6: Interim Presentation

Walking into J Block yesterday was like walking into a sauna, but instead of the air being full heat and sweat, it was thick with tension and lack of sleep!
It's always so intimidating walking in on presentation day, seeing everyone's works for the first time, wondering how your's shapes up in comparison. But on the whole, I do believe that everyone put in a great effort, and I'm really proud of our achievements. There were some amazingly unique concepts on display, and I can't wait to see how some of them will transform into architectural projects by the end of the semester.
Just before starting our presentation, we were told that our panels "stood out", not only for their vibrant designs, but also for our different approach to our future scenario. This made us unbelievably happy, as I was stressing out that perhaps we'd taken to wild an approach (aparently the majority of our class just went with verticle farming!), but it was a relief to see that we weren't going to be penalised for thinking outside the box.

The rest of our presentation went great, the tutors were receptive (and intrigued), with a mini debate forming with Ruwan over our choice of sponsors (we may want to consider Microsoft due to their philanthropic ventures and market experimentation), and with Davor over the ethics behind our scenario (we may have to sacrifice 'freedom of choice' to maintain our desired affluent lifestyles). These will probably be issues we develop further in our architectural approaches, so on the whole it was a really promising presentation, and we're even more pumped to continue it on.

6: Individual Project One Statement

"Brisbane" proudly brought to you by...

Due to Brisbane's economic dependence on mining, the city will be left financially destraught when Australia's resources boom inevitably ends. Facing a growing unemployment rate, higher living costs, and a crippling economic recession, Brisbane will have to go to extreme measures to save itself from mounting debt. Eventually, Brisbane will turn to the great financial powers of the world, asking for financial support. In return, Brisbane can offer these corporate giants hundreds of thousands of willing employees, commercial development opportunities, and the monopoly on entire markets. Five international companies answer the call, giving Brisbane economic and financial sustainability, whilst maintaining a healthy profit of their own.

This project truly was the culmination of amazing team work - everyone researching and collaborating to create this (I believe) amazing presentation. Because we truly immersed ourselves in the environment of our future scenario, with each of us 'adopting' a character and experiencing their journey through Brisbane's changes, we created a really comprehensive understanding of our proposal. It also left us with quite a personal investment in our architectural outcomes, truly wanting the best for our characters.

Our panels are broken into 4 major sections:

1. Future Scenario and People and Lifestyles timeline. In this section (the largest section of the presentation) we went into extensive research, breaking down year by year what will happen in the future to lead us to our propsed scenario. To personalise this timeline we included our character's perspectives, turning a historical timeline into a running social commentary. To the left of the timeline we also included a simple pie chart for each character, briefly summarising their own 'programs', allowing us to organise our character's priorities in a quick snap shot.
2. Sustainable Futures. In the running strip along the base of the panels, we've analysed the sustainability of our future scenario with respect to economics, finance and governance. In one diagram, you can see how Brisbane can maintain the 'illusion' of sustainable governance in the same structure they experience today. However, due to the financial power of the "Big 5", such power will leak into the government structure, thus making the system sustainable for the corporations. Another diagram shows the map of Australia broken up into all the services it requires to make itself economically sustainable. Each of these elements are then translated into the company profiles, showing that each company provides all that Brisbane's economy needs, and how they can make a stronger profit by investing in alternative business models.
3. Architectural Outcomes. This section, culminating as the conclusion of the timeline, are the architectural outcomes gleaned from our character's experiences in the future scenario. A render is also provided showing Queen Street's commercial transformation as a 'show room' for the "Big 5".
4. Future Scenario masterplan. At the end of the presentation we have included maps showing how Brisbane will physically transform by 2034: the introduction of more efficient public transport to accommodate the pedestrianisation of the city centre (in order to allow people to interact with the buildings, and therefore feel a connection to the "Big 5" and feel more inclined to purchase their wares); and the allocation of now vacant spaces, such as the administrative offices of mining companies and carparks.

 I am incredibly proud of this assignment, and couldn't have asked for a better team to work on it with.

