Flexible

Interior view of the breathing building

The exterior flexible skin is moved by mechanical pistons.

As a lung, when the interior volume is maximum, the air comes in from open valves, when is minimum, goes out from the opposite side valves, creating a natural continuous ventilation in the interior public area.

The shape of the skin will not only change following the breathing function but also interacting with the environment and the people inside and outside the building.

Week 4: Architectural Type andd Purposes

Week 4
In this week, we split into our respective strategy groups. The strategy group that I am participating is the Flexible 1, and my group mates are Ben and Greg. First, we started with showing our ideas about “flexible”. Greg brings up a very good idea, transparency, and then we started to think about the relationship between the Parliament House and transparency.

Transparency
Nowadays an issue with parliament is the level of transparency between the politicians and the public. The issue can be split into two categories: physical transparency and theoretical transparency.


Firstly, the physical transparency can be explained to the real vision of the every day operation of the parliament. Currently, the parliament is operating in private. This situation gives general public a sense that the government work with close door and keep secrets from the public. However, there might to be more opportunities for the general public. People would like to have the physically vision of the daily operate of the parliament. Thus, the public would have more sense of the connection with parliament and participation with parliament.


Secondly, the theoretical transparency, at the present time, government gives the impressions to make decisions on themes that influence the greater public with close door and keep secrets with consultation between parliament and its people. In my opinion, if the process can be transparent, people can have more sense to participate with such as the hot issue presently, climate change. This is the main points that improve the connection and transference of information between parliament and the general public.

 

 

The Parliament House currently has over 2000 car park underground. Too many vehicles running on the road might cause air pollution and it may cause climate change in the future. The Parliament House should be the leader of environmental friendly in Australia. Furthermore, architects in Australia need to help parliament face the major topic nowadays, global warming.

 

The major point in our group is to improve the car park problem with the Parliament House. We were thinking to reduce the amount of car parks instead of design public transport system such as bus network system or light rail for the Parliament House, further reduce the probability of climate change.

Bus Network of Canberra

The bus network in the Australia Capital is consummate and convenient. There are two route buses during week day from city on the way to the Australia Capital, bus number 2 and 3. Furthermore, bus number 934 is the one work in the weekend from Canberra City to Parliament House. 

The diagram shows the existing bus net work system of Canberra. As the system, the buses just go around outside of the Parliament House.

This diagram shows the bus stop location of the bus route from city to Parliament House.

The Parliament House of Australia

Australia’s Parliament House is designed to help members of Parliament carry out their responsibilities with the support of hundreds of people who work in the building.

Each year, about one million people visit the building which houses the Parliament of Australia. The large structure sits at the apex of Capital Hill in the centre of Canberra-Australia’s national capital. The building was designed by architects Mitchell, Giurgola and Thorp and opened in 1988. The flagpole that straddles the building has become a symbol of the Parliamnet and of Canberra.

Detial information of the Parliament House

1.      The Parliament House site covers 32 hectares of Capital Hill: one of the hills around which Walter Burley Griffin desighed Canberra in 1912.

2.      The building is 300 meters long and 300 meters wide. It is one of the largest buildings in the southern hemisphere.

3.      There are 4500 rooms in the building.

4.      Australia materials are used throughout 90 percent of the building.

5.      The building cost approximately 1.1 billion dollars.

6.      The underground car parks hold up to 2000 cars.

How does the parliament House be used

The diagram shows Parliament House's scale and the relationship between the parliamentary, executive, ceremonial and pubilc areas. The building is 300 meters long and covers a gross floor area of 250000m2. Massive curved walls separate and define the major component parts. The House of Representatives wing is on the eastern side with the Senate chamber and offices to teh west. The executive wing is at the southern end of the struceure, behind the ceremonial and public spaces of the central zone.

Aerial plan of Australia's Parliament House

Week 3: Infrastructure, Strategy & Presence

Infrastructure

 
During the infrastructure discussion, the major point in our group was the idea of connection, which can be a physical connection, for example bus network or light rail system. We have some discussion about there can be designed with the public system that travel between Canberra City and the Parliament House. This can be a sense of connection from public to parliament.

I was using my laptop to search the information about the public transport in Canberra. The information shows that the bus network system in Canberra is perfect. However, there are only 3 routes of bus during week day and weekend from city pass by the Parliament House. On the other hand, there are around 2500 car parks underneath of the Parliament House. We were thinking that we should do something about these issues.

Floor plan of the underground car park

Strategy

The Parliament House not only the icon of Australia, but also the spiritual symbol with Aussie. For this reason, The Parliament House should be the leader of environmental friendly. The 2500 car parks underneath of its building might cause environmental pollution in the coming future. The strategy is to improve this issue to approach the sense of environmental friendly. One of the methods is to design public transport to reduce to amount of car parks. One of the group mate said there can be the bus network system as Queen Street Bus Station. The underground bus station can be designed within Parliament House. This is a very good start for me to think about the Infrastructure and strategies with the building of Parliament House

Presence

How the presence element is can be bring into a building design? The Parliament House has the strong presence with strong classical architectural themes and a strong sense of ordering in the building. Parliament house is also a subterranean building that is built into Capital Hill, this gives the building an interesting aesthetic quality and attaches to the mystery of the building. Furthermore, Parliament House also has strong forms such as the pillars to the front of the structure and the large flag pole on top of the building. How can we create the design sense better than this amazing building? Otherwise, how can we maintain these prefect building ideas to re-design the Parliament House?

 

 

Week 2: Flexible, Mobile, Distributed & Virtual

Flexible

 

Different building has different program. However, a flexible building can be apprehended as a building that combines different function together. For example, firstly, a stadium, it can be a sport centre, a musical concert or a gallery/exhibition centre. Secondly, a park, such as the Botanic Garden, it is an open space for public with multi-function. People not on;y can relax there with variety activities, but also do picnic and wedding.

TheParliament House is not only a meeting facility of the Parliament of Australia, but it is also an exhibition place for the Parliament history as the Parliament House contains 4,700 rooms and many areas are open to the public. If people mention to the benefit building in Australia, the Opera House might be the symbol in Sydney, and the Parliament House will be the icon in Canberra. 

 

Mobile

Mobile building is transportable structure, which is not always fixed in the same area. It can go to anywhere for the building needed. The mobile embassy of Australia is a good example for the mobile building, which is the Australia Embassy that builds on the ship, and goes to South Africa to bring with the convenience to Aussie during 2010 FIFA World Cup. Moreover, the difference from flexible buildings, the mobile structure is fixed in a site, but transportable.

The benefits building in Australia is definitely the Australia Mobile Embassy. It is content many facilities for Australia citizen’s safety and convenience even outside of home town.

Distributed

Distributed building can be regarding as two expound. Firstly, distributed can interpret as a building with it organisational structure.

Secondly, the distributed structure can elucidate as a mass production such as a building group. Some structures are built in different place, but in the same area. It can be treated as the same building group, for instance, the RMIT campus in Melbourne city. Many faculty buildings are scattering in the city, however, they are the same campus.

Virtual

Virtual is a concept applied in many fields with somewhat differing connotations, and differing denotations. Furthermore, the term has been defined in philosophy as that which is not real, but might display the salient qualities of the real.