Canberra Map Link

link to Canberra mapping website (so I don't forget)

http://www.actmapi.act.gov.au/SilverlightViewer_1_2/Viewer.html?Viewer=Territory_Plan

Summary of Requirements for Assessment 01

My interpretation instructions from Blackboard (which at first appear somewhat vague):

The presentation is made up of two main parts: firstly how we understand our strategy, in this case "flexible" and how that strategy can solve a problem we have identified; and secondly how we represent that as an architectural entity. Also included will be a written statement (to explain the panels?).

Vision for the Australian Capital:
(or exploration of the strategy)

Architectural Investigation:
(or how we propose to represent the strategy as an architectural entity)

Notes from New Parliament House Research

Some quick notes on New Parliament House research.

From-
Beck, H. The Architecture of Parliament House

• The Griffins originally wanted the parliament house to be built on Camp Hill. Capital Hill, elevated above Camp Hill, was to be reserved for the people of Australia.
• This was the reason the design of new parliament house included a grassed roof, after the brief for the competition changed the location to Capital Hill. This still allows the people to be above the parliament.
• The carcass of the building was made first, while the details were still being designed, to fast-track the construction process.
• Flag - Nationhood
• Hill - Place
• Wall - Inhabitation

From-

RAIA Heritage Report on New Parliament House

"The design accepts the circular design of the site as the generating form of the Parliament Complex. Within that circle, a central linear sequence of formal meeting rooms is framed by two massive curvilinear walls which enclose within their arcs the Offices and Chambers of the Senate and House of Representatives. The curved walls related to Kings Avenue, Commonwealth Avenue, Adelaide Avenue and Hobart Avenue. As a result the complex has four major elements; the Senate, the House of Representatives, a central "forum" and a separate Executive Government area. " "The brief required a 200 year life span for the building, which initiated a project wide effort from design through construction to achieve a timeless integration of design and function which would stand through the decades of use and change. "

Week 3 Tutorial

Brainstorming diagrams from week 3 tutorial.

mobile/distributed brainstorming

virtual brainstorming

flexible brainstorming

Exemplar Flexible - Carlo Ratti

Carlo Ratti's ideas presented here on Sense-Actuate could be a useful tool in making a Flexible solution, architecture could sense the needs of its occupants and provide appropriate feedback. This example would be very different from the previous examples where a structure was provided that people used in a flexible way. In the example below by Maria Mingallon, Sakthivel Ramaswamy, Konstantinos Karatzas a material has been developed that senses changes in temperature, humidity and strain and responds by changing shape.

http://www.evolo.us/architecture/fibre-composite-adaptive-systems/

Exemplar Flexible - Constant

http://www.megastructure-reloaded.org/en/constant/

Constant Nieuwenhuys' "New Babylon" is the "gloomy, expressive counterpart to the pop appeal of Plug-in City" [1].  The megastructure was a Utopian structure that perched above the city below and allowed the occupants to leed a new life above free from their constraints below. 

New Babylon envisages a society of total automation in which the need to work is replaced with a nomadic life of creative play, in which traditional architecture has disintegrated along with the social institutions that it propped up. A vast network of enormous multilevel interior spaces propagates to eventually cover the planet. These interconnected "sectors" float above the ground on tall columns. While vehicular traffic rushes underneath and air traffic lands on the roof, the inhabitants drift by foot through the huge labyrinthine interiors, endlessly reconstructing the atmospheres of the spaces. Every aspect of the environment can be be controlled and reconfigured spontaneously. Social life becomes architectural play. Architecture becomes a flickering display of interacting desires. [2]

The structure was meant to grow endlessly until it connected all around the world, allowing what Constant saw as the bourgeois world to coexist below. This is an interesting solution, or anti-solution, to the CAPITheticAL problem, enabling people to simply allow the current system of parliament to exist below, while a new world is created above.

Without the political implication Constant intended, this project is similar to Spatial City and Next 21.

The centers of production outside this space and the collective facilities inside it determine the general lines of the macro-structure in which, under the influence of indeterminate movements, there will be defined a more differentiated and necessarily more flexible micro-structure. [3]

http://contextical.blogspot.com/2010/12/modernism.html

[1] http://www.megastructure-reloaded.org/en/constant/
[2] http://members.chello.nl/j.seegers1/situationist/constant.html
[3] http://www.notbored.org/new-babylon.html

Exemplar Mobile/Flexible - Yona Friedman

http://www.megastructure-reloaded.org/yona-friedman/

Yona Friedman's "Spatial City" proposed an architecture where the occupant, not the structure, was mobile. The structure was a raised grid where the supports allowed vertical circulation space, and the grid allowed space for occupants to build their own homes. I would say that this example also overlaps considerably with flexible. This is probably a direct influence on Cedric Price's Fun Palace.

Yona Friedman (*1923) developed his concept of Ville spatiale, the Spatial City, on the basis of two elementary thoughts: Architecture should only provide a framework, in which the inhabitants might construct their homes according to their needs and ideas, free from any paternalism by a master builder. Furthermore, he was convinced that the progressing automation of production and, resulting from that, the increasing amount of leisure time would fundamentally change society. The traditional structure of the city, according to Friedman, is not equipped for the new society. He suggested mobile, temporary and lightweight structures instead of the rigid, inflexible and expensive means of traditional architecture. [1]

 Friedman devised the structures to perch above existing cities, roads, farms etc, the mobility came from the freedom of the occupants to construct anything they wanted inside the structure, so the use of the structure and the occupants could be constantly changing. I'm not sure how he imagined sunlight getting through the structures to the people below, especially if built over a farm.