5: Architectural Outcomes

When conceiving possible architectural outcomes of our future scenario, our group reverted back to our four characters, understanding what they do on a daily basis and how the architecture within Brisbane would need to react or adapt to suit the new lifestyles maintained within the city. As we each developed our own characters, we also delved our own architectural outcomes, ensuring that each proposal works harmoniously with the others, as well as fits within our new Brisbane masterplan.

Parker James Savill: as the International Liaison Officer in Brisbane, I realised that Parker will need a place from which to ‘liaise’ from – a place that acted as a poster-child for the success of the new Brisbane. It must be confident and powerful, whilst also remaining humble and respectful. It must provide a place for companies to meet with one another and discuss the running of the city, as well as be able to facilitate visiting corporate members, reassuring them that their investments are secure and beneficial. It must therefore speak to the people (your city is in safe hands) as well as to the corporations (your money is in safe hands), whilst also being a pleasant environment to work in (Parker is used to a very high standard of living). This means that Brisbane needs a new corporate headquarters.

Parker’s corporate headquarters ties in nicely with Stephen’s multi-media hub (a place where you can gain access to a plethora of resources, and test out the latest technologies), as the media hub acts as a display home for the “Big 5”’s successes. These buildings will therefore be located adjacent to each other, with the corporate headquarters taking over the current Chifley Hotel, and the media-hub utilizing the corner location of the St George Bank.

Fraya’s nightlife and Carol’s multi-purpose residential building programs are located further away from these sites, at the corner of George and Albert Street, and 179 Elizabeth St respectively, but still tie in with the corporation’s desire for a positive representation within the city that facilitates engagement with its people.

sketches of proposed sites
top left: Hungry Jacks, corner of Albert and Queen St (proposed nightlife)
bottom left: 179 Elizabeth St (proposed multi-purpose residential)
right: St George Bank and Chifley Hotel, corner of George and Queen St (proposed multi-media hub and corporate headquarters respectively) 

The fabric of the Brisbane will also change and adapt to suit the future, primarily in allowing for a more pedestrian consumer lifestyle (pedestrianising inner city streets?), as well as increase public transport, and trying to figure out what to do with abandoned mining offices and carparks (completely remove cars from the city?). We did a quick mapping exercise to see how that would work:

inner city map showing transportation pathways - a metro system passing through to QUT (orange dash); multiple bus stops around perimeter of inner city (purple); purely pedestrianised streets (light blue), cycle ways (green); and no car access in inner city except for deliveries (dark blue).

locations of mining companies (pink), government buildings (blue) and carparks (yellow), which will have to be reprogrammed in our future scenario.

4: People and Lifestyles

After deciding in the tutorial to create characters from four separate future perspectives, each team member was given a character to develop. These characters will then provide a social commentary on the events leading up to our future scenario, allowing us to understand how people will be affected by such dramatic changes, and how we may respond to their needs architecturally. This social commentary will be shown as a collection of ‘social updates’, similar to a Facebook timeline.

My chosen character was the Investor, a corporate figure who sees Brisbane’s future sponsorship as a positive outcome, focusing primarily on financial gain.

Parker James Savill

Parker James Savill is a Corporate Marketing Officer for P&G’s LA office. As a high earner, Parker enjoys the expensive things in life like fine food and drink, luxury accommodation (at home and when travelling), and in advancing himself further as a professional. Throughout the course of our timeline, Parker keeps a watchful eye on the economic status of Australia, and Brisbane in particular. He notices opportunity when he sees it, exploiting the financial crisis to swipe up prime real estate at bargain prices and make money from the plummeting Australian dollar. Parker also alerts his superiors at P&G of the Queensland Government’s intention to sell the remainder of their assets.

P&G take advantage of this situation, purchasing the South Bank Corporation, an investment they believe will help them extend their cosmetics and health industries in a more focused marketing approach. This then leads P&G to place bids into the sponsorship of Brisbane, promoting Parker to International Liaison Officer in Brisbane. Parker’s promotion means he must meet with corporate officials within P&G and the other “Big 5” companies, working to communicate and negotiate how to run their new Brisbane.

