This project ultimately aims to re-code the Queensland House Fabric by governing houses via walkways, and not roads. With Brisbane’s wild topography, many of its streets are governed by ridges. Many of these ridges, over time, have become metropolitan areas, with commercial precincts, amenities, public transports and plenty of street life. Unfortunately because of poor, top-down grid planning and difficult terrain, these suburbs have poor walkability, as most roads off these ridges become perpendicular to them.
By identifying areas where the fabric (re: blocks and fence lines) might ‘break’ due to topography, lot orientation, and plot alignments, walkways can be built into the existing sea of Queenslanders. These walkways connect streets that are both low and high, while creating a new front for housing that is for people rather than cars. This creates a brand new dynamic for inter-house relationships.
The housing is for a demographic of people who don’t require cars, and want to live in a metropolitan area with all the amenities that a City would provide without losing the romance of the Queenslander. This prototype would create more walkable, dense, lively suburbs around Brisbane without succumbing to the soulless cookie-cutter apartments that continue to creep into Brisbane.
The prototype at a micro scale in Paddington, fitting into the steep slopes behind worker's cottages and Queenslanders
The City Scale: Identifying lively ridges in Brisbane where the prototype can be tested
The Suburban Scale: By taking Latrobe Tce in Paddington as an example, and tracing fence lines to define blocks, breaks can be identified through these blocks. These breaks are typically at the backs of steep lots, and the proposed housing type is designed to infill the back of these lots to link pathways together.
The Block/Micro Scale: It can be seen at this scale how the prototype can fit into, and influence the existing fabric of Queenslanders, to create a link between the lower residential street and the upper repurposed worker's cottages.along Latrobe Tce.
Marfa, TX
A community precinct that, through adaptive re-use, connects a small arts town divided by a railway line.
The Marfa Arts Centre is an urban proposition for the small artist town of Marfa, TX. It aims to connect a town divided by a railway line. North of the railway line exists the main street of town, where much of the town’s activity occurs, however adjacent to the railway line, there is an obvious decay as the Main st abruptly ends. The most effected by this is El Paso st, with a lot of derelict yet charming storefront buildings facing the railway line. By adaptively re-using the abandoned buildings on this block, and creating new buildings across the street, a precinct that integrates and celebrates the old with the new is formed.
The gallery spaces are unconventional, spread throughout the precinct, so that Marfa itself becomes the canvas, and a part of the journey. The precinct makes use of existing studio and gallery spaces, and expresses their work throughout the precinct. An existing laneway becomes an outdoor gallery that leads into an oasis-like courtyard in the Marfan desert. The patchwork nature of Marfa is seen in the architecture, which is anything but homogenous, borrowing various typologies and materials seen throughout the town.
In order for the precinct to work there must be a clear dialogue across the street, with a mix of old and new, solid and void, and threshold space to bring life to the street.
Exhibition lane allows for local artists to display their work on the existing buildings and spaces between buildings
This project allows for many unexpected ways for art to be exhibited across the precinct, from formal exhibitions in a warehouse to local art in narrow alleyways between derelict buildings
Marfa Film Centre celebrates Marfa’s annual film festival, responding to the warehouse typology in it’s exposed trusses and blank walls, allowing them to become the canvas for memorabilia and films.
The above section through the film node shows the relationship in program across the street. People can go watch a film in the cinema, then go across the road to undrestand the process of making it.
Artist in residence lodge allows a visiting artists to relax, be inspired by their surroundings, and create. The multi-mode allows the entrance to act as a ‘storefront’, so the artist’s works or works in progress can be displayed. Similar motifs are used in all accommodation spaces.
The MoMo Hostel adaptively reuses an exhisting building for accommodation. It is an exhibit in itself, with an almost ‘secret’ exhibit of wall art in the space between it and the neighbouring building.
Currently, Roma’s Woolworths acts as an unofficial town centre, a subsequent hub of social activity, generating movement down from the town’s main st. Unfortunately, all activity occurs on the carpark and front entrance, with all 3 other facades acting as blank dead zones with no street precense or activity. This project takes on the idea of a mutually beneficial ‘parasitic’ architecture, by clipping onto these risidual edges to create new street frontages.
By introducing an Art school, as well as relocating a few existing youth-related stores along the north to create a link between the two streets, the area can become a kind of campus that extends into the main street. The art school is a response to Roma’s lack of tertiary creative education driving the 16+ demographic out of the area, despite the town having an interest in the arts with a bustling (and growing) artist community and art gallery.
Movement in town is largely governed by shade, as the daylight is very harsh and hot, and the device typically used is the awning. This project takes this a step further and offers varying qualities of exterior shaded spaces: movement is along the edges, but their are pockets of trellises to pause, sit, and meet. The school, for the most part, has no internal circulation. This is to create activity along these shaded spaces. It also allows studios and classrooms to have their own street fronts, fitting with Roma’s venacular.
The masterplan uses the blank, un-used and largely setback edges of the existing Woolworths to create a hub of activity on the side streets of Roma, while splitting the block to create a pedestrian corridor.
Awnings that shade & govern: movement is along the edges, but their are pockets of trellises to pause, sit, and meet. The school, for the most part, has no internal circulation.
This section expresses the varying dynamics of shaded space. Circulation (and some pause) occurs in the outermost awning, as you move inwards there is a more intimately shaded space under a trellis outside the campus kiosk; all of this observed from the bookstore’s reading room, a completely enclosed dimmed space with a window seat.
The front of Woolworths being used as a farmer’s market,. with a pedestrian walkway both seperating, and inviting passers-by.
Albion, QLD
Bringing together a suburb struggling with identity
The ALBION HUB & PARKLAND project is located on an intimate site of residual green space, in an area which is a clashing junction between an old industrial strip, a train line, a major road, a strip of bars and cafes along sandgate road, and which overlooks a valley of residential small lot houses. The site’s main street frontage is along Hudson Rd, which in scale, is bookended by two tall office buildings, and adjacent to an iconic brick heritage listed mill and silo. There is no dedicated public parkland in the area (other than the waterfront towards the south which has become residential), or any public outdoor civic spaces that offer outdoor activities, which prompted the addition of such a space as a key driving factor in the scheme.
With all of this in mind, the building’s motive is to harmoniously combine all of this into one programmable site: a site with multiple outdoor spaces of varying qualities, a transit oriented development for on-the-go commuters, cater to a domestic scale to feel familiar and warm, and to be a beacon of sustainability, nature and community.
The plan is very generous to the public exterior spaces that Albion lacks. Though inviting to the north and east, the long southern
edge acts as a wall against the harsh overpass traffic..
The street facade plays with the existing scale of large and small, and invites pedestrians not with a door, but with a void.
The library atrium connects all levels through
a central void; any part of the library has a view to the courtyard outside. and natural light bounces deep into the library.
Spaces for Gathering and Contemplation
Hamilton, Brisbane
The scope of this project involves a small study nook extension that embraces the bay window vernacular, and levelling out the steep sloping back-of-site to create a habitable garden that softens the loud Kingsford Smith Dr. while offering city vistas.
It was important to have a outdoor space with a garden to 'be in' rather than 'look at'. Views to the river and
city are framed above a line of hedges while the cars
and pedestrians are masked below.
Miscellaneous architectural renderings. More to come
