Proposal Two

This design was inspired by the townhouses that surround the site. I wanted to keep the skinny street frontage and modernise it! I was inspired by this picture that I found in a magazine.

I was imagining a stylish, metro sexual, young guy, map maker by day graphic designer by night. This studio is as much a social place to him as well as a place of work, given it’s vicinity to Sydney’s night life.

Initially the downstairs area was centred around a large T intersection that ran through the house from one courtyard to another on the north and south sides. This was accessed via a skinny corridor that created space at the front of the house for the kitchen and bathroom. The other side of this living area, was a large exhibition space.

Similar, to my first design the map maker’s personal studio was quite distinct from the social area downstairs. Access was via a set of stairs, at the entry to the building. The double ceiling height of the living area below, meant that he could look down past the maps hanging from the ceiling. His large work area, had one wall for display and one with 3.5m high bookshelves, accessible by ladders. It then opened up on to a very private back yard.

I really liked the Mies’ inspired qualities that this design included with it’s multiple courtyards, inspired by the Barcelona Pavilion and the variety of spaces created by simple walls. However, when I built the lower floor plan up in sketchup it felt incredibly claustrophobic! I decided I needed to move the bathroom and kitchen and open up the living space. However, given that I was quite attached to the idea of a large T living space and the idea of artfully hanging maps I needed a plan that would maintain these elements within my desired shell.

I went through a lot of tracing paper fiddling with different layouts. Ultimately, I decided to take Mies’ love of courtyards further and also to take his direction on the placement of the bathroom, offsetting it from the rest of the building.

I then, rebuilt this up in sketchup and found that the street view was incredibly imposing. I found inspiration to solve this problem in Peter Zomthor’s building Kolumbia. I embellished that facades with brick detailing, a feature that I think would also be very interesting inside.

Another area for which I sort inspiration was creating an architectural public space. I really loved the feel of the following images and embraced the concepts of the designs within my own.