Project 3 - The gallery

Photos of my section model:

Site Plan - Site 2 (Close to the Post Office at the street corner)

Site Model:






Unfortunately, Our site model got stolen in Red Centre!

Scale: 1:200

Material: Grey Cardboard.

Drawings:

Section in 3D

Plan in 3D

My Design:

After given the brief of this project, I started designing immediately. By the time we had our first tutorial after the lecture, I already had a rough designe with plans and sections. Then Harald suggested me to step backward a little. And I was jumping too fast into the design. He encourged me to take a look at the other museums or galleries. Then I went to the state museum. There is this book talked about great architectures around Australia. My final design was inspired by one of the project introduced in that book - the Grand Lobby of the paraliment house in Canbarra. It is this magnificent lobby with a huge skylit opening several storeys above. combining the inspiration of our first case study of Adolf Loos' Villa Muller. My design is featured spiral circulation into this underground gallery space which leads up again as Harald inspired me to make the journey more interseting. However, the end of this journey could be developed into something far more interesting. I didn't think of that at the beginning but I guess this is how we learnt. The spiral access way also leads up to the private apartment and the roof terrace on top which is why I chose site 2 at the first place. The terrace can be used for gallery function and to indulge the heritage of the Post Office across the street. As we mention the heritage here, in respect of the Post Office, the herizontal floor element of the facade on King Street is aligned with its of the Post Office. The stairs lead up to the main entrance recess from the street. The facade towards the Post Office is a plain wall without any opening which is quite dull. However, it's unfinished. My original idea is to put a wrapping facade around that wall to enclose the public area as much as possible which I haven't got enough time to make. As the gallery levels are the same height as the Post Office which is about 5m, the length of the ramp is relatively long which maked the service access a farely large space. This is acturally quite correspondant to my design that is a large welcoming lobby as one of the feature of this contemperary design. The part where the space goes private can also be considered as semi-private as it's the path way to the backyard. And stairs to the upper level of the apartment is they said interesting. It could be developed more to enable everyone to access.

It's nice to say that a lot of the things that I didn't get before are starting to make sense now. The process of studying architecture will never ends.

Drawings

Model

This is a Gallery designed from young painters to display and sell their works. The site as we know is a relatively long and narrow building block around the corner of Oxford St. The envelope of this gallery is mainly glazed front and thick double brick wall throughout the rest of the surface. The back of this building is attached to existing residential buildings, so let's not worry about that at the moment. I'm sorry to say that they're not shown in the model as there's not enough time for me to make it. The idea behind the glazed front is to sell the work displayed and to attract people's attention. However, Harald pointed out that too much glazing is negotive for the paintings displaying. I guess I need to work on that. The front door is facing Northeast towards Oxford St. The circulation of this gallery is quite straightforward. As you entered the building, it's a two-storey front gallery, open space quite bright. If you choose to step down a few stairs, you enter into a quite compressed gallery space lightened by the gap between the above level and the wall. Keep moving forward into a surrounded Gallery or Studio room because there's not enough time for me to work on that space. If you choose to step up, it's a indoor skylightened courtyard with the ceiling height above. Further stepping up into the second storey of the front gallery.

Site

The site is on Oxford St, Darlinghurst at the corner of Verona St. Orginially, it is the Berkelouw Bookstore. This proximately 5m x 20m rectangular 3-story building block is attached to a resident building. Across Verona St, it's a slightly higher 3-story commercial building which can block direct sunlight from the North in the afternoon. It creates an natural advantage for the lighting of the gallery which is clearly shown on the sitellite map above. Locating between the National Art School and the College of Fine Arts brings attention from the same field. Moreover, Oxford St as one of Sydney's most bustling streets is famous for its open-mind style. So lots of young designers and artists have set up their shops and galleries there. The Verona St corner is which I think the perfect spot for the gallery I'm building because it's not isolated or disturbing from the rest.

The Art of Painting by Johannes Vermeer

Vermeer considered this painting as his self-portrait (though the painter in it is not himself).
Let's take a close look at the two figures in the painting, the young woman and the painter. Judging by the book (possibly Thucydides) and trumpet she's holding and the laurel wreath she's wearing, there is a very good chance that she is the muse of history, Clio. Which makes her a goddess. It's acturally not hard to tell from her body language. The painter on the other hand is unrecognised which is just like Vermeer himself. Superficially, the perspective tells us the focal point is towards the young woman, but the using of darker tone on the painter's cloth acturally emphasised him.
As a painter, Vermeer worked slowly and with great care, therefore, he's 'relatively unproductive'. This reminds me the life story of Van Gogh (who lives after Vermeer's time) who died in early ages and not appreciated untill after his death. Vermeer was a young talented painter when he produced this painting. Combining the life story of Vermeer and this portrait, it inspired me of a narrative: A young talented painter seeking for recognition and appreciation by the public.

Parti, Poche

For Villa Muller, it is identified that Adolf Loo was trying to balance symmetrics and assymmetrics, complex level changes and rigid structural rack, service space and main activity area for the families. These three parti diagrams work as a set without further demonstration in words which we were taught how successful partis worked. So I was putting efforts towards that direction. However, allow me to repeat here. First one up on the left-hand side shows the main supportings of the villa, aligned by the edges of balconies and centred, moreover, three out of four were hidden in walls. Next one on the bottom is showing how the circulations of the site and the interior levels go. Villa Muller was located in a very advanced position, surrounded by great views towards the city and the castle. From the landscape to the inside, the levels went up slightly and spirally around the "spine" which is shown in the top parti. -It is also a great experience for myself to work out all the tricks in Villa Muller through group model-making and individual analysing.- The rest of the four partis clearly illustrated the main contrast between the service space and the living space, the access stairs and the rooms, seperate located staircases for different functions and the interelationship among all of the above. We all know that Villa Muller is the most complex building out of those villas. What I was trying to achieved here is to draw the 3-D within the 2-D. With a bit of rendering of light, it gives us an impression of how deep the rooms and the corridors are, how thick the walls are.

Group model