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4: Future Scenario (further research)

As our due date looms closer, I thought I should probably back-up my group's proposed future proposal with cold hard facts...which lead to (honest!) credible predictions.

Rising unemployment rate

• Job advertisements have fallen for the "fourth consecutive month" in July, 9.1% below last year's level (Brisbane Times, August 2012).
• "Queensland's unemployment rate rose 0.5% to 5.8% in July, the highest rate since August last year" (Courier Mail, p5, August 2012).
• In relation to recent public servant job cuts: "...a total of 20,000 public servants [will] be axed" - Treasurer Tim Nicholls (The Northern Daily Leader, p9, 2012).

Mining Bust

• The mining sector is currently “suffering depressed prices, an oversupplied market and poor returns on investment…which could push mining companies to bust.” – Ian Runge, mining economist (UQ News, May 2012).
• According to Deloitte Access Economics, Australia’s “mining investment boom” won’t last for more than another two years, slowing more sharply than expected, as “the current spike in investment is due to decisions taken a while back”, while few ‘mega-projects’ are being approved today (The Age, July 2012).
• Several Australian mining projects are currently on hold or cancelled as the price and demand of iron-ore, aluminium, nickel, and other commodities, have hit record lows (The Wall Street Journal, August 2012).

Economy crash

• Economist Frank Gelber predicts that Brisbane will hit a recession once the resources boom has runs its course, as too many of our investments are geared towards minerals, and we’ve structured our cities and our industries around servicing them (Scalora for Brisbane Business News, September 2011).
• There are 177 resource company headquarters in Brisbane, with more to follow as Brisbane hopes to become a "global centre for resource industry technology and services...we are on the cusp of a resource-based economic transformation" - Lord Mayor Graham Quirk (AAP General News Wire, Feb 2012).
• The Lord Mayor is hoping an extra 343,000 workers will move to Brisbane for this "resources boom" (AAP General News Wire, Feb 2012).  
• Queensland is already $65 billion dollars in debt, and will increase to $100 billion by 2018/19 if the "government doesn't take drastic action" (news.com.au, August 2012)

Selling QLD assets

• Federal treasurer Peter Costello insists that "privatisation [is] the only way to reign in state debt", and Queensland treasurer Tim Nicholls has admitted that the idea was "on the menu for consideration" (Courier Mail, June 2012).
• In 2010 Queensland sold $15 billion worth of assets in the Port of Brisbane, Forestry Plantations Queensland, Queensland Motorways Limited, Abbot Point Coal Terminal and QR National, with the government still owning more than $200 billion in assets. (Brisbane Times, November 2010; Queensland Government, 2010).
• The government has also sold off previous assets such as QANTAS and Brisbane Airport (Queensland Government, 2010).

Maybe we should quit architecture and become economists!

References

AAP General News Wire. 2012. QLD: Plan aims to double Brisbane economy. February 14, 2012. Accessed 21/8/2012, from http://search.proquest.com.ezp01.library.qut.edu.au/docview/921242607/abstract 

The Age. 2012. Mining boom forecast to end in two years. July 23, 2012. Accessed 21/8/2012, from http://www.theage.com.au/business/mining-boom-forecast-to-end-in-two-years-20120722-22ibe.html

Brisbane Business News. 2012. Recession likely after mining bust. September, 2011. Accessed 21/8/2012, from http://www.brisbanebusinessnews.com.au/process/myviews/bbn_article.html?articleId=2337

Brisbane Times. 2012. Job ad retreat signals rising jobless rate. August 6, 2012. Accessed 21/8/2012, from http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/business/the-economy/job-ad-retreat-signals-rising-jobless-rate-20120806-23p2a.html

Courier Mail. 2012. Unemployment rates on the rise. August 11, 2012. Accessed 21/8/2012, from http://search.proquest.com.ezp01.library.qut.edu.au/docview/1032899709/abstract

Courier Mail. 2012. Asset sales the only answer to Queensland’s debt, say Peter Costello. June 16, 2012. Accessed 21/8/2012, from http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/asset-sales-the-only-answer-costello/story-e6freon6-1226397178883

news.com.au. 2012. LNP misleading Qld on debt: opposition. August 21, 2012. Accessed 21/8/2012, from http://www.news.com.au/breaking-news/national/qld-mps-apologise-for-misrepresenting-debt/story-e6frfku9-1226454764304