This is a similar, but more ephemeral, solution to the Next 21 building shown in class.

http://www.arch.hku.hk/~cmhui/japan/next21/
next21-index.html#4.

[1] http://www.megastructure-reloaded.org/yona-friedman/

Notes from Research on Government

Some notes from research on how parliament in Australia works:

From Parliament in the Twenty-first Century (Halligan, J., & Informit. 2007. Parliament in the Twenty-First Century Institutional Reform and Emerging Roles. Carlton, Vic: Melbourne University Publishing.):

• in the 20th C the rise of disciplined parties (rather than individuals) meant individual politicians now represented their party rather than the concerns of their constituents
• generally the Westminster system has changed in the 20th C as much of the business of the chamber has been transfered to small groups of Members siting as committees. This has the effect of:
• reducing overload in the chamber
• less partisan discussion of matters as committees are made of Members from all parties
• individual Members can make a more concrete contribution
• easier communication with citizens

From "The Australian System of Government" & "The House Government and Opposition" & "The Constitution" & "Committees"  (retrieved from http://www.aph.gov.au/publications/index.htm)

• in the Australian system there are three powers:
• legislative
• parliament
• the Queen (represented by the Governor-General)
• house of representatives
• states are represented by Members proportionate to the state's population
• senate
• minority partys have greater power
• each state is represented by equal numbers in the senate
• both house of reps and senate have to agree to pass a law (an "act of parliament")
• parliament authorises the executive to spend public money on proposals
• is a forum for debate
• committees formed from groups of Members and Senators
• investigative powers
• get feedback from citizens
• made of members of a mixture of partys and generally agree
• "take parliament to the people"
• inform the government on issues
• executive
• party with the majority of members in the house of representatives makes up the executive government
• make up the cabinet (ministers and prime-minister)
• responsible to the parliament
• members taken from the parliament
• needs majority support from the parliament to stay in power
• judicial
• high court and other federal courts
• rules as to whether something the government does complies with the constitution
• rules on interpretations of the constitution
• constitution can only be changed by a referendum

http://www.peo.gov.au/students/cl/aph.html

Week 2 Mind Maps

Canberra Research

From www.canberra100.com.au :

The RIBA Town Planning Conference, London 1910 was the first time the issue of an Australian federal capital was raised internationally.

http://canberra100.com.au/images/gallery/
london_town_planning_conference/full/1.jpg

John Sulman made a speech at this conference entitled "The Federal Capital Territory" where he introduced the competition to design a town plan for Canberra. He mentions a number of factors which were to influence the design:

• the design must embody all recent development in the "science of town planning - here he was talking about the new generation of town planners whose ideas were responses to the living conditions suffered under industrialism, where planning was second to developing industry and the result was often polluted unlivable cities. The idea of the "garden city" came from this and was popular at the time of the competition. 
• although Australians were isolated from the rest of the world, the World Expos had allowed a "cultural, social and political exchange" and Australians wanted a city that was more like what they saw in these expos. 
• the design would be a web-like design. - Sulman was a fan of the garden city and saw that other cities in Australia "almost universally followed the prosaic chessboard model"
• the design had to consider the unique traits of the Australian people who had "developed our own idiosyncrasies very rapidly owing to our isolation from the rest of the world". Sulman encouraged competition participants to experience Australia before they submitted their designs. 
• water was important to provide the right aesthetics and for growing food.
• our politicians were seen by Sulman as unique as they came from ordinary working backgrounds and not a privileged life (apart from the Governor General) and the city had to cater for this. 
• official buildings could not be segregated and had to be accessible to the citizens
• the design had to provide for "outdoor amusements and sports", however Sulman did not consider children's playgrounds to be important as everyone would have a large back yard to play in. 
• there had to be a showground as Australia was an agricultural nation

Other issues from documents on www.idealcity.org.au

• the site had to have a "bracing climate" to stop the officials from falling asleep at work
• the site had to be away from the sea, to prevent attack, but linked to the sea for trade

Criteria for judging the competition

• include stormwater and drainage
• parks, gardens and water
• residential areas separated from industry
• grandeur
• adapted to the landscape
• symbolise a national capital

The Griffin's won because their design was sensitive to the natural features of the land, it aligned the main axes of the city with the four mountain summits, it showcased nature and Marion's drawings were beautiful. Many other designs seemed to just plonk an "ideal" plan of a garden city onto the site plan without much consideration, perhaps reflecting that people thought the idea of a garden city was so perfect the same design could be applied to any place.

http://nla.gov.au/nla.map-gmod34
The Griffin's Plan

Some of my initial ideas of factors which could influence our national capital today 

• carbon footprint
• cost
• is a safe location as important now? is there a safe location? spread out?
• the ease with which politicians can communicate their message
• the ease with which citizens can communicate with politicians
• grandeur may not be as important now?
• politicians are not expected to all live in the national capital today. is there a way to reduce travel?
• overpopulation has caused other countries to plant to move their capitals (most recently - Indonesia, South Korea)