PART C:THE EDAPHICTimothy West - 638861

T O K K U Z U NM E L I S S A

M I K A E L A P R E N T I C E

T I M O T H Y W E S T

W I T H

EDAPHIC: To come from the soil....

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The Merri Creek community Garden had many flaws, the first being the primary geometry of the hexagon. The problem being that this is completely foreign to the site; therefore a new geometry was required that could complete the entire required task while also linking to the site. The second being that it was too spread out, it would be more appealing and more successful to have a smaller project that executes itself extremely well. The problem with the large site was that it did not respond to the micro climates around the site. It would also be positive too include more cooling functions beyond shading. Most of all I would rather the project be about improving what is on site, rather than introducing something new.

C O N C E P T REFLECTIONS OF PREVIOUS WORK

C O N C E P T CONCEPT DEVELOPMENT

This Chart details the devlopment the edaphic concept and the combination of precedents as inspriation, note that the thrid phase is a contination of my Part B Assignment thus it will not be discussed further

Soil Retention product found on site:

The Image Above is a photo taken on site, it is a soils retention product and this would serve as the inspira-tion for the new focus of the project. This is a product that is required on site for environmental reasons, it is required. While it is logical it is not yet beautiful or exciting, but the ge-ometry has such potential in it that it could be taken to the next level to become architectural.

Edaphic effects.PEG

The soil retention concept was devel-oped further with the assistance of this project here. This project used a series of polypro cells to develop a beauti-ful and also useful design. It serves as both a soil stabilization method and to focus a drainage path for storm-water runoff.

LIving Pavlion:Ann Ha and Behrang Behin

While these previous inspirations have given us the basis for our architecture, the project requires much more; this precedent has provided use with the answer. Providing a space to walk through and experience should be included, it is cooling and inviting and will add greatly to the site.

C O N C E P T CONCEPT DEVELOPMENT- PRECEDENTS

Soil retention:

This Diagram shows an in-dividual cell in the project, as taken from the edaphaic ef-fects precedent

Passive cooling This Diagram shows a cell suspended in the air

26degrees = average summer temperature

5 degrees cooler due to plant shading and cooling transpiration

Passive cooling He project thus will have two cooling effects taken from the living pavilion; Transportation and shading. The combined effect of these two things will be able to cool the area underneath by an average of 5 degrees; this will be important for several reasons

C O N C E P T PROJECT FUNCTIONS

The location for the project is near Dight’s falls; it was chosen for many reasons. The first is that this is a high traffic area; there is a car park close by and the area serves as both a beginning and an end point to many journeys for the people whom walk by Merri creek. This place is one that would be greatly improved by the addition of both shading and a place to rest. As the Photos above show; in 9 out of 12 months of the year there is a lack of shading in the area.This is also the location of a hill; a hill with a river close by. This combination of local conditions could lead to soil erosion, the very issue our project is best at solving. The photo shown before is a site very close to this one; therefore this project is truly required. The project will not be about adding to the site, but taking from the site in order to make it more beautiful.

C O N C E P T SITE RESPONSE

Shading in the site over 12 months:

F I N D I N GF O R M

SELECTED FORM: Maximises space on the site// Opens site up through a central axis// Appears to assimilate within the site without looking unnatural// Suits the topographical lines of the site//

F I N D I N G

SELECTED FORM: Maximises space on the site// Opens site up through a central axis// Appears to assimilate within the site without looking unnatural// Suits the topographical lines of the site//

C O N C E P T FORM FINDING

Next was the process of finding the form (see above for more) that would best suite the site and the criteria set from the precedents. It needed to provide shading and cooling, it needed to be inviting, it needed to be located on the slope of the hill to provide the soil retention properties desired in the beginning and it also need to be beautiful. After experi-menting with many forms a “U” shaped structure was decid-ed on. This would satisfy all criteria and required outcomes.Shown below are the different components of the design. It is divided into 3 parts; the cooling section shown in blue, the main body shown in yellow and the in ground component of the soil retainer shown in green. The form rises on its sides so as to form a wall, and lowers down before the cantilever to provide views down the park and across the river. The U-shape provides an entrance as well as a place to rest at the top of the hill.

C O N C E P T FORM FINDING

Now that the form was decided the next step was to develop a script that could translate the form into reality. The script works on 6 basic steps; first is defining the input curves, these curves could be put directly onto the landscape model to give a highly site re-sponsive design, they are the basis for the form. Second is to inter-lay the weave pattern gained from the precedents. After that the third step is to extrude it into a 3 dimensional form, with possibilities for varying heights and thicknesses. Then the forth step is to give the form a structure, shown here via the piped geometry. The fifth step is to prepare for fabrication via the use of trimming sol-ids. The sixth and last step is to roll out the strips for fabrication, via a laser cutter.