The Northern Daily Leader. 2012. BRISBANE: Another 200 Queensland public servant jobs. August 10, 2012. Accessed 21/8/2012, from http://search.proquest.com.ezp01.library.qut.edu.au/docview/1032804073/abstract

Queensland Government. 2010. Queensland assets sales: the myths vs the facts. Accessed 21/8/2012, from http://www.brisbane.apana.org.au/~cpds/Documents/External/AssetSalesMythsFacts.pdf

UQ News. 2012. Economics expert warns boom now a bust for the Australian mining sector. 25 May, 2012. Accessed 21/8/2012, from http://www.uq.edu.au/economics/economics-expert-warns-boom-now-a-bust-for-the-australian-mining-sector

The Wall Street Journal. 2012. Australia’s Resource Boom Losing Steam. August 21, 2012. Accessed 21/8/2012, from http://blogs.wsj.com/dealjournalaustralia/2012/08/21/australias-resource-boom-is-losing-steam/

4: People and Lifestyles and Future Scenario Development

Thinking of architecture as the set in which characters play out their lives within different scenes is a really interesting approach, and lead to some interesting project developments for our group. When asked to develop characters to inform our architectural possibilities, our group was forced to go back and re-evaluate our proposed scenario to examine what part these characters could play, and how they would be impacted.

We decided to create a rough timeline of events leading to our proposed scenario, not only to create a feasible and justified ‘future’, but to see what major events could impact our characters, and therefore their experience of any architectural outcomes. We ended our event timeline at 2030, but estimated that in 2042 the architecture would have been produced to reflect these tumultuous changes (which is when our proposed scenario will technically be held).

Timeline of events leading from today to the date of our proposed scenario.

In creating this timeline we realised that we needed to clarify who our corporate sponsors would be, as they would have a great impact on our character’s experiences, and also the future architectural approach in Brisbane. We started by brainstorming not only who the most influential and successful businesses of today are, but also how they could contribute to Brisbane as a sponsor. We then rationalised that Brisbane would most likely accept several tender bids, as no one sponsor could ‘sustainably’ support the city, and no one would put all their eggs in one corporate basket. We therefore decided that the most logical (and exciting) sponsors would be:

• McDonalds - providing the city with food, health support (through the Ronald McDonald House), child care and recreational infrastructure.
• Samsung – providing the city with advancements in technology.
• IKEA – providing the city with home/office wares, accommodation (with their new investment in hotels) and construction innovations.
• P&G – providing the city with drugs, health supplements and cosmetics.
• GE – providing the city with energy (we must convert to alternative sources due to the mining bust), and further technological advancements.

These five companies would provide monetary and services support to the flailing city of Brisbane, and in return have a say in local town planning actions, in order to ensure their support through exclusivity (rather like London during the Olympics). The political structure of Australia would appear run as per usual, with the rest of our governmental systems having control over corporations. However, we believe that the corporations would eventually end up calling the shots; by placing “democratically elected representatives” within the upper and lower house, the companies could constantly influence federal, state and local legislation, thus creating the illusion of governmental control.

Distribution of Power over Brisbane (perceived and reality)

Town planning control over Brisbane:
The "Big 5" have 100% control over inner CBD,
but only voting power over greater Brisbane area.

In creating the characters that are ‘acting’ within our proposed scenario, we realised they would be impacted by this political shift in four key areas: Work, Live, Play and Invest, as these are the four elements that construct the social dynamic of Brisbane’s CBD. As a group we have experience in working, living and playing in Brisbane, but not so much that of investing, a dynamic that will change dramatically in our proposed scenario of privatising Brisbane. We therefore wanted to have four characters that represented these unique dynamics:

