Development from feedback..

It is still my intention that the systems in each house would be personalised and decentralised, with composting toilets and grey water systems that ultimately feed back into their individual gardens but they have the opportunity to then support even smaller community systems around decentralised community gardens.

However I've redrawn a site plan showing a more natural layout, understanding the land it's on. I've sketched more of my original idea of clustered, decentralised living with small gardens appearing throughout the settlements that can be shared community garden spaces. All the surrounding houses can contribute to these smaller gardens.
The paths  and circulation through the communities now make more sense, with gradual paths moving up the steep hill and options of 'green stairs' which would be compacted earth with rocks and other natural formations to form permeable steps just like green streets.

Feedback from crit..

All in all the feedback from the crit was pretty positive, they were happy with the way I'd thought about planning out the farming and planning out the festival which was great because that was the basis of my proposal after all. Thy were happy with the way I'd designed the structures, I was worried that they were too simple but I'm pretty happy in the end that I've achieved the principles I wanted with the simple designs I've created, simple yet effective rather than trying to be over the top and achieving nothing. While there were some things that I didn't end up going as deep as i'd like with my research and design development I feel I had a good overall grasp on my future architecture fiction.

Things that could be improved were the water systems I've created, the small creek systems I ran through the site to direct water and encourage wildlife could have been worked with the residential villages to aid in the aquaponics systems. I didn't really detail the systems of utilising the waste from dwellings. The guest critiquer suggested looking at aquaduct type systems that ran underneath the ancient cities and still exist throughout the world. They suggested I looked at how maybe multiple dwellings might share their waste outputs and systems. Also how each dwelling might be self sufficient like in Michael Reynolds earth ships.

Another point of improvement was with the master planning of the neighbourhoods, they are too rigid and don't follow the natural forms of the site enough, the houses and pathways should respond to the site better.

Final Presentation..

A1 Poster

  

Presentation Slides

First person experience..

I started rendering and photoshopping a view from inside the community centre, but it didn't turn out amazingly so I don't want to put it in my presentation.

More detail into a festival plan..

Because the festival is such an important part of my whole plan for Woodfordia and the education program, I have decided to put a bit of effort into communicating some of the festival schedules that might come out of a festial of Woodfordia 2026.

 

There would be different classes on across the differnet buildings, like 'The Hub' - the community centre, and performances through the amphithreatres. As well as this I thought maybe there could be some intensive week long practical courses run as part of the festival. You would stay with some of the residents, live their life with them and learn how to do some of the things they did.

Summer Plan

 

Winter Plan

Spring Plan

 

 

More detailed timeline..

I realised i needed to give my future scenario a little bit more detail.

Structural Research..

If I am going to have a bamboo roof i've realised that i'm not certain on how it will be put together, so i did a bit of research into understanding the joins and roofing system itself so i could do a couple details.

(Ecoarc n.d) 

How will the rof stay up structurally?

It will have a structural system something like this one, with triangled shapes to hold up the roof.


(Bamboo Works Inc n.d)

Walls and other structure
I just wanted to confirm the structure of my hempcrete wall so i could understand what i was working with as well. It's just like any other material, my bamboo structure will support the house and it will be infilled with the hempcrete mixture until it sets.

(Sut Mundo 2010)

References:

Bamboo Works Inc. n.d. Custom Design Architecture. Accessed October 29, 2012. http://www.bambooworks.com/custom.htm 

Ecoarc. n.d. Building Techniques. Accessed October 29, 2012. http://www.ecoarc.org/html/ideology/build_tech.html.

Sut Mundo. 2010. Hemcrete, probably the greenest material on the planet. Accessed October 29, 2012.

Roofing design..

All the designs I've been sketching have involved this skillion roof design to encourage breezes through and allow more light. I had been interested in Skillion roofs because they provide extra daylighting possibilities as well as ventilation possibilities, but maybe I need to look into another form.

Steph brought to my attention raising the roof above the house to reduce wind resistance through storms which also provides better ventilation possibilities.

I had forgotten about the house I found and talked about in an earlier post as other designs I'd been looking at had more skillion roof designs.


Maybe this type of roof will work just as well as the idea of a skillion type roof. It provides the ventilation shafts I'd diagrammed before, allowing air to travel up the top and out, like in a stack effect.








Harvesting wind off my community centre roof:

A thought came to my mind, that if I'm trying to control the wind, why don't I control it into wind turbines and use it for my benefit.
Small turbines exist that capture the wind off buildings currently and it's not far fetched to assume that the technology will improve even further in 15 years.
If I'm putting solar panels on the roof I may as well also use wind power.

