the final decission to Joo :p Playing with tones and line thicknesses of the first one can make it interesting too.

not vectoral pattern with shading.

Exhibition / Wallpeper Pattern 02

Exhibition / Wallpaper Pattern 01

this is a pattern of my structural skin 1600 x 841 size which i have already sent to Joo in vectoral format, just wanted to share with the unit from the blog.

City as a Building / 1: 500 Exploded Axonometric

drawing scale 1: 500 and size of an A0 height, A1 width

The annotation and human figures are missing. Drawing shows how circulation works through different levels of different programmes, starting from the District Line Station directly connecting via Lifts, the building being an extension of the city without having a border, a boundary.

I'm planning to add three very thin lines ending with arrows, one showing the connection from Fenchurch Street and the Tower Bridge walk, the other showing the route from DLR Station towards Monument Station, the last one showing the connection at the terrace floor between the three cores.

Urban Room / 1 500 Plans

drawing scale 1: 1000 and A2 size

The plans are not completely cleaned up but the wall thicknesses are there. I will show the direction of the stairs and hotel rooms in different shade color.

Street as a Corridor / 1:200 Axonometric Cutaway

drawing scale 1: 200 and exact size of an A1 sheet

Street as a Corridor

Drawing showing how the existing infrastructure of the city meets with the building at varying levels. An existing walkway under the road meets with the floor of one urban room, Fenchurch Street continues into the hotel, passing by the main reception. Walking from the Tower Gateway DLR station, the urban room cantilevers above the walkway. At the same time, walking from the Fenchurch Street through the building, climbing up the stairs, one person finds himself in the second quiet side of the urban room seeing the sky and the balcony by the edge / which is used as the restaurant of the hotel in the evening.

Darker shading shows the stairs and corridors attached to the hotel rooms on the edge of this quiet side of the urban room.

The coffee room on the edge of the urban room, where you can stay and work for hours - almost like a public living room - is represented really sketchy right now. It will be fixed.

I will have one small London Bus and London Underground icon on where exactly the building meets with them.

Bridge as a Destination / 1:50 Section

drawing scale 1: 50 and exact size of an A1 sheet
the sunlight in the drawing is for the 28th September 10:17

Bridge as a Destination

The section is not 100% finished, I am planning to show the take away and - public living room = coffee space a little more in detail. The westbound reception is also missing its desk and seatings. One last thing is the retail space next to the walkway missing right now, which is the new space for the existing souvenir shop on the site. You can see the three hotel rooms on the right side of the drawing facing the Roman Wall direction.

London Underground logo is also missing on the train - I think it's an important detail to highlight the existance of a station under the building. One more thing is the little food kiosk appearing right on the walkway on the leg of the building: two people are queuing in front of it. I'm missing some details there too.

+ and the entrance to the lift... cores being punched for two doors for two lift cars... i will add that

Axonometric Drawing

Axonometric drawing showing circulation through the building.
(in progress 1:200 scale, 840mm x 2500mm)

Although its not that important for its brief, there're 60 rooms in this hotel.

I am planning to show 3 types of rooms in detail as a pop-up from this axo on the same drawing.

What happens around the station, lifts, stairs and escalator will be more in detail.

Some furnitures will be shown at certain shared spaces.

The drawing will be useful for presenting which programme goes where and how you access it.

I will only use colors for two urban room spaces. one as red and the other one as green.

Axonometric / Facade Studies

The ground level is finally on a 1:200 axonometric drawing.

The perforated concrete facade is right now represented in maximum density. It will be more varying when it comes to hotel rooms.
The rooms will sometimes have narrow but wider, sometimes larger windows. Some of the windows will be translucent.
Although it looks like a very homogenous facade, ideally it will be a patchwork of materials by having different qualities of materials (transparent, translucent, mesh, open) in every facade cell. At night this would create an interesting pattern of lit rooms.

Public Route

This is a quick animation i didn't spend any time on, it's just produced at the background while I'm working on the structural skin and the axo!

It's created by just selecting the points for the camera to cross over,

I got an interesting representation of the walk approaching from the Fenchurch Street Station, entering from the hotel entrance of the building then walking by the hidden walkway towards the hotel room and crossing the entrance to the cafe, returning back to the public square. Then the walk continues entering the urban room, checking the London Underground Station, looking at the bus stop from the station and leaving towards the Tower Bridge; looking back, waiting for like 12 hours at the same spot watching the sunlight on the building ! :)

The facade is still not as dense as it should be for it to be built in concrete instead of steel. Also for privacy, a denser facade will be more useful.

Accumulating Space

Our cities and buildings are nothing but an accumulation of different elements built or brought in different times in the past.

The edge of River Thames accomodates the London Eye next to the Parliament, the Louvre Museum has the glass pyramid in its courtyard and Eiffel Tower is the icon of Paris, although the city is famous for having Haussmannian buildings.