1. The corporate sponsor – this character has a positive outlook on the proposed scenario (and the events leading towards it), as he has an invested interest in the outcome. He sees the changes as financial and political genius and believes that he is saving Brisbane, turning a blind-eye to any social or environmental concerns.
2. The political activist – this character has a negative outlook on future events, aware of the underlying dangers of corporate sponsorship and the ‘conspiracy theories’ underlying it. She is against companies having so much power over a city and is a strong protester.
3. The permanent resident – this character has had to adapt to what has happened to Brisbane, and sees the changes only in how it has impacted his day-to-day life. He has worked and lived in Brisbane’s CBD during the entire process, but is mostly unaware of the ‘behind the curtain’ dealings.
4. The next generation – this character is content with how Brisbane has changed given she doesn’t know any different. She has lived her entire life within Brisbane’s new corporate structure, so she therefore sees no evil in how the world has changed around her.

Each team member was assigned a character to develop, so that we can each understand a unique perspective within our future scenario, so we can identify and demonstrate the architectural possibilities.

This post proudly brought to you by our wonderful sponsors.

3: Sustainable Future (further company research)

Company profiles and profitability:

• P&G profitable subsidiaries:

http://pg.newshq.businesswire.com/sites/pg.newshq.businesswire.com/files/press_kit/file/3015_PG_Media_Kit_2012_FA.pdf 

• GE profitable subsidiaries:

http://www.ge.com/ar2010/pdf/GE_AR10_MDA.pdf

3: Sustainable Future

I always become pessimistic when people talk about their designs being ‘sustainable’, as most people assume such sustainability to have grounds in environmental self-sufficiency, expecting people to abandon their current lifestyles for a ‘greener’ option. In striving for environmental sustainability, we ignore our social sustainability, which to most is a more important thing to maintain.

In our future scenario, we predict that Brisbane will be financially crippled by the end of the resources boom, pushing us further into debt with hundreds of thousands of unemployed citizens. The economy will crumble, with businesses unable to support themselves in such a shaky economic climate, meaning that Brisbane will cease to be economically sustainable. The government will therefore have to pour millions of dollars back into the economy, a futile gesture that will render us financially unsustainable. With this lack of economic and financial support, Brisbanites will have to adapt and change their lifestyles, ‘downgrading’ their standard of living in order to keep afloat. So as well as becoming economically and financially unsustainable, Brisbane will also become socially unsustainable as we are unable to maintain our desired lifestyles.

Our proposed scenario (of Brisbane’s corporate sponsorship), would revert Brisbane back to  economic, financial and social sustainability; in pouring billions of dollars into Brisbane’s government, the city can pull itself out of debt and go back to using tax-payers money on improving future resources, rather than settling old debts, thus financial sustainability is restored (even better than what it was before). In return, these businesses would have the ability to experiment with alternative business models in a low-risk environment, of which they can ensure their monopolization and profitability. This reciprocal agreement ensures economic sustainability for our sponsor corporations (what they invest in Brisbane, they get back in profits, experimental ventures, and improved public image), but Brisbane is provided with all the resources it requires (see original post on sponsor companies for breakdown of economic provision). Now that Brisbane is financially and economically sustainable, its residents can now maintain a higher standard of living (or even improve upon it), making them socially sustainable.

In insuring that each company remains profitable in its Brisbane investment, I did research into how much profit the “Big 5” made in 2011, and which business areas awarded the greatest return. While doing this research, I also investigated what areas these companies were looking into developing, and how such industries could blossom within Brisbane. This research showed that the amount invested in Brisbane by each company is less than one year’s profit, a sum they would easily make back through the development of alternative industry (like hotel development for IKEA or hospitals for McDonalds).

This approach to economic, financial and social sustainability may seem unethical, as one of its underpinning provisions is that each of the “Big 5” maintain a monopoly on certain industries, an issue that is destroying the free market and independent businesses. However, as Brisbane will be in such abysmal condition after the mining bust, we may have no other option unless we wish our people to live in a state of fear, disarray and poverty.

3: Reading Reflection

I always find the lifecycle of buildings fascinating, watching them change over time whether it is through general wear-and-tear, or through retrofitting and refurbishment, but I do love seeing the original character of buildings shining through its later layers of ‘make up’. That was why I loved Brand’s Shearing Layers chapter. Watching the documented changes to San Francisco’s Cliff House was astonishing, especially how the building seems to diminish architecturally with time, and thanks to the 1907 fire, having its original character diminish as well.

