FMP week 2

As this week commenced I began by photographing the place at which I work. The spaces here extremely dark as the house is surrounded by other buildings and thus depriving it of light. It has been useful for me to take these pictures because as the building has not been finished I have been able to see ways in which I would try to get light in to the building. Much of the space is still bare and majority of the internal walls are either non existent or have not been cladded so I can see through them. This allows me to get a sense of the space and see which areas need light more than others. Although passing light directly through the ceiling is efficient, it only allows for the top floor of the building to be lit and thus is not a solution to the problem I have posed myself. I would like to try and get the light underground without ruining spaces above.

A possible solution to my problem may be to have a very open planned building where even there are large gaps allowing light between each floor of the build. This however will mean that there would be a large loss of space which could be used. Therefore if I would want this idea to work within a city for example, it may not be feasible due to such a high demand for space. 

St James park (authors own, 2014)

Here is the lowest floor of the building at which I work. This photograph was captured using flash as where all of the other ones and thus it is easy to see how dark these rooms are. As far as I can see to light these rooms majority of the lighting which will be provided will be artificial. A possible solution could be to increase the amount of external windows. However this would only be a solution in a building where there is enough space for lots of windows. 

St James park (authors own, 2014)

If much of the floor above was made of some sort of transparent materials this would allow for the rooms below to become lit naturally. However the immediate problem posed here is that this would cause a serious lack of privacy in many places. This could be ok if the building was a house for a family. However if it was for example a block of flats this would again not be a viable solution. 

St James park (authors own, 2014)

The top floor of the building is slightly lighter. A solatube has been installed and actually provides a significant amount of light. The only problem is that it only goes as far as transporting light to the top floor. However from looking at this building as well as others I think it is important that I try to get as much light as possible to higher floors as it can only help with lighting lower floors. I could always use translucent tubes in the floor which only go between levels. For example from the ground floor floor, to the lower floors ceiling. This would mean that light could pass down however these areas may easily get covered up by things such as furniture.

Sensing spaces, kere (authors own, 2014)

This week I visited the sensing spaces gallery. Although the actual instillations themselves I did not find directly useful towards finding a solution to my project certain aspects can be accredited. The image above could be seen as three enormous light tunnels passing light from the ceiling to an imaginary floor below. Although this wastes a lot of space if I where to just use one of these huge cylindrical shapes I could easily use this as a feature. For example I could put a spiral staircase around the outside of it and then light could be passed one or more floors below ground. I would just need to experiment with how I could divide light up within this if I wanted it to travel multiple floors below ground.

Sensing spaces, kere (authors own, 2014)

Here what I can see is the distance between an internal wall and external wall and the space between it. Although this is not actually what this image shows it could be used as this. If I where to try and send light between this space it could be discreetly hidden and also work effectively. I will need to look further into this to see if this is a viable solution.

Sensing spaces, kere (authors own, 2014)

The image above to me represents how I could use light from floors above to light floors below. The hanging dividers could act as internal supporting walls and the spaces between could be where light would pass through. By leaving empty spaces in certain parts of the floor plan it would allow for light to travel to the floor below without having to have huge tubes passing through a room. The space could even be utilised by putting something like a transparent staircase in. Or it could be used simply as something like an atrium.

Sensing spaces, kere (authors own, 2014)

The way in which light passes down here creates a beautiful ambiance below. Between the colour of the surrounding walls being very urban and the rays of light spreading outwards the room is flooded with light. This is done very sculpturally and allows for the room to be transformed from what it would be. Not only is this a good practical example of how I could pass light between floors. It also has allowed me to think about trying to make the space as appealing as possible.

From this weeks crit session I have been able to take away that now I really need to start to build models. Moreover I will need to start running with ideas which have been useful so far. Therefore I will want to create a model using light tunnels to pass light between spaces. Then I may want to start thinking about how I can do this in a sculptural way. Although I want to make my idea work in reality I do not want to compromise the finished look of the building. Therefore I may later need to consider some eco-friendly ways of artificially lighting a space. However first I should concentrate on experimenting.