As part of the RAIA 2008 National Conference room11 were invited to prepare future visions for Sydney (based on approximately a 50 year projection).
Conference title : Critical Visions: Form, Representation and the Culture of Globalisation
The modular housing system ( MOD ) is a response to the financial, social and environmental impacts of current housing trends. MOD aims to provide an achievable alternative to the way we live, the way we build, and the way we develop communities.
MOD is more than a house, its a building and living system. MOD allows housing to grow and shrink accordingly, allows for denser living, is flexible, customisable, and cheap. MOD can squeeze into existing voids in the city, it can float on the ocean, and be buried underground… it is by no means “the answer” but has been designed to question and speculate onfuture possibilities….
The key area’s MOD addresses are:
- the growing size, cost, and relative inflexibility of contemporary houses
- utilising simple, cheaper building technologies and renewable resources to deliver faster, better outcomes
- higher density / smaller footprint living and development
design team: room11
builder: T.B.A.
status: under development
Independently we have been interested in developing collaborative projects between artists and other designers for some time. Facade Intervention was our first formal collaborative project together. Rather than applying a mural to the facade of the school block, we were interested in intervening with the whole structure. Our approach had two main concepts that drove this intervention:
1: To dissolve the facade using light, reflection and making it responsive to changing environmental factors (weather, time of day, etc.) by effectively creating a massive, fractured mirror.
2: To weave a narrative into the structure (through text) which would also serve as a pattern generator, i.e. the text appears to be a pattern from a distance but turns into text and readable narratives closer to the building.
design team: James Newitt + room11
builder: James Newitt + room11
status: Completed
photographer: James Newitt
An abstracted room within a room, this was a product of a rewarding collaboration with Greg Methe for an improvised performance space for the final of istheatre’s UTE series. Themes developed over previous UTE
installations / performances were consolidated into a dynamic, layered, transformational, minimal set - objects with memory; domestic materials and apparent solidity of form transformed into liquid membranes of lace,
able to be wrapped, twisted and stretched, and at the end return to its original state through an ingenious system of counterweights and pulleys.
design team: Greg Methe, Ryk Goddard, Aaron Roberts, James Wilson
design team: room11, istheatre
engineer: Greg Methe
builder: Greg Methe
status: completed
A space as a catalyst for experience. An immersive experience changing ones frame of reference from the immediate with hints of the spatial context within the vicinity of kelly’s steps and salamanca.
A concentration of volume referencing the sky, the ground and enhancing ones awareness of self in space.
INTRODUCTION
The Island Proposition 2100 embodies hyper-connectivity.
The IP2100 spine contains a looped system of hybrid infrastructures, initiating a new symbiotic relationship between the urban centres and their supporting territories. An extensive network on the multi-regional scale provides cites with the resources to become robust and responsive to future challenges.
The connectivity of the globe has been achieved, both physically and intangibly, through new linkages that strengthen communications; this has effects on politics, economics, and culture. Once (re)connected with the mainland, Tasmania, no longer isolated from the rest of the country, will become aligned with broader Australian and international agendas. As a result, the scale of urban territories will continue to be reframed as new connections are formed. Cities become “spatial peaks within stretching regional fields.”[1] Distributed between Melbourne and Hobart, the spine will form new urban types by carrying the flows of exchange, allocating stocks, converting ‘waste’ to resources, and providing living, industrial, and commercial spaces along the network. A balanced system of exchange of population, information, material, and capital flows will maintain a steady stream along the spine. The spine carries Energy, water and agriculture goods (from the new foodbowl in the midlands) which become valuable stocks to solve the predicted shortages on the mainland.
The spine will transport people and goods with an initial implementation of magnetic levitation (maglev) technology, significantly reducing the time and pollution of current travel methods. Centres along the spine will function as hubs for a larger network of sub-stations that feed into the spine and increase the accessibility to other parts of the island. Both trains and individual transit vehicles will run along this high-speed inter-state transport network. The linear axis will work towards minimising sprawl and concentrating growth along its route. Urban clusters along the spine will assist in maintaining the island’s natural spatial reserves, producing a densified urban condition.
In addition to functioning as a means of transporting stocks and flows, the spine will be an efficient hybrid infrastructural model by harvesting energy on site via solar, wind, and tidal mechanisms, cleaning grey water with constructed wetlands along the length of the track, and acting as a rainwater catchment. These services will plug into the loop, sending outputs to urban centres and receiving inputs in the form of nutrients from compostable waste and grey water that will return to the midlands agricultural region to complete the cycle. A living system will be inserted into a larger network, paving the way for future linkages on a macro scale.
The future of Australia’s strength and resiliency lies in the connectivity of the continent as accomplished through the development of a closed-loop infrastructural system.