An article talked about these small scale turbines being able to cut electricity costs in half for a New York apartment building, so I'm sure they wouldn't be useless for my site.

Reference:

McDermott, M. 2009. 10 Small Scale wind turbines cut NYC Apartment Building's Electric Costs in Half. Accessed October 26, 2012. http://www.treehugger.com/renewable-energy/10-small-scale-wind-turbines-cut-nyc-apartment-buildingatms-electric-costs-in-half.html.

Tutorial Week 13..

Things I still need to consider in my design:

• Better water guidance system to channel storm water & create creek systems
• Cultural meshing
• Repopulation of rurual areas
• The day in the life of a person
• How the community serves the festival
• Mitigating the change in levels when building on the hill

What am I going to present:

• Floor plans, sections, elevations
• Site plan of community
• Masterplan of Woodfordia
• Festival structure
• Agricultural systems
• Closed loop diagrams
• Passive design diagrams
• Photomontages
• Structural details

I want to both achieve and communicate:

• Sustainability
• Storm Resilience
• Food production
• Education
• Passive design

Designs..

I've put together a basic design for the community centre as well as housing as they are the two important structures in my design and as they are both simple I think I really should be representing both.

Community Centre

Typical House

 

Exemplars for the 'Community Centre'..

Thinking about how I want the community centre I tried to find a few more designs to help me with the way i want the roof.

I like this simple model, with the split roof and the simplicity to it.

DeBoer Architects. n.d. Bamboo Structures. Accessed October 21, 2012.  http://www.deboerarchitects.com/Bamboostructures.html.

I also found this house in the book 'Off the Grid Homes' but i think i can carry it through with both housing design and community centre design at Woodfordia.

I like the way the building captures the breeze through the centre of it, the large open plan layout, the big timber decking. The large deck is poistioned away fromt he wind, with the house acting as a wind block.
Ryker, L. 2007. Off the Grid Homes. Utah: Gibbs Smith

Tutorial Week 12..

Rather than an amphitheatre or anything like that I think it's more important to get the design of my housing and community centre down pat first.

Because I've been so stuck in actually designing a building to fit within my system i decided to sit down and remind myself of the design principles I wanted to use.

Then I then started sketching out designs I could use in my building, also thinking about all the exemplars I've looked at. The building I've been most interested in is the Community Centre and how it will function with the community and what role it needs to play.

Lecture Week 12..

This week's lecture was on presentation. I figured it was just easier to scan in my notes and sketches becuase there isn't much else to discuss on what I got out of the lecture. Just thoughts about how i'm going to present.

Amphitheatre Designs..

While I'm not going to put too much effort into the amphitheatre constructions for the design side of the assignment I started looking into structural exemplars that I can be putting into my model and final presentation.
While they can serve the festival they can also serve as outdoor educational spaces, for talks and gatherings and educational seminars or presentations.

Bamboo structures can be sustainable and structurally sound and on a site with possibilities for plantations they make a lot of sense to be the main material in most of the construction. There are some amazing structures that can be made with bamboo, some of which I've found and imagine that the amphitheatres might look like in Woodfordia.

The 'Bird Wing' Hanoi, Vietnam by Vo Trong architects:

 
World Architecture News. 2009. Bamboo Bird. http://www.worldarchitecturenews.com/index.php?fuseaction=wanappln.projectview&upload_id=12629. Accessed October 17, 2012.

Bamboo housing exemplars..

Looking into the possibilities for Bamboo structures for the construction of houses as well as the rest of the buildings in the village. They are good for sub-tropical regions and the bamboo can be used just like plantation timber used for housing now.

World Architecture News. 2010. At home in the elements. http://www.worldarchitecturenews.com/index.php?fuseaction=wanappln.projectview&upload_id=14032. Accessed October 17, 2012.

Hempcrete Buildings..

I've realised that the inclusion of hempcrete as well as bamboo in my designs could be really effective in having thermal massing for passive heating and cooling.

Using bracing and cases a hemp house around a timber frame has a nice appearance of a rendered concrete, has thermal mass and from this exemplar I found can be used to design buildings similar to what I'm after.

It will provide a high thermal resistance, it can be made at adjustable thicnesses, low air filtration, has hygroscopic charageristics, so it can absorb water and then release it, usese lime that hasn't been processed with high embodied energy, it is durable and recyclable and accomodated different structural systems.

Refreence:

Hemp News. Hemp House - Asheville. Accessed October 17, 2012.  http://www.hemp.com/2011/03/hemp_house_ashville_north_carolina_video_on_using_hempcrete.

Masterplanning..

In needing to define my systems a little bit clearer like Steph asked, paying more attention to types of agriculture and planting and systems i've developed a more accurate masterplan.