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?