The accumulation is unexpected, it can not be foreseen by one single designer. It can be defined by the user of its edge or can even be expanded by another architect's contribution.

In order to let accumulation happen the presence of an edge is crucial. Instead of the tradition of the architect trying to control everything and drawing arrows of circulation, dictating the use of the spaces very clearly, the role of the architect can be dealing with this edge.

On the scale of a house, it is never used the way the architect projects his vision by collages or selects the post-construction photos in order to explain the project in a publication. What happens in the post-construction phase seems to be not in the interest of the architect. Unfortunately great things happen in terrible buildings and terrible things happen in great buildings most of the time.

In an architecture magazine or architect’s publication; we never see a shirt thrown on the chair, a glass left on the table, while the whole experience of architecture is very much affected by these.

The architect’s role must be influencing the accumulation in both urban and house scale.

Designer has to think about the connections with the adjacent spaces, the amount of light, materials, temperature and comfort of the space. He should not give up his idea of the use of the space but yet, he should respect the decissions of the users themselves. Most of the failing architectural products in the history are the dictating attempts.

The tension of trying to find a balance; the game between the designer’s idea against the user’s desire of using the space is one of the most interesting challenges of the profession.

This tension forms the accumulation on the edge that is defined by the architect. Although the result, the accumulation can not be pictured by the architect, it is not unpredictable. A lot of contemporary designs show no respect to the knowledge and input of its user. The discoveries of the new architecture can be about widening the knowledge of how space is occupied at which conditions almost accidentally, and let great things happen in great buildings too.

(this is the introduction text for my booklet)

Structural System / Facade

After the final tutorial with Scobie Alvis, I thought the problem of getting light into the rooms can be solved with a perforated skin. The pattern is informed by the previous opennings I have decided and the structural analysis done in SAP software.

The structural system of the building works similar to the Phaeno Center of Zaha Hadid. The slabs span between the two sides of the structural skin.Having the skin run through the middle of the floor clearly blocks the view of a 1.70 person. I would like to have a some of these opennings translucent just like the hotel rooms we've experienced in Japan; when the window becomes only a element of the building to let the daylight in, not act as an opening to view through.
The facade sinks into the building in this one, and the floors attached to the skin are not independent from this skin, the skin becomes "the edge" as it gets a volume through inner surface.
Rooms are sometimes hanging from this skin and at some point this skin extrudes to become the lift...

Plans / Structure

A quick study sequence showing the floors after refining the building. Move the arrow right to left after the animation loads to see whichever level you would like to check yourself manually.

Another sequence showing the waffle slab structure for the hotel. By using interior walls as structural walls, I'm trying to get a column free building. While 3 cores hold this waffle slab high, lower skin of the building will help to distribute the load until the ground level.

The last sequence shows only the circulation through the building.

Visualization Study / View from the other side

I'm sure it reminds you an existing concert hall building located in southern Europe from this angle; it really is not working like that.

Facade Study / Revising the Rooms

After today's discussions I'm taking a step back in order to simplify the ideas which will also allow developing a structural strategy easier. The new facade might look like this. still progressing...

Fixing the SAP model, "the balcony" still seems to be causing a problem for the structure of the building.

Structural Studies / Connecting the Cores

I would like this middle part to act like a giant structural wall supporting two sides of the building.

Viewing from the south, eastern and western wings of the building would be balanced hanging onto the gray part which is the giant wall on the drawing above.

Spatial Studies / Urban Room

After the discussions on tuesday, I believe it will be very interesting to accept the hotel rooms as rough solid blocks and the rest of the building more like a transparent and smooth skin.
The urban room is formed at the in-between space surrounded by the hotel rooms. (Roman Wall is left on the right side of this image; urban room opens towards the Roman Wall)
The other end of the urban room opens towards the Fenchurch Street Station.

Sectional Study / Introducing the Rooms

Structural Study / Dead Load Performance

This is a structural study only for the envelope of the building done in SAP10, it's possible to see which parts of the building is weak weighting the Dead Load on this animation.

Unfolded facade is a useful template to show the weak points of the geometry - as an object. The real structure of the building will not be depending on a structural facade since the building is not that large.
The famous right angled 3x4x5 triangle was formed by chance when I was looking for three continous vertical spaces which can accomodate the cores of the building. The center of gravity would not be in the middle of the building if all of the cores were same sized so I increased the size of the southern core (x) and gradually decreased the dimensions towards north (y and z) which moved the center of gravity for this triangle towards the center of the building.

From this drawing, you can see how these three cores are cutting through the building at different levels.

Axonometric Studies / Site and Ground Level

this is a large axonometric drawing - in progress - showing the proposal in relation to the site.
The ground level drawing. Showing the relation of a hotel room facing its back to the station and a food market; the busy walkway running next to it. You can click on the drawing to see the bigger version this time.