Project 2 

For this project Geoff gave each of us an item which he brought in from which we had to derive a model. We where allowed to do this where we incorporate the item itself, or we could use the item purely for inspiration. I was given a potty to use. Wanting to do an architecture based course I knew that I would have to design a building from this. I did not at first discard the thought of incorporating the potty however when it came to my outcome it ended up being something quite different. In order to get to this outcome though I used many different methods of experimentation. These ranged from simply photographing the potty from different angles, and different ways up, to tracing over these images, and even to cutting up the potty to try and find some structural elements it possessed.  I tried to think of how its shape could be functional which lead me to think of a stadium however my outcome varied greatly from this. 

Authors own

By turning the potty this way up and placing small figurines there I was able to envision quite a large building, and the potential for a large entrance area where the opening was.

Authors own

This immediately lead me to think of designing a hotel. When placing tracing paper over the potty I found that if I followed the curvature it had it lent itself nicely to a huge sail shaped building.

Authors own

I then however quickly was reminded that this was only a two week project and that to develop a floor plan for such a large scale build may come with its difficulties. I therefore began to design a more conventional home for a small family.

Ricardo Bofill

After finding inspiration from Ricardo Bofill's designed hotel in Barcelona I decided that I needed a much smaller scale entrance. His is situated where the huge block is in front of the curve.

Carl Pitts

Looking at the design above I thought I may try to incorporate some greenery into the curve on my build. This would not only make it more attractive but also could hep to serve another purpose. 

Authors own

I first created this. It was soon pointed out to me that for a hotel this would be fine. However for a two or three story house this would be much too thin and that the entrance too low so I quickly redesigned it.

Authors own

I decided to give the build three floors. The ground floor mainly to be used as space for parking ect, and the other two floors to be used as a living space.

Authors own

If I where to have created this as a real building I would have used grass on the whole of the curve. After that the main materials used would have been steel, wood cladding, and one huge glass sheet to cover the front of the building. This would be able to turn from opaque to transparent at the click of a button on each floor.

The intended glass here is shown simply using a translucent piece of plastic. However it portrays well how the light enters the building. Perhaps if I where to design this again I would have put in more windows on the side of the building to allow extra light in. However due to where the bedrooms are situated its not a major fall back. 

Authors own

The ground floor simply shows the stair case at the back, the parking area (garage) in the middle, and the office space at the front. Its quite an empty design downstairs but is kept so in order to provide a garage. However I could have not had a garage and utilised the space differently, but I felt that the curve lent itself well to a garage like entrance.

Authors own

The spiral in the centre represents a spiral staircase. Where the kitchen is I should have demonstrated that there would be a window there. However the master bedroom at the front would be an luxurious room for a couple, with enough space to accommodate for a child in the rear bedroom.

Finally the top floor has no diving walls and is all open planned. The small block on the left at the back shows where there would be a dumbwaiter. This would allow for food to be passed between the kitchen and the upstairs dinning room. The front of the room is a nice large living room which would have the view of the window spanning the whole way across.