EXP3 - Bridge - The Final Submission

MashUp and First Draft CryEngine 3 Environment
Second Draft CryEngine 3 Environment

In this experiment we were given the brief to design a school of architecture that forms a bridge, spanning a valley from our country of origin. I was my own client, acting as the Dean of Architecture for this school which brought some interesting challenges along the way.

Video of Bridge and Elevators

Links to CryEngine Environment and Sketchup models

CryEngine Environment - Sigiriya and Little Adam's Peak

Sketchup Bridge 

Sketchup Folly

EXP3 - Update - Elevators

Here's the flowgraph for the Dean's elevator down into the folly.

 Both of my elevators use similar animations.

EXP3 - 36 Textures

EXP3 - Circulation and Progress

Circulation

Circulation around the school of architecture is complete. Because of the multitude of levels of varying heights and thicknesses in my design, I had to organise the spaces and the circulation between them in a way that made sense and was easy to navigate for students and staff, as well as fulfil it's function as a bridge and allow passage from one side to the other. Because this bridge connects two places at different altitudes this involved a number of stairs.

I have yet to add side walls as well as surface thickness to elements such as the glass panels,which will be added as I detail the bridge. To make sure everything was working I imported my bridge into CryEngine.

My bridge in CryEngine in it's current form.

The main entrance for students. To accommodate for  heavy traffic between classes I  made the grand stair  very wide and included two sets of stairs to allow students to easily move between spaces.

My completed elevator for students. It may not look like much now but wait until you see it in action.

Mirrored stairs leading up to the lecture theatre.

The academic area.

The studio spaces. The waviness in the underside of the stairs is unintentional. It's supposed to be flat but because each step is a component CryEngine renders it weirdly and you end up with this result.

The dual stairwells running through the core of the building. I like to think of it as the "artery" because  it  is crucial to the function of this structure as both a bridge and a school of architecture.

 Progress

My elevators are completed, the folly is designed and just needs detailing, and the bridge needs to be detailed. Everything is going along nicely.

EXP 3 - Feedback Sheets

EXP 3 - Week 7 Update - Redo of CryEngine Valley

Unhappy with the quality of my valley in CryEngine, I decided to rebuild my CryEngine valley from scratch  using not one but two completely different locations from my country of origin Sri Lanka, the ancient rock fortress Sigiriya and Little Adam's Peak.

Sigiriya

Little Adam's Peak

My new valley is going to be an amalgamation of these two geographically distant landforms into a composite valley based on them. Because of the differing heights between the two  landforms the bridge allows a passage from the top of one to the other.

New CryEngine Valley

In-progress bridge for scale.

EXP3 - Week 5 Update - Circulation

After having my critique with my tutor last week we decided on scrapping all of my revisions in the design and sticking to my first design based on the brick country house and keeping the essence of Mies Van der Rohe's work intact. The idea is to have this structure cutting into the valley with the long, protruding walls coming out of each side, which also give it support.. This allows me to be flexible in the size and length of the bridge as I can extend these parts and still maintain the structural integrity of the bridge as a whole.

I developed the section in sketchup into a 3 dimensional model and began to work on the distribution of spaces and the circulations between them.

I imagine the layout of my school of architecture to be clusters of spaces, namely public spaces, spaces for staff and spaces for students, and there to be overlap when these types of spaces intersect. I thus constructed a Venn diagram to visualise this layout. From here I detailed where each space was going to go and moved on to circulation and refining the level of detail in my  model.

My school or architecture has a great number of different levels in it so it is really important to have proper, efficient circulation between spaces. Focusing on the staff wing, I brainstormed ideas of how to connect these spaces. It became immediately apparent that the only way to connect these spaces was through a network of stairs and elevators.

In the above image you can see how the academic staff and the Dean converge on the meeting space, allowing them to have discussions and interact fairly easily. The Dean also has a generously large office with a panoramic view. 

(Currently I'm working  with the side walls removed for easy editing.)

The Dean's Office (top) and the current circulation between spaces.

For the design of the offices of the Head Staff I drew inspiration from the modular, cubic office designs found in the Macquarie Bank Building in Sydney.

Interior of the Macquarie Bank Building.

Offices for the head staff.

This dynamic, modular design where the office spaces are cantilevered off the supporting wall give the head staff unique and interesting perspectives while remaining as smaller spaces compared to the Dean's office.

EXP3 - Two-point perspectives

EXP3 - Developing my bridge

To develop my bridge I first used an existing plan as a precedent for the section of my final design. I decision to use the plan for the Brick Country House by Mies Van Der Rohe was influenced by my architectural theory about new and upcoming technologies being the gateway to a new era of architecture, which I see being reflected in the interesting orthogonal geometries drawn out in the plan. After selecting this plan I began experimenting.

Brick Country House by Mies Van der Rohe

In this process I utilised tracing paper to a great extent in order to manipulate the plan and help me brainstorm ideas.

I began by using tracing paper to trace the thick, heavy walls in the Country House and then rotated and overlaid the trace onto the plan, resulting in the above abstract bridge design. I'm drawn to the rotational symmetry of the above design as it naturally allows for spaces for students, teachers and combined spaces for both.

I then traced over the entire section and began imagining where the various rooms would be located. At this stage I decided to keep my design relatively rigid to the original floor plan, in order to have a grounded platform which I can extrapolate and experiment from.

Still keeping to the original plan, I looked at how this design would look in a more bridge-like form. I played with the idea of an abstracted cable-stayed bridge, a school of architecture suspended in the air by mere strings.

From here I began manipulating the design, stretching and elongating it to be more bridge-like. At this point I realised the modular, mis-matched blocky shaped don't really look that integrated into the bridge.

From here I started streamlining the design which helped it to integrate better into the bridge. While I see this as an improvement, I realised that I lost the rotational symmetry aspect of the design.

I streamlined even further here, largely moving away from orthogonality and going towards a sleeker, more angular design. I feel this better represents rotational symmetry and the angles abstractly represent circuitry and the transfer of information.

Settling on this design I drew a section of it in sketchup.

From here I extruded it into three dimensions and added the cables.

I settled on this design because it's angular nature and symmetric qualities allow for vastly different views of the valley depending on where you are. On the upper levels you would see the surrounding mountain ranges and the sky whereas on the lower levels you would see the bottom of the valley, the river, and the underside of the bridge, showing you what little there is preventing you from plummeting to the ground.

Over the next few weeks I will detail the rooms of the school and further refine my design.