Life span of architectural elements.
Brand's 6 S's + architectural principles.

Frank Duffy’s and Brand’s four/six S’s are also very poetic and simple breakdowns of the main (and ever-changing) components of architecture, although I do have to disagree that the “site is eternal”; in these (and I know this may sound corny) environmentally-endangering times, we can no longer say that ‘site is eternal’, as rising sea levels, droughts and floods, pollution, and urban sprawl are changing the world’s landscape. Instead, perhaps we can say that site may not be eternal, but human desires, instincts and architectural principles are (drawing on Murray Lane’s previous lecture). I agree with the rest of Brand’s six S’s, as well as Duffy’s idea that we should think of buildings in a “time-laden way” for adaptive and practical architectural solutions, but suggest the addition of an overarching principle, or even as Brand briefly mentions, a seventh S for ‘soul’.

The interlinking (and dependent) relationships between
the Physical World and the Virtual World

Maybe we also need to add an eighth S for ‘Sustainability’ or for ‘Science’, to make room for new technologies. Or even another S for ‘Social media’, like in Juha Vant Zelfde’s The Aspatial City, where cities could be seen as virtual and emotional connections through networks and social services.

Seeing aerial images of Boston and how it transformed in 120 years was also fascinating, yet it was rather saddening to see many historical buildings removed to make way for modern infrastructure. This made me think fondly of Brisbane (which we don’t get to do very often) and how we still have some beautiful gems from our past tucked away in our city. Although our history doesn’t date that far back, it is still reassuring that with the huge population boom and expansion we experienced, we’ve still kept some of our traditional and gorgeous buildings. Well, some of them (don’t get me started on the Regency Theatre!).

http://www.daytours.com.au/info/tours_departing_from//brisbane/ 

http://bill-mybrisbane.blogspot.com.au/2010_06_01_archive.html 

 

http://waltzingaustralia.files.wordpress.com/2007/07/brisbanearchit-b.jpeg  

http://www.moviemem.com/blog/

My hope for the future is that we’ll still maintain our respect for older buildings and although some of them are atrocious now (and they probably make up 75% of our city!), they may come to mean something to future generations – or perhaps our gun-ho nature to building in the 1980’s should be removed from our future to save our children the visual horrors they created.

3: How to Measure Sustainability Reflection

Murray Lane's lecture on How to Measure Sustainability is a lecture I feel we should have been given a lot earlier in our education; his approach to design reasoning is something designers should learn much earlier in order to make them aware of what it truly important in architecture. To start with an architectural principle, whether it be our desire for food, shelter, love, or security, should always be paramount in our minds when designing, and yet we become blinded by context (which I was not aware of until now!).

In the tutorial we were asked to think of 'what if...' scenarios for our chosen theme (Urban, yay!), which is a hard task to not get over excited about. I still hadn't abandoned hope that I could still design a zombie-proof fortress, and unfortunately my group and I spend a lot of time mulling over how we could credibly investigate a zombie-infested future. We played around with population-controlling drug conspiracies,  bio-terrorist attacks during the G20 summit, and unemployment rioting due to the mining bust, but were really just grasping at straws in trying to justify why these things would ever happen.

Then inspiration hit - what is one thing we know will happen in the future (said almost tongue-in-cheek): the mining boom will eventually end, leaving Australia with very little to export (apart from agriculture) to boost our economy. Our economy will therefore crash, our cost of living will increase and the government will have to resort to new and desperate options as to how to generate economic support. One such money-making scheme could justifiably be the new CBD congestion charge, although I doubt it would be enough. Thinking back on our government's search for cash in the past, we realised that we could continue selling our assets (just like we sold QR, QANTAS, etc), or even deregulate certain corporations in return for financial support. This could lead us down the slippery slope of Privatisation, with the result of Brisbane become sponsored.

