So much to do, so little time. Not unless that said amount of time stretches far past the semester's end and into swotvac of course, in which case you never really leave. A lot of final reviews for architecture are taken after the official end of semester but that is by no means to be taken as an extension of time. Instead, it becomes a period for extra work that stretches out for some time. Strangely I'm looking forward to sitting my one exam for the semester, a reaction to all this coursework I imagine.
My first subject was due during swotvac. I won't give an overly long explanation for it like in the past, partially because this project has been fairly drawn out and I'm sick of doing transport hubs (especially after last semester). For those who haven't seen me up at Union working on it all semester, the brief was for a redevelopment of Station Pier in Port Melbourne. I took on an environmental aspect in particular regard to the marine life in Port Phillip Bay and the regeneration of the habitat post dredging.
My proposal was to establish the pier as a base point to a network of underwater observation towers (it makes little sense until you see the video below) which act as a support to assist and monitor the recovery of the local marine wildlife. This has the added benefit of allowing further education of marine biodiversity of our local wildlife. Below is an a quick animation I did for the presentation, quick being defined as picking cameras and paths then waiting for the computer to render every frame from the hours of 10pm to 6 the following morning. With the help of architecture, sleep is an inefficiency I no longer need to kowtow to.
Another key idea was to reevaluate the norms we consider behind how we view aquatic life for educational and conservational purposes. For comparison I went to the Melbourne Aquarium and observed how captive species were displayed and housed. I found that the vast majority of exhibits to be overly confined, disallowing the creatures from truly being able to live comfortably. Of course that's an objective point of view, but you won't exactly get an answer out of them and everyone else will think you're unhinged talking to the fishes. So in my solution, the idea was to invert the aquarium and expand the part which works best, the main tank.
My design gives the fish as much space as they need, with minimal human interference. Creatures are lured to this artificial reef by populating the surroundings with concrete habitats with precast hollows for fish to hide. The extent of human observation is maximised by placing viewing pods and portals around gaps in the tower where fish can populate, bringing them as close to the spectator as possible. Tunnels run under the seabed to fishbowl style viewing domes placed at different parts of the reef to observe wildlife remote from the main hub.
The review went alright, with the main criticism being the underdevelopment of the link to the pier and the overly imaginative parts of the tower itself. Some of it depends on the crit panel you get, some like crazy and others not so much. Unfortunately I am cursed with a fairly vivid imagination, though I perhaps pushed the underlying ideals a bit further than was absolutely necessary. Anchoring back into a slight degree of reality might be handy next time.
Stay tuned for Part Two of my neverending semester soon enough, looks like I went into a bit too much detail again... There'll be more pretty pictures!
That video looks very cool. Very, very cool...