JUSTINE TE

"Architecture begins where engineering ends."

- Walter Gropius

P R O J E C T 2 B - Retreat House

As a group, we have visited the site Fraser's Hill and finished investigation and 'nature scanning' to initiate the preliminary conceptual approach of the tower design. Now it is important for our work to reflect our understanding of how architecture is created by applying the basic design principles and spatial organization skills. Our work must also illustrate an understanding of how a building is conceptualize and transformed into reality.

Project 2B is an individual project which required students to further develop their project 2A into a retreat house at Fraser's Hill. This retreat must function as habitable architectural spaces to enable the activity associated with living, dining, showering, cooking, storage and such within the built up space of 150sq meter. The relationship between our design and the context is also important in making the retreat unique to its landscape and activity. In this project 2B, we were given 3 tasks which include site analysis, presentation boards and models. We were asked to produce an A1 size for the site analysis and we can work with our partner who was also given the same character in project 2A. Our site analysis shows the complete information that we needed to refer to during our design process. The rest of the information other than general site analysis are placed in our individual A2 boards. We have to includes a full set of architectural drawing, potential views from the retreat, design concepts and specific site analysis of our personal retreat house. For this project, I am designing a retreat house for the same client, Billy Collins.

O N E P E A C E .

My retreat house is located a little further away from the lake but at the same time it's connected to my bird watching tower and to make it looks connected I used the same concept that I used for my bird watching tower and apply it to my retreat design. The purpose of locating the retreat house at a distant is to eliminate noise from his writing environment. It also able to minimize distractions around the area and provides a peaceful outdoor environment for him to relax and get natural inspiration. Besides that, the land condition of the selected location it's suitable for construction because the soil is very stable due to the relative humidity level is average and it is ease to construct on a flatter surface compare to steep surface.

Billy Collins is the type of person who makes the ordinary things and turns it into extraordinary. Therefore, I came out with the idea of using simple piece of paper (rectangular) to create the form and spaces of the retreat house. Due to the fact that Fraser's Hill is located in a tropical country, openness design is my main focus for my retreat house so that the winds flow through the house, it's protected from the rains and it's cooling during hot and sunny day. Besides that, the internal spatial arrangement and external position of the retreat house serve different relations and purposes which are the potential views, sun and wind orientation of the site. For example, bedroom gets morning sunlight, workplace get a perfect view to bird watching tower and he can enjoy sunset at the roof top and sunrise at the first floor balcony.

Throughout the project 2A and 2B, I have learned to develop the understanding of the notions of space, form, fucntion, concept, program and process in architectural design. I also gained a lot of knowledge from this project such as interpret and analyze client's character and needs in relation to the design of a small building. Besides that, I have a better understanding towards the specific character that I was assigned to do and able to design a space or a structure according to the specific design requirements.

In this project, I am able to identify, articulate and apply basic design principles in spatial organization and relationships. I learned to develop my design skills through analysis and reading existing buildings. Throughout this project, I am able to produce objective and subjective parameters in the design process to create a space which is practical yet poetic. Advance communication skills through sketching internal expression of space, diagrams and variety type of models is one of the learning outcome I have gained in this project. Besides that, I have learned to be more imaginative when I was doing my presentation board. This is because I have to draw out perspectives for my own space and include the human interaction in the space without any other image references. Hence, books and internet helped me a lot during this project. It feels great when I’m finally done with this project at the end of the day.

P R O J E C T 1 - Diagrammatic Abstraction

This project encourages students to investigate and to explore how spaces are created from the making of architectural elements such as architectonics - solid, planes, lines and frames. Students achieved a level of understanding on the works assigned and applied the idea and concept to our project. The idea of using pure and diagrammatic models to express the architectural idea will be in cooperated into this assignment.

This project requires students to form a group of five to produce a short clip of the selected architect and building. Then, we had investigated and formulated our findings into a set of ten models which is assumed to be precise and informative to express the analysis of the ideas hidden in the selected building. We had to use no more than three colours and the model should be well crafted and beautifully made to be rested on 2 A3 MDF board. Besides that, as a group we had to come out with a complete set of architectural drawing of the selected building on A3 tracing papers manually.

W A L T E R G R O P I U S . G R O P I U S H O U S E .

Our group were assigned to analyse the modernist architect, Walter Gropius; and we also selected Gropius house as the building we want to explore more and understand the hidden ideas behind it in order for us to make our diagrammatic abstraction models. As for the first part of this project, we had to do a short clip that able to shows clear and complete background study and also present the identify of key architectural concept/ style of Walter Gropius. From our understanding of the Walter Gropius style/concept, we were asked to produce 10 abstract models representing clearly from his building, Gropius house but at the same time remain the originality of it. After a few discussions, 10 topics had been finalized which we think that it is able to show most about the key architectural concept of Gropius house. Those topics are serve&servant, structure, circulation, passage, ribbon windows, flat roof, horizontal lines, spiral staircase, addition& subtraction, massing and rectangular layout design.

