15: Reflecting on a narrative

As this epic narrative comes to a conclusion, the time for reflection is upon us. Gather round children and let me finish my tale with the words spoken at the ever-dreaded design crit.

I am truly proud of the efforts that I have made in producing my Architectural Narrative - I challenged myself to learn two new computer programs (3DS Max and Sketch Up - can you believe I've gone 4 years doing EVERYTHING by hand? you can teach this old girl new tricks), and have pushed myself to be comfortable with new future-technologies (as you may have gathered from my reluctance to use computer aided design, I am stuck in the past a bit. The only sci-fi I'm comfortable with are the ones where people have reverted back to the old ways, eg. Firefly! The rest is just mumbo-jumbo to me).

However, I am completely open to the feedback received by Yasu and Ruwan yesterday. Throughout this assignment/narrative, I've been working closely with my old group so that we could ensure that our programs and proposals were harmonious within our future scenario. However we negated to check up on each others approaches to future technologies, a blunder that was thrown into the harsh light of day during the crits. In retrospect, I would have loved to have worked even closer with my former group members to ensure that our proposals matched perfectly, but alas we didn't have the time or the organisation to get to that point.

Yasu also brought up my retro-fitting of the old Chifley building; what happens to the building during construction? Does it close down, or partially remain open to maintain business? What structural elements will remain?

In my design, I tried to maintain as much of the original structure as possible, and when removing walls (as I needed to for every floor), I tried to maintain the original structural supports. To hypothesis (briefly) on how the renovation would be completed, I propose that it be done in 4 phases: 

• Phase #1 would begin on the upper levels, where the hotel rooms would be gutted (furniture donated to the people of Brisbane as a gesture of good will and charity) and turned into flexible work zones for sponsor employees. Break out meeting spaces (the balconies that protrude from the building and act as supports for the OLED surface) will also be constructed as each floor is renovated. During this phase, the lower hotel floors would still be open, allowing the hotel to stay open (although I doubt they would have much revenue with the city's recession and general poorness), with one of the elevator units operation on one side of the building.
• Phase #2 would be the same as Phase #1 but on the lower hotel floors. During this phase the building will be handed over to the sponsors, allowing employees to utilise their offices on the upper floors. 
• Phase #3 will see the OLED wave surface attached to the building. All break-out meeting spaces would have been finished in Phase #2, so the OLED surface (which is prepared off-site to sure it is structurally strong as an individual entity, and that the OLED panels work as a multi-dimensional communication tool) can simply be attached to these protruding surfaces.
• Phase #4 will complete the transformation, with the public spaces being completed, such as the Child Care Centre, Cafe, Voting Room, Bar, Lecture Room and Refectory for employees. The OLED surface would then be activated for a Grand Opening light show extravaganza!

But again I am really happy with what I've produced this semester - I would have loved to be given more time to perfect it further (and actually master 3DS Max!), but I think I've done quite well for a computer design novice :)

And at least I have "enthusiasm that you can't beat" - thanks Ruwan!