//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

//week five - assignment breakdown and research

Group members:
Conor Todd
Guro Aanestad
Prue Dabelstein

City - Chur, Switzerland

Chur, Switzerland

From doing a quick search of maps we found out that Chur in Switzerland is the oldest city in switzerland, it is surrounded by mountains that you can ski on, it has a large railway that goes through the city up to the mountains (alpine city), there are many churches and the streets are very narrow.

things to include in our research panel:
- maps (nolie, history and mobility)
- written component
- model of city

Facts about Rhine River:
- means to flow
- route for goods and trades inland to switzerland 
- boarders Switzerland and Germany
- suffered from pollution in germany in the past

 Section of Chur my group is focusing on where old meets new

reflection... in the tutorial i really enjoyed searching for maps and doing research for our chosen city of Chur. From images we could find the city is very beautiful and one of the oldest in Switzerland. The city has a very interesting aerial view which gave us some information on how the city may have formed. By looking at the main roads and shapes from an aerial view our group gathered that Chur was an organically formed city with not many straight roads. As you can see from the map at the top of this post which shows the whole of Chur you can see a main train lines that go right through the center of the city, possibly suggesting that it is a city in which you pass through to get to the alps or something of the like. One of the most interesting part of the city which my group is going to focus on is the southeast corner of the city below the main train lines. Just above is an image of this section. Our group found this section of the city particularly interesting due to the very obvious separation of areas, where an old city meets a newer part of the city (the southeast corner being the old city).

MAIN ROUNDABOUT FROM OLD TO NEW CHUR

http://www.travelpod.ca

PROTECTED BY MOUNTAINS

http://mystoryabroad.com/johnhuston/

OLD CITY

http://members.virtualtourist.com/m/29312/a9035/

Cuthbert explains that 'urban design is either 'architecture writ large' or 'urban planing writ small' (2003). I found this analogy of urban design interesting as it places the profession smack bang in the middle of urban planing and architecture. Yet Cuthbert writes that it is not recognized for either. I believe that urban planners, as they already deal with similar scales to urban designers, should merge professions so that planners who are not recognized for design will become proficient in both. Urban design and urban planning have many overlapping sections which is why in my opinion makes it hard to distinguish and individualize the two professions. If i was to define urban design i would say that it is almost the same as urban planning although urban design deals more with the city in a three dimensional aspect as well as designing spaces appropriate for the people. Even after trying to define urban design as its own entity i still think that merging urban planning and design would be the simple solution, although i could be a little naive of the situation.  

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

//week four - Urban Analysis

exercise one A - Brisbane timeline

 exercise one B - Brisbane timeline

Mapping Brisbane's timeline was very interesting. In particular I would have thought that the main part of the city would be the oldest part of Brisbane and then expansion out from there would have occurred. Although this is not the case, in fact from completing the history mapping exercise it is obvious that the first hub of development occurred in the Fortitude Valley are of Brisbane and it wasn't until 1874 when the city center was developed.

 exercise two - mobility analysis

In the mobility analysis map above shows the transport routes of the city cat, cross river ferry, trains and main bus ways.

 exercise three - functional analysis

 exercise four - urban morphology

reflection... when completing these maps I began to think about the planning of Brisbane city in more depth and how a map of a city can show so many thing about the city depending on how you manipulate the map.

Urban morphology is analysis of a city which helps reveal human settlement patterns (Steiner, F. R. 2008). As we experienced in the tutorial whilst completing the urban morphology map, it is evident that the human settlement patterns can be seen in plan by colour coding the heights of the built environment. By completing this exercise you begin to form a map which shows a bit of the city's history. Whitehand mentions the notion of an urban fringe which constitutes to a major part of the urban area (Whitehand, J. W. R. 1987). I found this quite interesting that there is a space just outside of the town or city that is almost like a buffer zone between the urban and rural environments. I had a little look at some city maps where this is clearly evident.

 

As you can see in the map above of Chur, Switzerland, that the urban fringe (buffer zone) is coloured in white with the rural area in green and the urban city in gray.

      -Whitehand, J. W. R. (1987). The Changing Face of the City. Oxford: Institute of British Geographers.
      -Steiner, F. R. (2008). The Living Landscape: an ecological approach to landscape planning. America: Island Press

//week three - Describing the city

This week we had our second workshop on describing the city. this was predominately carried out by experimenting with different types of mapping techniques and gathering information to create urban sections.

ex1: CONCEPTRAL REPRESENTATION

ex2: CITY PATTERN

ex3: FIGURE GROUND MAP

ex4: NOLIE MAP

ex5: URBAN SECTION

ex6: STREET SECTION

reflection... Throughout the mapping process the most interesting maps for me were the nolli and the figure ground maps which clearly show you the public spaces in white. I found these maps very interesting because i never realised before how much public space there is throughout the city and fortitude valley. although the city pattern map took the longest to finish because of how detailed it was, I definitely think it is the map that clearly exhibits the structure of the city (and surrounding suburbs) as you can see where the city starts to morph into a more residential spaces.  It is also evident in  all of these maps the large impact the river has a on the layout of the city.

'The only legitimacy of the street is as public space. With out it, there is no city.' (Kostof, 1992). This quote by Kostof is an interesting thought and quite evident in the maps that distinguish between public and private spaces. Above the maps of Brisbane show more that 50 percent of the spaces in the city is devoted to public spaces. 

        -Kostof,S. (1992). The City Assembled. London: Thames and Hudson

After mapping in plan it is interesting to see the relationship between the built environment and the natural landscape in the urban section above. It shows a whole new perspective on the idea of public and private spaces in relation to heights above ground of which private spaces occupy. The private spaces when considering elevation possibly out way the public spaces within Brisbane city.

Overall I found the mapping experience quite informative as I was able to further understand planning  techniques in Brisbane city and how the Brisbane river and typography of the city has had a large impact on the urban planning.

//week two - Urban Reading

This week we had to allocate ourselves to a walkshop tutorial to take us to the Story Bridge. All of the walkshop tutorials were different from each other in terms of there modes of transport, i chose the walking group. Below are sketches i produce while i was on the walkshop.

Government House - landmark

Mangroves Boardwalk - path

 Goodwill Bridge - node

 Kangaroo Point Cliffs - edge/path

Story Bridge from Riverside - landmark/node

Story Bridge from below

Story Bridge elevation

walking up to Story Bridge

under Story Bridge

Story Bridge entrance

By using a combination of Kevin Lynch's approach ('The Image of the City') and Gordon Cullen's approach ('The Concise Townscape'), i have traced my way through the city with a series of sketches. Throughout the walk i gathered from my surroundings elements such as paths, nodes, landmarks and edges and documented each of them. Cullen sketched exactly what he saw although as if he were "to walk from one end of the plan to the other" (Cullen, 1996, p.17), this is what i have attempted to do in my sketches.

     -Cullen, G. (1996) The Concise Townscape. Burlington, MA: Architectural Press.

reflection...this week in the walkshop, apart from getting fairly burnt, i very much enjoyed walking to the story bridge via the back river side of QUT. by choosing the walking walkshop i believe we were at an advantage because we were actually able to walk the whole way which allowed you to stop and really experience all elements of the city. i believe Cullen's picturesque way of documenting urban design allows for a concise interpretation of the city and the important elements within the city. although the plans are as important as picturesque images in urban design, the images do tend to appeal more to and are understood by the wider general public.

i think it is important to be able to understand city's and the components with in them before you design architecture for them.