Model Photos

View from street

Ramps which line up to create an image

Section Showing light patterns

Interior Section

Plan

Site Model

Drawings

The drawings are useful for understanding the structure and layout of the building. Also the poshe drawing of the room shows how the light penitrates through the wall shafts into the rooms below.

Idea - Interior

Roor structure with large covered skylights.

Overwiew of gallary showing maze and internal wall light shafts.


As one enters the building on the top floor they are met with a series of close intimate spaces forcing you to wind your way through the maze like system. The light enters at an angle through a series of windows and covered skylights throwing an interesting pattern of light on these walls. These can either be left blank or covered as per the artists desire.

The walls on the upper level are hollow allowing shafts of natural sunlight to penetrate to the lower level where Matthew lives.

Initial Idea - Facade and Courtyard

Angle of view which allows the artwork (YES) to be viewed.

View from street

Ramps leading to an rooftop courtyard which the public could contribute to a communal artwork.


Building on the inspiration from the many street art that I saw in the surrounding environment, I thought it would be interesting to create a space in which members of the public could contribute to a collective artwork, which would feature on the exteriour of the building. The many ramps used on the facade allow for the creation of an artwork which would only be complete when viewed from a certain angle.

Artist

Idiot Box (1993)
Martin Luther Mural (1991)

After seeing the many large scale murals on the walls around Newtown, I did some research and discovered that many of the most famous paintings were done by the same two men, Andrew Aiken and Matthew Peet. I was moved by Andrews tradgic story.

He had fled England to Australia after, according to evidence given at the Old Bailey, bashing to death a man he lived with in an east London squat. He burnt his clothes and a blood-stained sofa and buried the body in the cellar before cementing over it. The man was a 40-year-old English busker who, it seemed, no one missed...

[After living in Australia for seven years] He revealed his secret to a religious leader who persuaded him to return to England in 1997 to give himself up. Peet recalled that "Andrew rang me and said 'I'm going back to England to take care of business'. I was not sure what he meant. When a friend told me he was done for murder, I didn't believe it. It was completely out of character."

Nicholls, S 2003, ‘Wall of Silence’, Sydney Morning Herald, 26 April, accessed 24 May 2009,

Aiken is now serving life in prison for his crime. I decided to design the art gallery to promote Matthew Peet's graffiti style artwork. However I wanted it to be more than just that, I decieded that at least part of the gallary should be a memorial to human courage with his friend's story in mind.

Precedent Study

After visiting the site and realising that the site is closed in on three sides, I reasearched museums and art gallaries which used natural lighting from above. The most remarkable of these is the Kimbell museum by Louis Kahn. The light filters through a slit at the top of the dome where it is reflected onto the polished vault roof, casting a soft diffused light over the artworks.

Site Photos

While visiting Newtown I was most struck by the vitality, life and energy of the suburb. The area was extremely colourful, especially due to the amount of street art and large graffiti murals which covered many walls. This photo collage of pictures that I took tries to capture the energy and intensity of the place.

Model Photos

Just for you Sandra, you're favourite angle.


Highest room with low windows giving a floating feeling to the cube. Representing the painter as he has finally achieved his goals.

Middle room window on the side. Showing some successes but still not where he wants to be.

Lowest room with light coming from the skylight above. Representative of the struggling artist seeing success above but there is still a long way to go.

Stairs representing the journey of the painter, note how the receding pods cannot be seen while climbing the stairs.

Final Drawings

UnPoshe'd Drawings

These are my final drawings before I added light and shadow to them. Even though I drew the drawings first I didn't add shade them until I had my model completed so that I could use a light on my model to get an accurate understanding of where the light would fall.

Idea

By putting my narrative into an architectural form I created a multi tiered loft system with a prominent staircase.

The stairs represent the journey. They hanging spaces each have different positions of windows which create a different ambiance within each cube. While this is representative of stages in the artists life, it also more practically allows the artist to set different moods for his painting by utilizing the different lighting in each space.

The fact that the cubes are receding hints at both the painting and my narrative. While walking up the stairs the lofts cannot be seen up ahead, but one knows they are there. This is similar to the way in which the window is hinted at but not shown in Vermeer's painting. Also in the artist's journey he understood that success was just around the corner.

Early Sketchup model, a number of changes were made before the final building. eg. side walls removed, cube dimensions etc. Also at this stage the building had not been placed in its final environment.

Precedent studies

The Rucksack House designed by Stefan Eberstadt is an interesting peice of architecture as it can be added to any exsisting window to create a new space. This got me thinking about the idea of cubes penetrating into other forms.

Other pictures of simular ideas:

I had the thought of embedding the building into a hillside, I reasearched what other architects have done. This design idea is used very effectively by g ateliers architecture when they designed ‘finca el retorno’ in Columbia which fits into the environmental theme their clients wanted.

A simular idea was used in the Pepsico Headquarters.

Narrative

A series of uneven lofts represent a painter's journey.
From his humble beginnings as a struggling artist trying to make a name for himself, through his working life where renown was glimpsed at, hinted, but never achieved. Till in the end he finally reached his goal.

Painting

The painting I chose was a 17th Century dutch painting, "The Artist's Studio" by Johannes Vermeer. The ideas that I discerned from the painting, that I could use in my design were:
1) I found the play of light interesting especially as it appears from behind a curtain from a window that is not shown but is understood to be there.
2) The portrait painter with his back to the viewer is the central figure.
3) The configuration of the room in relation to the window so that the light falls on the model not the painting.

Robert Venturi's "Mother's House" Model

Section Cut

Front Section

Front Elevation

Back Section

Back ElevationSide Elevation