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Venice Biennale - freespace

28/5/2018

 
​Focuses on the question of free space, the free space that can be generated when a project is inspired by generosity. Architectural thinking applied to the space in which we live. Freespace describes the generosity of spirit and a sense of humanity at the core of architecture’s agenda, focusing on the quality if space itself. Ability to address the unspoken wishes of strangers. Encourages reviewing ways of thinking, new ways of seeing the world, of inventing solutions where architecture provides well-being and dignity of each citizen. Freespaces encompasses freedom to imagine the free space of time, memory, binding past, present and future together, building on inherited cultural layers, weaving the archaic with the contemporary. 
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Australia - repair

​​Since we have been making buildings and cities in Australia it has mostly been to separate us from our position as human beings in the natural environment. The Australian Pavilion therefore looks at the pattern of Site Repair.
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​Finland - mind building

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​Study of Finnish public libraries and library architecture. As constantly rejuvenating hubs of social vitality and their role as public investments in a free democratic society. 

​Indonesia – The poetics of emptiness

​Social media connects people but at the same time unplugs them from the actual experience of everyday life. This sort of paradox becomes the spectre haunting human life. In architectural practices, the shifting from the analogue design to towards the total digital process resonates the paradox. These complexities create a new set of questions; does technology work only as our apparatus to pursue our design endeavour? Or has our role as the protagonist in the design process been taken over and dictated by technology?
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​In response to this the pavilion aims to employ spatial etiology in vernacular architecture in Indonesia. Which focuses on the void as the crux of their spatial organisation. Emptiness is a quality evoking void. A dialogue between human senses and the void produces a particular quality of space called Sunyata or emptiness. 

 ​Nordic Pavilion - ​Reuse, reduce, recycle, rebeauty

25 1:1 scale prototypes of material concepts for walls and facades to show how waste can be transformed into high quality architecture design. Novel architectural, technological and commercial potential result from the resource preserving strategies. 
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Portuguese Pavilion - Public Without Rhetoric

​Invites us to reflect on the role of architecture in contemporary societies and allows us to understand the intention of the architect within the context of the larger work that is the city. Public construction works are inserted in their setting, take ground and establish themselves as an integral part of place. The passage of time provides new forms of spatiality and renewed relationship possibilities with the community that inhabits them.

Irish Pavilion - Free Market

Free Market’ celebrates small town market places. When it comes to improving the quality of market squares in Irish towns Rosie Webb states, “it is worthwhile looking to the past to provide direction for how we might accommodate change for the future.”

Towns were often physically constructed around market places, which, historically were the economic and social hubs, however many have seen their function diminished. ‘Free Market’ highlights three interconnected ways to provoke change: changes in policy, in behaviour and in how design happens. “Rather than asking how do we fix towns, we ask what can we learn from towns?”
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46. Market of Many Shops

26/5/2018

 
It is convenient to want a market where all the different foods and household goods you need can be bought under the one roof. But when the market has a single management, it lacks variety and dehumanises the experience of the marketplace. The only way to bring variety and human contact back is to create a market with individual shop owners selling different goods, from tiny stalls, under a common roof. Within the structure different shops should have the ability to create their own environment, according to taste and needs. (Alexander 1977)

Irish Pavilion

Venice Biennale

The morphology and form of the Irish market town 

Pat Dargan looks at the historic morphology of the formal market square. These open civic spaces acted as the core of towns and continues to act as a significant urban feature into present time. 

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​1. Market Square in Portarlington, Country Laois, with its central market and four approach roads
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2. Market Square in Moy, Country Tyrone, with its rectangular form, axis and cross-axis. It is a successful and attractive of 18th century, town planning. 

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Redesigned public spaces in Clonakilty provide vital lessons in collaborative place-making

Giulia Vallone - Squares dominated by parking, empty buildings and anti-social behaviour called for an objective that focused on providing new ‘living rooms’ for civic and social events. The development of a bottom-up public participation approach to public spaces allowed for place making, promotion of visual awareness, quality design, sense of ownership, civic stewardship and economic development.

​Giulia Vallone states that “safety, accessibility and place-making were crucial points to further establish pedestrian priority”. This invites people to stop and use the street. This idea of ‘vitality, vibrancy and viability impacts the overall socio-economic, environmental and cultural growth and development, and quality of life for citizens and visitors.
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RIAI Town Toolkit: Making places for people

Philip Jackson - Provides tools and methodologies for people to assess the quality of their towns and help make decisions that would improve them. They explore six themes that aim to benefit our physical health and well-being, our economic health, and creating a sustainable relationship with our environment.
-          Health and happiness
-          Accessibility and movement
-          Variety and Viability
-          Urban Structure, Form and Character (Genius Loci – A sense of a place)
-          Living Sustainably
-          Governance, Management and Stewardship

Back to the future for town squares

​Rosie Webb is concerned of vehicular movement and parking taking precedence over all historical functions of town squares, limiting community interaction.
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“Good urban architecture distinguishes itself from merely building as a human social art. It is a force for repairing the fabric of human community and the natural world. As a social art, urban design must reflect the values and needs of society.”