C O N C E P T DEVELOPING A TECHNIQUE

STEP 1: STEP 2:

STEP 3: STEP 4:

STEP 5: STEP 6:

P R O T O T Y P I N GEVALUATING BOXBOARD BENDABILITY

P R O T O T Y P I N GTESTING THE LIMITS OF PLYWOOD

Having developed our script the next step was prototyping. Many things had to be tested; the first being materials. Boxboard was the first test, this had many failings. It developed kinks and would not hold the shape. Also it would not last in a real world situation.

Plywood was desired for the criteria of aesthetics. However in bend testing it could not be done on a small scale, a larger form may be possible from wood; however that is not avaible for us.

P R O T O T Y P I N GMANTAINING THE SHAPE OF POLPROPLENE

The last and most successful material to be tested was poly-propylene. It is very flexible and therefore forgiving; however it is far too flexible, it needs to be held open for the weave pattern to show itself. This would be the main focus of our experiments from now on. In the Large Photo to the Left it Is being held open be a person, all of the experiments and vari-ations were to explore ways of removing this issue.

It was determined that a light-weight steel structure would be an ideal solution for the project. Variations of various substructure were tested, our criteria was to see which would be likely to hold the weaved pattern the best and have minimal vi-sual impact.

P R O T O T Y P I N GDEVELOPING A STRUCTURE

1 2 3 4

5 6 7 8

This Model is the result of our experiments up to this point and it deals with many fabrication issues. The first being the issues mentioned above in how to maintain the form using a not overpowering structure, this is being replicated by the steel rods and the bolts to show a steel structure. Another issue dealt with here is the fabrication of the strips. It would not be possible to create the project from single strips run-ning the whole way, that way they would need to be ex-tremely long. The only real way would be to divide them up and conceal the connections; this was done very effectively with the polypropylene. Also introduced here are the pan-els which are meant to serve as guides to hold the desired geometry in place and would eventually support the cool-ing processes via transportation and cooling that would be done in the cantilevered section of the model.

P R O T O T Y P I N GDEVELOPING A STRUCTURE

P R O T O T Y P I N GDEVLOPING INDIVUAL CELLS

P R O T O T Y P I N GMODEL OF THE PROJECT

D E S I G N - O U T C O M EINITIAL RENDERINGS AND REFLECTION

These are the initial of the Edaphic Project, as well as the project as it was presented on the presentation night. It is rendered in a plywood finish as we felt that that could be possible to use for the real world project, since other wood sources are available on the larger scale and this could be used in the construction of the design. However, after the consultation we decided that the polypropylene that we tested would be the best material to use, thus we changed that later. Also there are more structural issues that had to be considered at this point, the first being that it could well tip over as most of the weight is on one side, and the fabri-cation technique had to be further developed.

D E S I G N - O U T C O M EREFLECTION AND STRUCTURAL IMPROVMENTS

A Large Problem with the Initial Renderings presented earlier is that they ignore the structural elements of the project. With this is mind we had to investigate more precedents. The criteria for the search was to find other projects that have a visually impactful geometry or style with a visible substructure to hold the form together; present in both these projects. The Bridge on the left is a great example of what our project must do. The structure makes no attempts to hide itself, but it does however fol-low the flowing form and beautiful curvatures to great effect. Pavilion of the right does the same. With this in mind the structure and construction of our project was taken a little bit further.

The footbrigde cafe by aurent Saint-Val The shellstar pavilion by MATSYS

D E S I G N - O U T C O M EREFLECTION AND STRUCTURAL IMPROVMENTS

To begin the steel elements would be placed; they would follow the curves of the structure and would also be an-chored deep into the ground

Next the horizontal elements would be placed, these would serve the dual function of holding the weave pattern and resisting wind loads.

Layer 1

Layer 2

After That the Panels for the cells would be added, only some of the cells would need these. The hold the plants and shading.

Finally the Weaved strips that have defined our project from its inception, this would be the predominant feature of the Edaphic.

Layer 3

Layer 4

Close up veiw of the structure

Fabrication Layout

D E S I G N - O U T C O M EREFLECTION AND STRUCTURAL IMPROVMENTS

This is how the structure would be in real life, note that the steel would be deep within the form and also be covered by plants.

D E S I G N - O U T C O M EFINAL DESIGN AFTER REFLECTION