THE BRIDGE - Submission

Creation of an article

CLASH OF ARCHITECTURE TITANS: THE DILEMMA OF MODERN HOUSING

The Board of Directors of La Biennale di Venezia, upon recommendation from Alejandro Aravena, have announced that 98 percent of everything that is built and designed today is “pure shit”. “Houses today are not attached to a value”-Raphael Sperry, founder of Architects/Designers/Planners for Social Responsibility. 

Frank Gehry claimed that there’s no sense of design, no respect for humanity or for anything else [in houses projects these days]. This was Gehry’s response to Deanna VanBuren’s thesis project, that consisted in a [housing complex in] Paquetá Island, in the middle of Guanabara Bay in Rio de Janeiro, which both integrates [dwellings] with a school of [architecture] and is embedded within the community. 

Paulo Mendes da Rocha has used his thesis project to add to this debate, [defending that] VanBuren’s thesis could be the radical approach answer to the stretched [housing] system in the city of Rio. 

Amongst several international architects, Mendes da Rocha [has been] both criticizing and defending current architecture, however, as a designer of houses and apartment buildings, the Brazilian architect supports VanBurren, [saying she is] rethinking what a house can achieve, positing it as a place where [dwellers] and students can learn from each other, giving students the chance to get a sense of the real-life situations which they study, and offering the [residents] intellectual stimulation and a deeper understanding of the [architectural] structure in which they are entangled. 

REFERENCE LIST:

"Paulo Mendes Da Rocha Awarded Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement." ArchDaily. 2016. Accessed May 07, 2016. http://www.archdaily.com/786934/paulo-mendes-da-rocha-awarded-golden-lion-for-lifetime-achievement-venice-biennale-2016-reporting-from-the-front.

"Frank Gehry Claims Today's Architecture Is (Mostly)." ArchDaily. 2014. Accessed May 07, 2016. http://www.archdaily.com/560673/frank-gehry-claims-today-s-architecture-is-mostly-pure-shit/.

"A Radical New Approach to Prison Design." ArchDaily. 2014. Accessed May 07, 2016. http://www.archdaily.com/464371/a-radical-new-approach-to-prison-design.

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18 one point perspective drawings:

6 two points perspective drawings:

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36 custom textures

3 chosen textures:

Moving Element 1

Moving Element 2

Moving Element 3

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2 images of draft model

1. The 'moving wall/roof' on the Studios and Workshops area will be able to move from one side to the other, functioning as a shading device and also as energy source - with the addition of solar panels - for the self-sufficient building.

2. The 'spinning lecture theatre' provides a continuously changing view and natural illumination

(shown below in final model).

3. The 'spinning entrances' (3) purpose is, mainly, an embellishment and distinguishing feature of the bridge, but also it privileges the students who live in the bridge's college, for they have a private entrance (green).  

MOVING ELEMENTS VIDEO

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+2 images of draft model

Further developed model (plan+sections) with textures applied:

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5 images of developed model

This is the I.DCXVIII BRIDGE. This name derives from the inspirational plane - Paladio's Villa Rotonda - all based on the Golden Ratio. The roman number is 1.618, the golden number.

Everything in, on, at this building is somehow related to the golden ratio. All rectangles are golden sections - or the combination of two. All depths, widths and lengths of the main structures (library, lecture hall, gallery and so on) are a variety of the Golden number: 1.618.

The pressure applied on the skylights, the spacing between the balustrades of the white path. the roof elevation, and specially the plans of every facility obeys the Golden Ratio.

The moving shading device - which also works as energy supply once added solar panels - is seen at sunrise and sunset, respectively.

The bridge is connecting the Square House to both New College Village (supporting my theory of a school combined with student accommodation) and to the UNSW Global building.

The bridge consists on blocks in multiple levels all connected through this white path (or the glass path in regards to the gallery). This difference in levels enabled the implementation of various facilities within a thin delimited space.

The three elevators - inside the spinning entrances - are shown in this image. Accessing the: college (further right), offices (second right to left) and the gallery (left).

The bridge also provides shading for pedestrians in Anzac parade and students who may be walking on the white path seen on the top of the image.

From this perspective, the bridge within the bridge - connecting the gallery and the library - appears on the first plane. Here we observe the intriguing shapes formed by the skylights, all obeying the Golden Number (1.618), from pressure being applied and divisions of the surface. 

During sunset, the studio's shading device is now on west. 

e The lecture hall and its view to the library, studios, offices and the CBD further north. This rotational theater provides the students different view, and inspire the movement and dynamic of architecture, who is never static, but always changing.

(in this picture I removed the glass ceiling because I dot have lumion pro, and couldn't apply the glass texture.) 

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Lumion environment

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3D Warehouse