104. Site Repair

26/5/2018

 
Building sites must be considered as living eco-systems. Therefore, buildings must always be built on land in the worst condition, leaving the areas that are the most beautiful, precious and healthy as they are. Site repair deals with the problem of how to minimise damage. The most talented builders are not only able to use the built form to avoid damage, but also to improve the natural landscape. (Alexander 1977) 

Repair, Australian Pavilion

Vennice Bieannle 2018
'Repair' aims “to stimulate discussion of core architectural values” and to validate the “relevance of architecture on this dynamic planet.” There is an interest in “going beyond the visual” to dwell upon the relationships architecture can make, frame and reveal between ourselves, where we live, how we live, and with nature. ​Since we have been making buildings and cities in Australia it has mostly been to separate us from our position as human beings in the natural environment.
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​The consequences of the disregard of natural systems are now being felt and there is a shift in thinking among the built environment as a meaningful and enduring framework for urban form – an expression of the natural environment in a sort of reverse order of urban sprawl.  In order to consider the consequences and potentials of architecture in relation to repair, we need to focus on this very elemental factor first. ​
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73. Adventure Playground

17/5/2018

 
Set up a playground for children in each neighbourhood. Not highly finished but with raw materials and objects such as barrels, rope, boxes etc. where children can create their own playgrounds. Alexander (1977)​

Interactive architecture

Zadar, Croatia

Raw playgrounds are effective in stimulating children's imagination and creativity however in public spaces there is a lot of yellow tape preventing such play. In the 21st century, as technology develops and the processes of design and architecture change, there has opened a new interactive playground which is responsive to its users and environment. These new urban playgrounds are not only for children either, but they become meeting places, connecting us back to the natural and built environment in which we live. 
Sea Organ
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Sun Salutation

44. Local Town hall

5/5/2018

 
Each community needs its own physical town hall which forms the nucleus of its political activity. It should be located near the busiest intersection in the community and be a place where people can gather.

Sarajevo city hall

Sarajevo, Bosnia
The building was first opened in 1896 and was converted into a national library in 1949. It was destroyed by shelling during the siege of the city in 1992 destroying almost 2 million books. The most noteworthy thing about Sarajevo is it resilience.

​After the worlds longest siege from 1992-1995 the survivors have a great sense of hope for the future and also a sick humour they acclaimed got them through the war. "The collective miseries keep you sane" our tour guide says, as she laughs about eating stale war food, full of worms. As she talks about the burning of their books she says "it is what it is, no reason to cry about it. We will write new ones", proves the optimism and resilience of the Bosnian people.

The renovation took 18 years and finally opened as a City Hall in 2014. The City Hall is now a symbol of the victory over Fascism, and declared a national monument.
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1992 - Burning of the National Library
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2018 - Now a City Hall and National monument

55. Raised Walk

5/5/2018

 
Cars can overwhelm pedestrians in the city as "the car is king, and people are made to feel small". Raised walks should be placed on one side of the road and as wide as possible. (Alexander 1997)

Sarajevo

Bosnia
Festina Lente "hurry slowly" is the only pedestrian bridge to connect either side of the river in Sarajevo. The bridge is a symbol of the union of secular and spiritual.  The loop on the bridge is a symbolic gate where people can meet in the middle.
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116. Cascade of roofs

3/5/2018

 
Visualise the whole building, or building complex as a system of roofs. Make lesser roofs cascade off large roofs, which is congruent with the hierarchy of social spaces underneath.
"What is it that makes the cascading character of these buildings so sound and so appropriate?"

Sveti Stefan

Montenegro
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Sveti Stefan was built on the island in 1441, fortified by walls. Originally, it was an example of cascading roofs following the hierarchy of social space as the church of St. Stephen, after which the island was named, is located on the highest point of the island. The settlement slowly lost importance towards the end of the 19th century when the inhabitants began to emigrate and in 1955 the island was converted into the world’s most unusual town-hotel.

Although, the streets, walls, roofs and facades have retained their former appearance, the interiors no longer coincide. The cascading roofs of the same materials is aesthetic, however it was dependant on the resources at the time of construction. Therefore, now a privatised island, this pattern is seemingly redundant. So how can use the pattern of Cascading Roofs in today's architecture if we are no longer restricted to a social hierarchy? 

    Archives

    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018

    Categories

    All
    100. Pedestrian Street
    104. Site Repair
    108. Connected Buildings
    115. Courtyards Which Live
    116. Cascade Of Roofs
    147. Communal Eating
    206. Efficient Structure
    207. Good Materials
    223. Deep Reveals
    232. Roof Caps
    249. Ornament
    250. Warm Colours
    31. Promenade
    39. Housing Hill
    44. Local Town Hall
    46. Market Of Many Shops
    4. Agricultural Valleys
    55. Raised Walk
    61. Small Public Squares
    64. Pools And Streams
    66. Holy Ground

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