Week 5

Really happy with this week’s progress. I decided to stop doing any more research and begin doing graphical maps and representations, to act as a catalyst presenting ideas and further points to research. Below are some of the main maps I was able to produce. They are:

-          Forma Urbis – a layout of the towns boundaries and the main access via roads, trains etc.

-          Settlement Clusters – a diagram that highlight the main areas that people settle in. I envisage that this will eventually develop into a historical analysis map.

-          Mining Region v.s Rest of Town – good to highlight how dominant the mining industry is. Will start discussion points and theory with this.

-          Water Supply – shows where the town gets it main water from (Lake Moondarra)

 I also focused on some demographics of the town. Just as a key indicator to the size of the town. Struggled to find house plans and historical pictures that show the development of the town. This defiantly will need to be done to help start the nolli and other maps.

To Do:
 - Draw up Model on Computer
 - Begin

Week 4

I was very keen to begin this assignment as I am already finding this a very informative subject. Personally I found it a bit hard to find information of Mount Isa. This was probably due to two reasons – I didn’t know where to look for it and I didn’t actually know what information I was looking for. I thought it was best to begin with basic information and history of Mount Isa. These were best found on council sites. A timeline and To-DO list also proved to be rather helpful for the progression of work that needs to be completed in the coming weeks. 

Mirko raised some interesting points in the feedback he gave. He suggested that I focus on the mining and the influence that it has had on the town. This I believe is a good idea as already in the minimal amount of research I have studied it already appears that mining was and still is integral to the towns existence. It was born from mining and still accounts for around 70% of the commercial value of the town. I want to start the model rather early as I know that the laser cutter will be rather busy in coming weeks. 

To Do for next week:

-          Influence of Fly In – Fly Out

-          Begin maps (nolli, forma urbis etc.)

-          Mining Region

-          More History Analysis

Lecture 4

From know on I am going to use the lectures and reflect on them in terms of Mount Isa.

A lot of the information the Mirko discussed is relevant to Mt Isa

Not to sure exactly on the Building typology, but I imagine that the British Colonial style will be largely evident in the town. There would also be basic housing in residential areas - due to the influence of the mining industry.

The streets of Mount Isa are quite large. In particularly the commercial area. They are commercial avenues. There are also a large number of dirt roads in the town as the Mining Industry use them to access certain areas. There is no mall however, the Main Street could be considered one as it lead up to a node at the end - that being City Council Chambers.

Mount Isa does not have a town square. As it seems that there is not one area that seems a central gathering point.

Beginning of Project and Lecture Review

For the project I was given the option of two cities – Mount Isa and Roma.

I chose to do a study of Mount Isa for a number of reasons:

1.       I had a limited but still more substantial knowledge of Mount Isa compared to Roma

2.       I believed it presented a greater opportunity for the assignment. In particularly historically and commercially i.e. can talk about the mines

I think there is a lot to talk about with Mount Isa, I am a little worried that due to its remote location that it might be hard to access information. But I guess everyone else will have that problem because they are doing cities if different countries.

The lecture that Mirko presented was very interesting. The studio activity that can be seen below is I belive a great way to understand how cities have developed and get across a large amount of information in simple diagrammatic form. I believe the diagrams also highlight other keys issues i.e. why the city has been built that way (typography influences etc) as well as a clear influence that cultural factors play on the layout (eg. colonial Europe). I will definitely be using these in the assignment to show the growth of Mount Isa.

Analyse the City

The following exercises were aimed at gaining an understanding of different ways to analyse an urban environment

Historical Timeline

The above sketches highlight the growth of Brisbane over almost a century and a half. The darkest shade of red highlights the earliest structures while the lightest is the most recent. As you can see the central hub as slowly expanded out onto all edges of the river

Mobility Analysis

The diagram highlights the major transport routes in and out of the Brisbane CBD. As you can see there a various major roads connecting each other. I chose to only include a few secondary roads and I believe it is not necessary to highlight them all. The chosen ones rather just show alternate routes to the major roads. The train line is only present in the top right hand corner, whilst the ferry access both banks of the river.

Functional Analysis

The picture above shows the division of functions used around the Fortitude Valley region. There is a dominant commercial use, due to the locality of the city. The commercial use spans from, businesses, restaurants and nightclub etc. The residential areas continue to grow past what is seen on the right hand side.  There is a limitation on parkland's and All Hallows School is the only educational facility.