[1] Ronald Wall “Global/Local” in The Regionmaker: Rhein Ruhr City, edited by MVRDV, Ostfilder-Ruit, Germany: Hatje Cantz, 2002, p. 29
TEAM:
Scott Lloyd, room11, and Katrina Stoll
Support / Research team:
Lara van den Berg (Sustainability Programs Manager, Hydro Tasmania) Climate Futures Tasmania (Antarctic Climate and Ecosystems - CRC)
Eben Simmons - Umow Lai - www.umowlai.com.au
Megan Baynes (Urban designer)
James Newitt (Artist - PHD fine arts UTAS)
Jesse Shipway (PHD Cultural studies /English – UTAS)
Allen Kearns (Deputy Chief, CSIRO Sustainable Ecosystems)
Dr Arko Lucieer (lecturer and researcher in GIS and remote sensing in the Centre for Spatial Information Science : UTAS)
Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETH)
Adam Walker Film
Room11 + Scott Lloyd + team have been short-listed to prepare and present a developed proposal for Stage 2 of the ‘NOW + WHEN Australian Urbanism’ exhibition in Venice next year.
Expressions of interest were sought for the design of a future Australian city 2050 + that explores the creative potential of architecture, addressing the fundamental problems of Australian Urbanism. How will our ocean-urban interfaces change, how will our sprawl be densified, will our historic overlay precincts survive densification, how will the role of our cities develop in the matrix of world urbanism.
The abstract: ( to be developed and refined during stage 2 )
ISLAND PROPOSITION 2100
Tasmania has an urban and cultural condition of divisions, between the island and the mainland, between industry and
wilderness, protection and utilisation. In opposition to this condition the built environment offers an intimate experiential connection to wilderness, via the surrounding ocean and diverse topography.
IP2100 consolidates previous tenuous links via a hi-speed transit and infrastructure spine connecting the mainland with
the Island‘s North West city conglomerate and the port City of Hobart. No longer acting as a rogue, insular colonial outpost, the island becomes interconnected with the broader Australian position; multicultural and inclusive.
The transit spine supplies energy (ideally situated to harness wind and wave energy) and water to the mainland exposing
and challenging the islands idiosyncratic urban condition. Urbanism is thus defined as a connective infrastructure containing and channelling flows of information, energy, and capital.
What problems and opportunities are present within the dichotomies of this future Tasmanian condition? What are the ramifications of connecting that which is disconnected?
FULL TEAM
Lead:
Room11 + Scott Lloyd
Katrina Stoll (B.A Cultural Anthropology Cornell Unversity + M.Arch. Columbia University)
Co-editor: Cities of Change: Transformation Strategies for Urban Territories in the 21st Century
Research / support:
Allen Kearns (Deputy Chief, CSIRO Sustainable Ecosystems)
Dr Arko Lucieer (lecturer and researcher in GIS and remote sensing in the Centre for Spatial Information Science : UTAS)
Lara van den Berg (Sustainability Programs Manager, Hydro Tasmania) Climate Futures for Tasmania (Antarctic Climate and Ecosystems - CRC)
Eben Simmons (Umow Lai - www.umowlai.com.au
Megan Baynes (Urban designer)
James Newitt (Artist - PHD fine arts UTAS)
Jesse Shipway (PHD Cultural studies /English – UTAS)
southsouthwest - Graphic design / visual communications
ETH university, Zurich
Aaron Roberts ( room11 ) and Fashion Designer Alexi Freeman team up for their second installation as part of the State of Design Festival in Melbourne this week, continuing their experiments into the re-interpretation of Freeman’s clothing design and pattern making. The AFAR 2 project disects and layers the plaid from Freeman’s S/S 09-10 collection, applying it to a topographical re-hash of the original flapper motif from AFAR 1. Cad models are brought to life using handcrafted stencil techniques and… sticky tape! The extrusion and layering of the pattern allows for a build up of complexity, a volumetric interplay of light, shadow and pattern. The hope is that these ongoing investigations will inform and influence future work in their respective disciplines.
As part of the Lorreal Melbourne Fashion Festival 2009, Aaron Roberts from Room11 collaborates with Alexi Freeman Fashion Designer to produce a pop up store for his Criss Cross Collection 09. Exploring this years LMFF theme of cause / effect ,the project will explore production methods of pattern making and possible volumetric outcomes when related to the field of Architecture. Via a topographical extrusion of Freemans’ dress patterns, spatial constructs for the Pop up store will be created.
Images and timelapsevideo below!
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As part of design island 2009, room11 have extended their original mod design into the realm of containers. This year we’re building a prototype to be situated at Salamanca place from the 1st - 8th of May 2009. Come and visit to see the array of different design possibilities and check out the inside of a single module.