Although an initially frightening idea (being owned by international corporations), such privatisation could have its benefits - we'd be financially secure and have access to the latest technologies (we'd almost be the market's guinea pigs). But is it worth it to sacrifice our individualism and identity? Does Brisbane even have  an identity to lose?

During Murray Lane's lecture, he showed us his PhD project on calculating the carrying capacity of different regions. And in considering that this tutorial's focus was on sustainability, I thought I would see what effect privatising Brisbane would have on our carrying capacity.

 This is Brisbane (or South East Queensland) as it is today, where we are 1977.8% over our carrying capacity! But below is the same area, but under corporate control:

In considering the possible implications of corporate sponsorship (such as becoming more materialistic and consuming more textiles, eating more red meat on a diet of McDonalds, using less fuel due to our congestion charge, and becoming more condensed and needing less living space), we have decreased our carrying capacity, and dramatically increased the population that we could support. So maybe privatisation is the answer!

2: Reading Reflection

Martin Fackler's article on Tsunami Warnings, Written in Stone poses the interesting idea of 'future warnings' - using architecture or infrastructure to advice future generations. By leaving some of the destroyed architectural monuments in the tsunami-stricken areas, their 'carcasses' can form a warning to future generations that such a horrific event has occurred and to be mindful of future events.

http://versoilsogno.blogspot.com.au/2011_02_01_archive.html

Fackler gives the example of the Atomic Bomb Dome in Hiroshima, a harrowing image I have seen, and one which truly does speak of the horrors that occurred there during World War Two. This is an interesting interpretation of architecture's purpose and gives another layering to the concept of life-cycle design. Something to think about in how our architectural proposals may influence future generations, as well as attempting to 'solve' their future's issues.


I'm not sure if Jim Motavalli's A History of Greenwashing: How Dirty Towels Impacted the Green Movement was meant to act as a detterant or inspiration for our current project; on one hand you have the strong message that you can't just stick a bandaid over the earth, and have everything work out. There is no quick superficial fix (like washing fewer towels), but rather a shift in lifestyle and attitudes to truly become 'green', a message that is definately important when considering how to solve future issues. However, there is also the underlying inspiration that, with such superficial changes you can change people's perceptions - by using recycled materials, or applying the simplist 'sustainable' actions, consumers and the general public are appeased and are 'fooled' into thinking they are being 'green', at least on a superficial level. Maybe in addressing future issues, it may be a case of 'rebranding' rather than actually 'solving' the problem. Or is that just a cop out?

Hugh Barton's Urban Form and Locality outlines some strong ideas as to how cities and neighbourhoods should be shaped. Barton's exploration into the notion of Urban Density, and that higher concentrations can be more sustainable due to their reduced materials usage and physical footprint, reminded me of Irina Vinnitskaya's article The Limits of Density. In this article, Vinnitskaya agrees with Barton's statement that mixed-use neighbourhoods are what drives a successful district. Barton commends mixed-use due to its ability to reduce transportation in providing "multi-purpose journeys", where people travel to one area and walk around it (like to shopping districts, etc). However Vinnitskaya, referencing Richard Florida, states that mixed-use developments provides the "man power and diversity that inspires innovation and creative force in the industry." Florida and Vinnitskaya also warn though that we should not be then drawn to higher densities in "vertical suburbs", as "the spontaneous interactopms that occur along a busy street" are destroyed through the isolated functions produced in taller buildings.

At the larger city scale, Barton's analysis of a city structure got me thinking about Brisbane, and how (in keeping with the Urban theme), a congestion charge could impact our city's structure. In reading The ABCD of Facilities Locality, I realised that although Brisbane's city centre is compliant with the guide's accessibility requirements, in that Queen Street Mall is 400m from Central Station, but it does not provide fast and regular services. It also neglects to provided "easy, safe and convenient movement by foot and bike", but which would change dramatically should cars be removed from the CBD.

In eliminated cars from the CBD, Brisbane would need to focus more on alternative transport, and again Barton provides a strong answer through ring roads; in creating a surrounded transport 'ring', access into the outlying areas of the city is easy, requiring commuters to use light tram ways, walking or cycling within the CBD, which would reduce emissions and congestion. It may even result in a healthier population!