Project 3: Beginning

Gonna stick with Mount Isa rather than change to Brisbane. Think there is a lot to explore still and I really liked where I was heading in the previous assignment.

For Project 3 I was going to do a powerpoint and oral presentation, focusing on the Commercial Main St in the central hub of Mount Isa. There are a fair few points that I think I could discuss:

My intial thought process would be essentially taking the audience through a journey of the street, highlighting things such as:

- Heritage Buildings/History of Street
- Typology/Urban Form
- Influence of Mining
- Influence of British Colonies
- Street Section
- Use of Buildings
- What is a Commercial Avenue
- Any Landmarks/Nodes
- Future Development

Some inital diagrams that I thought would be good
- Nolli of the Street
- Mobilty of Street
- Historical Development of the Street
- Visual Walkthrough

Essentially just cover a lot of the ideas you have presented in the lecture...

Week 8 - Presentation

Link to Prezi
http://prezi.com/bk9heis1gfuf/architecture-and-the-city-mt-isa/

Really happy with the final presentation of Mount Isa. Believe I have covered most of the areas. Still probably a few things that could be added, however, considering this was a individual effort I think I have done just as much as some of the people who were in Groups.

Wasn't able to attend the City Exhibition as I was down the coast competing at the Australian Surf Life Saving Championships. Went mid-week and was really impressed with the quality of work. Particulary the models. Would love to see how people made some of the things that they did. And I am curios as to where I can buy the greenery and trees that people had. Would have looked good on my model....

I think it was evident that some people were pretty rushed for time. I had a look week by week at peoples work to help give myself some ideas to include, and I must say a lot of people hadn't done much until around Week 6/7. Pretty happy that I started from Week 3 and kept doing a little bit each week.

Week 7

This week was dedicated to essentially adding the finishing touches to the report.
I had added the urban form analysis and Mirko has already given me some suggestions to fix it up and make it better. Amazing how the Fi/Fo has impacted the design of the houses. Seems the mining will always have a lasting impression on the town. Really happy with the layout of my report. Have added a few things to make it flow better. I have gone back through the lectures to see if there is anything that I have missed that might be good to use. I thought it would be a good idea to talk about the design and elements of the city. Mainly what type of streets, nodes, landmarks etc. Will work these off my nolli.

Nolli is not great but it was the best I could do with the limited amount of information that I could find on the internet. For future reference I would probably contact a few people to see what I could find. i.e Council and/or Library. Did a urban and street section. Important to show these as it is crucial to the layout of the city.

Pretty happy that I dont have any last minute rushes.

Week 6

Completed a lot of work in the two weeks since our last submission. Finished most of the diagrams all bar the Nolli. Will use the figureground as the basis and edit necessary parts. Still finding it really hard to find floor plans. Have spent hours researching plans for both residential , commercial and public buildings. The council didnt have much nor did the library. This is heavily going to affect the standard of my nolli as I will probably only have 4-6 building in it. Touched up the history section and worked on the introduction (mainly talk ABOUT MOUNT ISA). In recent weeks Mirko has been discussing with me the idea of Mount Isa and Influence of Mining. This has triggered two discussion points that I believe are focal to the report. The first Mount Isa being a Company Town, the second is how has Fi-Fo affected the town. Both are broad subjects which have heavily impacted the development and history of Mount Isa. I spent a large portion of time working and researching these topics.

Was able to complete the following diagrams:

Figureground - map of all the building and roads in central area of Mount Isa (note the significance of the Mining Region)

Growth - historical growth of the town. Had limited resources to do so and had to base a lot of it on text references rather that images. Did this by research development of districts and when the happened. Pretty happy with the outcome.

Mobility - analysis of Roads, Trains and Airport locations

Functional Analysis - spawned from the Figureground. Highlights what each building is used for (residential, commercial, mining etc.)

Finished the Model today. Laser cutting went well. Lucky I planned ahead because they are closed for Project Week. A few pictures below:

Had a look at the feedback Mirko gave me on my progress. Main points i took to work on this week.
 - Need to play with the layout of my Prezi. Will integrate the skyline I made and use that as the basis of the background.
 - Include the text and diagrams on the same slide
 - To many historical photos (I am going to get rid of all of them. Don;t need them and they detract from the presentation)

To Do
 - Add an urban form analysis
 - Nolli
 - Play around with layout 

Mid Semester Break

The mid semester break came at a really good time. I was starting to be overwhelmed with large amounts of work both in this subject and others. I dedicated a large portion of this week to really produce a large amount of quality research and diagrams. I know that the coming weeks will be hectic so I need to be well planned. I started mapping up my model on the computer, ready to have to laser cut. Decided to only focus on a small portion of Mount Isa – mainly because the scale would only allow that much and the area I choose has both the mining region and residential areas in it (the basis of my study). Played with the layout of my Prezi. I don’t want to have just a slide by slide transition. Mirko has already given me some ideas and hinted that the better ones are a well thought out layout. Thought it would be nice to include a skyline of Mount Isa in the main heading. Found some really good historical photos. Will look good in the history analysis.

The feedback that Mirko gave me from last week was really helpful. I was able to alter a few of the diagrams - mainly the settlement clusters – and use them to discuss other parts that will attract a more interesting conversation and theory (i.e.urban form).