//week eight - exhibition

city board // CHUR, Switzerland

reflection... The lead up to the day of the exhibition morning had been quite stressful. Many late nights and early morning were experienced to complete the project on time. When analysing the processes our group went through to complete certain tasks the main problem that was apparent was the amount of time that it took to complete them. It seemed to take twice as long to get anything done, although i suppose that is what happens in group assignments as there is more than one opinion in everything that is done. This is definitely not a bad thing, as end result will often work out more resolved and of higher quality. Another reason it took longer to get everything completed was due to deadlines being set and then the work not being achieved by the deadlines, this made it difficult to proceed past certain stages of the project when we wanted to. One thing I have learnt from this time management issue is in group assignments always allow for more time and be serious about achieving deadlines. 

Another aspect that our group didn't do very well was split up sections of the project to each group member evenly. I think every time we tried to split up any sections we would do it without any planning, this would result in doubling up in results due to the same part done by two different group members. I think in future more planning and preparation should be done prior to breaking off and completing individual sections, our group was just a little to eger to complete there own sections and finish the assignment. 

Aspects of the projects that really worked well was the presence of diversity in the group members abilities, each group member had something different that they were good at which seemed to compliment each other nicely. Such examples included having half the group fairly good at writing and the other half of the group being good at graphic layout and hand on aspects of the project. Although after mentioning the diversity present in the group, we only realised this close to the finishing of the projects and didn't utilise this advantage as much as we could have. 

Overall this project was probably the biggest group project i have ever completed, also the most time and effort any of us had ever put into a group project. I will be able to apply lessons learnt such as; time management and making extensive plans, towards other future projects at university and in the real world. I have enjoyed analysing the cities and find there evolution very interesting.

During the actual exhibition it was very interesting seeing other groups final projects, considering the amount of time that you spend looking at your own projects, it was nice seeing other interpretations on the assignment. Giving analytical feed back on other groups projects and also receiving feedback was a really important learning experience, which gave our group different perspectives on the work we had done. 

Feedback from Tutors

// nolle map is in fact a figure-ground map - need to find floor plans of major buildings to put into the map, also change the scale from 1:6500 to 1:2000 in order to see this detail.

// put north point on page and scale on all maps

// possibly merge some of the maps as some are unnecessary as they don't show much 

// add more diagrams - as they are interesting features of the project

// they really liked the section which show a transformation from old to new

(this feedback needs to be corrected by the due date of online submission in two week)

Images of model...perspex indicates major landmarks monuments and churches within the city..

//week seven

reflection...until the lecture today presented by the first Chris, I had never heard of the term surrealist architecture, I thought it was an art movement of which artists such as Salvador Dali and Max Ernst pioneered and followed. Although the further I researched into this type of architecture I found out that many well known architects have incorporated surrealism into there design concepts.

http://artobserved.com/artists/salvador-dali/

In the lecture Chris expressed his interest in Fujimori's surrealist architecture, which i also found very interesting. Fujimori connects his architecture with traditions of his Japanese culture by using raw materials of great significance. His concepts are very much ideas of fantasy like the Too High Tea House, below, which is on located in Japan on his own private property. 

http://designcrack.com/v2/2007/06/27/the-too-high-tea-house-by-terunobu-fujimori/

I like the concepts and buildings that are produced via influences of surrealist art, although i do not think that they are appropriate concepts for all locations. The Too High Tea House by Fujimori is definitely an instance where it completely fits in with its surroundings and cultural influences. I also found it interesting that in Chris's talk he chose to steer clear of Frank Gehry's architecture as he didn't think that  he was a surrealist architect. Rather he thought of Gehry as a architectural sculptor, I disagree with this thought after seeing the information presented and i believe that his architecture is surrealist. His style is very different from Fujimori's, as i don't believe that it displays much cultural influences, although it is very surreal in the unusual materials and forms that are exhibited in his architecture.

