LIVEE

Just a thought

2009-06-16T22:17:00.000-07:00

Upon further thinking about Wynyard Station and its subterranean nature my mind seemes to have wandered from the exciting Japanese chikagais to the major Hong Kong MTR stations to the fabulous Parisian urban underground... then of course, to the mysterious Derinkuyu and Cappadocia...

Then I couldn't help to start thinking about this famous ant city with it branching subterranean structure that weave its way underground and eventually you see their impact, a little hole on the surface -- which is quite similar to transit environments in some instances.

Image from Think or Thwim

Subway entrances are natural urban nodes, they tend to "force" a large amount of people to use the spaces in the vicinity. While some entry points might have been poorly designed/developed, they are flow attractors nonetheless. And of course, entry points can become potential anchors for reactivation, which is something I trust all my colleagues who are also working on the Wynyard site has considered.

In response to the current conditions of Wynyard, my next agenda is going to be about: what would bring people to this area and how? The main entrance of the station is located slightly off the George Street spine and the area is highly monofunctional, so it is relatively unused.

So far I've done some diagrams on the possible accompanying programs and urban nodes to "open" Wynyard Park to the concrete jungle of Sydney... so we'll see how that goes.

I am not necessarily saying that railway stations should be such a complex entanglement, but it is interesting!

The site

2009-06-01T01:16:00.000-07:00

So the site has been confirmed.

Wynyard Station.

I'm looking forward!

Mapping Sydney in motion

2009-05-01T01:28:00.000-07:00

Railway development created new mobility patterns that has changed our perception of the city forever. Established perceptions of the city are giving way to an outstretched, disconnected urban experience. No longer do we perceive the city as a continuous urban fabric. With new definitions of mobility, our city extents are also being redefined -- areas become increasingly dilated, distances reduced, and our experiences fragmented.

The sectional study sets out to analyze each railway station in its context in relation to the performative zones it serves, then looking at land use patterns around the railway development in a bigger picture.

Site model

2009-04-20T09:38:00.000-07:00

Just a photo of our class site model so far:

The site model is at a scale of 1:5000 covering areas along the railway line in Sydney CBD and the city fringe, all the way from Artarmon to Newtown.

More to come later!

Final model

2009-04-02T02:16:00.000-07:00

More later!

Model in progress

2009-04-01T04:39:00.000-07:00

Testing the model by stacking the planes from the previous model to create volumes of overlapping spaces.

Planes

2009-03-31T08:27:00.000-07:00

From our serial sytem we were interested to try derive a new relationship between the individual patterns as "Planes" and the effect of layering if we could plot the planes against each other.

We built this conceptual working model to explore how the planes could work together as one dynamic entity.

From this model we have found that many of the planes overlap and share common edges, creating a new dimension of "Space".

Points. Lines. Space.

2009-03-29T19:38:00.000-07:00

We were particularly interested in Sol Levitt's use of a serial system to examine and chart the 3-dimensional objects to explore the composition of the incomplete cubes which were then diagrammatically represented in a series of 2-dimensional hexagons. The difference in the modes of representation intrigued us: (1) the diagrams of the incomplete cube, (2) the diagrams of the incomplete hexagons, and (3) the photographs of the life-size installation -- how did Levitt want them interact and be integrated as a unified art installation?

Our interpretation therefore looks at the reciprocity of the 2D and the 3D:

Can we break the diagrams down to its basic elements and analyze them in terms of "Points" and "Lines"?
If we plot them against a simple Cartesian system, how can "Space" then come into play?
Is it possible to re-configure a whole new diagrammatic serial system or code?
How can we use the new code to generate new forms?

Larger view in PDF.

"The Incomplete Open Cube"

2009-03-23T17:11:00.000-07:00

The paper-cut exercise required us to interpret a nominated artwork, and translating that into a three-dimensional object using just a piece of paper and, of course, our faculty's newly-acquired laser cutter.

The three images assigned to our studio group is part of "the Incomplete Open Cube" by Sol Levitt.

More about the installation, here.