Throughout this assessment, I have learned to identify modern master architects and their works. I have a better understanding on basic architectural compositions of solids, planes, lines and frames. I find this project is quite fun because we were given the opportunity to do a 3-D model that explains the idea behind Gropius House. Lastly, I am happy to work with my girls in this project.

O V E R A L L

Throughout this subject, I am able to generate design possibilities through the use of architectonics in a simple architectural form space and function. I learned to explore architectural design and translate the design ideas into habitable architectural spaces through the abstraction of 2-dimensional and 3-dimensional compositions of space. Besides that, I am able to design a simple building type that meets user requirements and respects site context that balances both internal (architectural spaces/layout/circulation) and external (aesthetics and forms) design values. On top of that, I would like to thanks my family and friends who support and help me throughout this subject. I would say I felt great after each and every project is done because it shows that I have achieved and learned something new.

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1/2

1/5

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HORIZONTAL LINES ADDITION & SUBTRACTION

RIBBON WINDOWS PASSAGES

CIRCULATION RECTANGULAR LAYOUT DESIGN

SPIRAL STAIRCASE MASSING

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SERVE & SERVANT

STRUCTURE

O R T H O G R A P H I C D R A W I N G S

P R O J E C T 2 A - Site Analysis And Bird Watching Tower

For this project, students were required to do three tasks which are site analysis, individual sketches and bird watching tower. As for site analysis, it was compulsory for student to go for a site visit to Fraser's Hill in Pahang and students were divided into two potential sites which are the paddock and Allan's water. Each group has to conduct site analysis of the physical context, social, cultural and historical issues within the overall site. Then, we split into smaller groups to collect specific data of the given site. Final presentation of the site analysis had to be presented digitally and supported by a verbal presentation. This site analysis is important for our following tasks because we will have to rely most of the information that we gathered throughout the site visit and it also considered as the guideline for us to choose a suitable location for our bird watching tower.

Before we started our bird watching tower, we were asked produce five abstract sketches and models individually that inspired us from the site. Most of my inspiration sketches were from the trails I have been to during the site visit and I was really attracted to the types of plants surviving in the forest. Therefore, the concept of my individual sketches and models were clearly representing the different support system of the plants such as the root, trunk, branch, veins and disc floret. Along the process, I have discovered some keywords from the chosen pictures to represent my sketches:

ROOT- interlocking and curves

TRUNK - attachment and dependences

BRANCH - rhythm and flow

VEINS - fragile and light

DISC FLORET - focus point and repetitive

With those keywords, it helped me to have a better understanding of my sketches and it's easier to do my models as well. However, our sketches and models should be able to reflect briefly on the concept for the bird watching tower.

Apart from that, we were asked to form a group of two to design a space for the selected character with the purpose of bird watching, contemplation and simply just to enjoy the view. It includes the activities of resting, meditation, observation, viewing etc. in which furniture and equipment must fit and be incorporated with the design. Our bird watching tower must also be able to correspond to the site that we have chosen and adequate access, circulation and fenestration are mandatory. We were also required to do a series of models which includes 3 process models and a final model and a series of detail drawings that able to demonstrate the concept we used in our bird watch tower design.

R O T A I A .

My group mate, Jane and I were given a writer as our character. Then we decided to pick Billy Collins as our specific client who is a contemporary poetry in US. He was born in 22nd of March, 1941 and he has a down-to-earth and friendly personality. The style he used in writing his poem is slightly different from the other writers. He also described himself as 'reader conscious' because he has one reader in mind when he writes and he has self-talking habits to make sure the readers understand his poems and he won't go too fast or too glibly. Billy Collins is an occasionally writer who writes anytime at any places and most of his poems emphasis on writing ordinary life for example daily routines.

After doing research on Billy Collins, we decided to locate our bird watching tower at the centre of the lake on section F-F. Section F-F is the most suitable location for a writer because it has positive and wide views, comfortable temperature on land and water, suitable relative humidity for birds, various accessibility and activities can be held on the site such as boat paddling, fishing, jungle trekking and most importantly bird watching. We located our tower at the centre because birds are afraid of human beings and if we go too close to them we might scare the birds away and the writer will not be able to experience bird watching at the area. Our bird watching tower has three main concepts that we combined from our abstract sketches which is flow, seamless and light and shadows.

Our bird watching tower shows a sense of movement connecting from ground of the land at the left to the right which also can be known as a bridge or external access or a shortcut. We used minimal support system for our bird watching tower because seamless represents the character for a writer. Moreover, we added some wooden strips at the entrance which leads the writer to walk through the tower by creating curiosity on what's behind the wooden strips. The arrangement of the wooden strips is placed according to the sun direction to create natural light and shadows effect on the floor when the writer enters the tower. If he wants to explore more in the forest, he can continue walking up the stairs to the top/the roof of our bird watching tower to the opposite direction from where he accessed the tower. Both sides of the paths act as the entrance and also an exit of the bird watching tower because it depends on which direction the writer coming from.

Click here to view Site Analysis