I found the tutorial today quite difficult as we realised we had a few issues with the report that we had written for the city project. We realised that we had all written very similar things on our city, Chur. This occurred as it proved to be very difficult to break up the text into four parts for each group member to write a section, as all of the discoveries and things we wanted to talk about intertwined with each other. We resolved this issue by writing a structured plan for the report with topic sentences, as a group, then individually writing parts of the essay under the appropriate headings and topic sentences. 

//week six - history analysis of Chur & mobility map

Chur is one of the oldest cities in Switzerland and sits on the southeast edge of the Rhine river.  A stream called Plessur breaks away from the Rhine and runs directly through the bottom half of the city, where the old town is situated. It appears that as the town is so closely located to the stream that it may have been the main access point to the city before the train lines and other transportation were introduced.

The addition of a major train line in 1858 allowed for easier access and transfer of goods to and from the city of Chur (n.a. 2010). It runs directly through the city from the bottom southwest corner to the top northeast corner.  As seen in the diagram, Chur is a centre point for linking cities nationally and internationally via train.  It also serves as a transfer point for travellers wishing to visit some of famous ski resorts in Switzerland. It is clear from the mobility map that the bold train line holds significance to the city.  The directness of the line through the city could bring one to the conclusion that Chur is a town that not many people visit with the intention of staying, rather they are there in transit while on their way further north or south.

To the southeast corner of Chur is the old town that exhibits narrow streets and very thin alleyways (as seen in the Nolie map). Before cars, this part of the city would have functioned well travelling by foot. In the old town today, as the streets are too narrow for cars, pedestrians are the only form of traffic.

Contrary to conclusions made above about Chur being a transit city, it is obvious that the city has slowly started to become a place where people visit. The addition of new roads, bus lines and the movement of the city centre to a new location allowed for cars and other transport to travel with greater freedom.  The extensive bus line that allows you to travel intercity and links you to and from the train stations, is an integral part of how the city functions. Although the city is still largely used as a connecting point for other destinations due to the major train line it exhibits, Chur is also largely visited for is cemented history and ancient architecture. 

//week six - more history talk and assessment breakdown

Topics to analyse:

mobility - pedestrian/cars/trains
urban history - organic roman style which lacks in grid form - churches
nodes - schools, centres, landmarks

Assessment break down:
Prue - urban history (organic form), history map
Amy - mobility history of chur, mobility map
Conor - mobility today, section
Guro - landmarks and documenting a city, nolie map

reflection... today in the tutorial we got into our groups and worked on the assignment more. The process of breaking down the assignment help get our heads around the work load ahead of us. As one of my larger tasks i was given the job extremely tedious of tracing the city (or at least a large enough portion of the city). By tracing the city we would have a base plan map to form the basis for the rest of the maps, also more importantly to form the lines for the lazer cutter in order to complete our model. After the tutorial today i am feeling quite overwhelmed with the workload to complete but also a little more at ease as i have somewhere to start. 

Lynch and Cuthbert both talk about the public and private domains of cities as if they dictate the urban form of a city. This may very well be the case in most cities, although what i would like to talk about is how the emphasis on public spaces within the last couple of decades has largely contributed to constructing this interesting urban form. The emphasis on safe cities and large open spaces seems to be main criteria of the idealistic new city. It is evident in the image of Chur below that the older parts of the city exhibit a very different layout to those of the new urban surroundings. Streets in the old city are narrow and the lack of public spaces is evident.  When you move away from the walls of this part of the old city you can see how the public spaces present increase, and the houses become separated on their own blocks.

I think urban design which includes sufficient public space is much more appealing if it is done in the right way, as there are many examples of barren wasted public spaces.

Jacob, J. Lynch, K. Castells, M and Mitchell, W. (2003). pp.114-118, 424-428, 475-485, 497-503 in LeGates, R. T and Stout, F (eds), The City Reader, London; New York: Routledge

Cuthbert, A. R. (2003). Designing cities : critical readings in urban design. Malden, MA,
Oxford : Blackwell Pub