Site - Newtown Site 1

Site 1 is very long but not as wide as the other two sites. At the front of the site on King Street, it is sandwiched between two buildings that are about the same height, which was estimated to be about 8 metres. At the back there is a more narrow street and the site is sandwiched between the same building on the right but there is a parking lot on the left. Across the street there is a memorial park. The height of the surrounding buildings does not vary much - the height of the tallest building is probably at most 2 metres taller than the samlelst building.


The facades of the neighbouring buildings are all quite different in style, but the buildings are rely on a horizontal arcade type roof that runs along the street front. This is how the shops are identified. It could be interesting breaking this horizontal element with a vertical wall, which would stand out.

Artists

Stephen (Steve) Powers

Steve Powers is a street artist from New York City, but he has also done a lot of work in Philedelphia. He originally worked under the name ESPO creating graffiti art around New York. He covered storefront grates aorund the city and told people, "I'm with Exterior Surface Painting Outreach, and I'm cleaning up this gate." In 2000, Powers decided to become a studio artist, where he still creates artwork to express something. Recently, Powers was involved in a Philedelphia project called "A Love Letter For You," in which he created 50 different murals on buildings around the elevated train, which are all about relationships. He was also involved in a travelling art exhibition, which was in Europe last year. The art exhibition called "Beautiful Losers" exhibited quite a few current street artists. It could be interesting for the art gallery to have a wall Powers to create graffiti artwork on that could be constantly changed. The space inside will need to be flexible to allow for the different mediums that Powers works with.

'I Love You Necklace' from A Love Letter For You

'Home Now' from A Love Letter For You

'Knocked On Your Door' from A Love Letter For You

Book Cover of Powers' book on graffiti
Interior of Stephen Power's installation for the 'Beautiful Losers' exhibition

Francoise Nielly

Franch contemporary artist that works with oil on canvas with a palette knife technique. She uses vivid colour to mostly create sensual portraits that express different emotions. Although these portraits are not street art, they relate to the artwork that Steve Powers creates because of the vividness of the colour and the expressiveness of the paintings. The paintings are usually quite large ranging from at least 1 square metre to 2 or more square metres, which means that the space needs to be quite large and with dark walls so that the colour contrasts with the wall and appears even brighter. These paintings will sell well in the urban environment found in Newtown because they are very bold and bohemian.
www.francoise-nielly.com

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Grace

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Precedent Study

Zaha Hadid
Contemporary Arts Center (CAC) Cincinnati, Ohio

Zaha Hadid uses a lot of interesting overlaying of forms that make her CAC look like a sculptural piece, but it still fits in with the scale and composition of the surrounding urban environment. The galleries are fit together like a jigsaw. The circulation inside is made up of ramps and rooms. There is a lobby first where people can mingle and then the gallery and studio spaces are upstairs and off to the sides of the vertical circulation. Although the lobby is made of glass, most of the light in the building comes from above through large openings over the ramps which lead up to the mezzanine area. The building was designed to continue the pedestrian flow in the city - so the lobby was made from glass to be a square to draw people in.


http://www.arcspace.com/architects/hadid/cac/index.html
http://www.zaha-hadid.com/

The Singapore Changi Airport Terminal 3

The roof of this terminal uses 919 specially designed skylights with louvres which let in an optimal amount of light to create an evenly naturally lit space. The louvres reflect the light where its needed.

Project 2: Painting and Narrative

Johannes Vermeer - Girl Reading a Letter at an Open Window

Narrative:

A tightly enclosed space for a young girl, who loves to read, to hide herself away from the world.

Important Elements in Painting:

The folds of the curtain
The drape of the curtain over the window
The window at head height
The evenness of the light
The subtlety of the light

Important Ideas Regarding Light

Light from above is more subtle and allows for the space to receive natural light while maintaining the tightly enclosed space idea. It clearly defines the interior from the exterior. The windows are set at different angles to allow for the sun to penetrate the building through out the morning as it rises in the sky. In Louis Kahn's Kimbell Art Museum, he uses light from above to subtley light the curves in the concrete to allow for natural light while not allowing direct sunlight to penetrate his space. It was with this in mind that I designed my library.

Draft Ideas

Site

The site is Mitchell Falls in Western Australia, which has a cliff face that faces East to get the morning sun in through the openings in the curved face. It is also a very remote cliff next to a waterfall in which there is a deck for the young girl to sit on, that sits above the cliff.

Project 2 - Final Submission

Drawings Parti

Floor Plan

Section

Axonometric

Model