Urban Morphology

I choose to represent the urban morphology using a 3D representation. I thought this was a good way to do it as it depicts the high rise buildings and already shows a boundary without the need to make it visually eminent. The high rise buildings are restricted within the CBD with medium density buildings expanded outwards all over, similarly this is the case with the low set residential buildings. Both the high rise and medium density again have varied use, as discussed in the Functional Analysis. There is again a limit on park lands, however, the Botanic Gardens is a distinct visual indicator and large portion of the CBD

Week 2: Read the City

Journey from QUT to Howard Smith Wharves

This exercise was aimed at helping us better understand how to read an urban environment. My journey began at QUT was mostly along the river untill I reached the top of the cliffs shadowing the Howard Smith Wharves. The Story Bridge was used as a visual cue to help me gather my direction and I kept trying to use that as a refernece.

 

Lecture 2: Review

Perception

Mirko began this week on the topic of perception. He used a Charlie Brown magazine cartoon to began the discussion. My interpretation of perception is how we view and see certain things. Our minds break down the image and transform that into a function for us to understand the complexities of it. This begs the question. Do we all see the exact same thing? Most likely yes, but if we have never seen the object before then it is not recognisable to us and we have no connection to it. Take the Parthenon for example. To a tourists eye they see a decrepit historical building connected to the maiden goddess Athena, slowly withering away into even more of a ancient ruin. To a designers and architects eye they see a engineering wonder. A marvel of colonnades gentle holding up an almighty entabulator. A pure work of craftsmanship highlighting the skills of Classical Greece.

http://www.123rf.com/photo_9722030_greece-parthenon-sketch.html

The idea of perception carried on through the work of Jane Jacobs. Mirko asked the question. How do people use space? In my opinion space is an object of interaction, whether that be private or public. Taking this further the idea of how people use the city space can be discussed and can be broken down into some key criteria:

1. People use the city to work and socialise. Does this occur?

2. They must first feel comfortable in the environment in which they are situated. 

3. The city needs to be accessible and be linked different areas. 

4. It must be a hub for activities and a place for comfort. 

As shown in the lecture Pruit Igoe in St Louis was a poor example of this and did not meet any of the criteria stated above. Everyone may perceive the city in a different manner, however, they still all need to feel a sense of every single one of the four items above for the city to be a city.

The works done by Kevin Lynch and Gordon Cullen are a good example of how we each perceive things differently. They both did a thorough analysis of cities and yet only choose certain points to highlight and discuss. They found that some things seemed more important and critical to them than other stuff. We all do the same thing without even knowing it.

Week 1: Describe the City

Forma Urbis

The above diagram represents the city boundary for the Queensland town of Toowoomba. The yellow lines indicate the major roads running in and out of the town. The blue represent the rivers and lakes and the orange is the train line running though the city. The boundary line was determined by the density of the buildings. The outskirts of the town transformed from residential buildings into more farming and regional areas.

Conceptual Representation

The above diagram represents a conceptional idea of how I perceived the green space with the Brisbane area. The grey lines represent the major roads linking the city and Fortitude Valley together. The green areas depict the spaces in the area that contain trees and natural environments. As you can see there are very limited areas except for the upper left hand corner. This would be due to the density of the buildings dispersing and becoming more parkland's. I did not include every little bit of greenery as some of the residential areas did have some in there backyards. Instead I choose to represent more public areas. It is noticeable to see that there is very limited areas along the river. I would have thought that there wasn't much development right on the edge of the water.

City Pattern

 

The drawing above is an indication of the city pattern. The white lines are all of the roads linking the city together. As you can see there is not really a clear structure in the layout of Brisbane's roads. It is more of a natural/organic form. They do conform to the rivers edge and in some areas do begin a grid pattern work, but it is still not a planned city. There is no single one major road except for the story bridge but that then divides into multiple exits. I thought it was important to show the river in the diagram as it depicts the two separate land masses and how the bridge joins them together. It also highlights as stated prior how the roads run along the rivers edge.

Figureground Map

 

The above figureground show the density and cluster of the buildings in the city and Fortitude Valley. It is clear to see that due to the steep cliffs on the right hand side there is limitation of buildings that can be erected. Also due to the location being a flood plain there are few buildings built on the rivers edge. With the expection being the Howard Smith Wharves. The map again highlight no planned structure, but an organic formation.

Nolli Map

The nolli above higlightsd the interior statuses of the Howard Smith Wharves ocated under the Story Bridge and also the grounds of All Hallow School. The Nolli shows surrounding features aswell as the internal walls of the buildings.

Urban Section

The urban section cuts along the story bridge, cliffs and up onto the main street of Bowen Terrace into the residential apartments. It shows the topography and natural lay of the land. The cliffs are quite steep which restrict buildins and the locations of the Howard Smith Wharves are subject to flooding due to the low lying area next to the river.

Street Section

The street section is along a residential highrise and into All Hallows School. It is a good reprsentaion of the height of the buildings adjacent to eachother. The dip in the road is cause by an upcoming overpass so a small tunnel is made for the cars to pass under it. As you can see the ground is continually rising up but this sson flattens out.