Week #14

Final Submission

Today is the final chapter of both my online blog and my final pieces of assessment. I had to get up bright and early this morning so that I could be at University at 8am, in time for the opening of the J-Block workshops. I had to get in early in order to complete the sealing process for my plaster model and have it ready to paint as soon as possible. I managed to complete the painting process today, its not really the best example of a painted model, but its the best I can achieve with the materials available to me. I couldn't leave the model white since it needs to fit into the Brisbane city model realistically. 

And below is a photograph of the actual St Johns Cathedral in Brisbane.

Another Look

Looking back over the semester we have learnt a great deal about architecture and its place within a city context. During the first lecture, Mirko asked us to analyse an image of a small city and describe what we saw in architectural terms. The image can be seen below, and as can be found in my first blog entry, Week #1, I gave the best description I could with the knowledge that I had at the time. 

Image presented to us in week #1

As the unit comes to an end I'd like to look back at this image and describe what I see today using everything I have learnt over the past 14 weeks. When I look back and read what I've written in week #1 I still agree with my basic description, but now I can discuss the finer details of the city. The city uses an organic template which follows the contours of the rising land and is contained by the edges of the lake. From the images, the closely constructed cottages create a recurring typology and a distinct district area in the southern portion of the city. This district is a thick place that looks to be popular with the locals as their cottages form edges along the streets creating a clear path through the city. At the heart of the city, the casino acts as a landmark, its huge walls can be seen from any part of the city and lake. I still believe that this is a small part of a larger city, as no industrial area can be seen and the immediate countryside hasn't been cultivated. 

Final Reflections

Reflecting on the semester that has just past I can say that I've learnt a great deal more about architecture and its place in the world. Architecture isn't just a building to shelter us from the weather or contain our belongings, it's a part of who we are as a society and where we are heading in the future. Analysing a city can reveal a lot of information on its past, present and future to a point where you can predict what step we might take next, or what options are available to us. I believe to be a good architect I need to look at these developments and appreciate our heritage and respect it, not take away from it and build over it. The key to good urban design is to respect the architecture within it, and at the same time provide the community with what they need in respect to their cultural identity. These lessons I will take with me and apply to every aspect of design that I participate in, in the future. 

Week #13

Cities and Signs

Unfortunately I missed this weeks lecture, making it in time only for the final tutorial group, however the topic of the lecture intrigues me and I'd like to talk about what I believe cities and signs might mean.
The urban environment would be bland and confusing without the aid of signs, whether they are simple traffic lights or billboards their relevance is both equally important. Traffic lights and road directions both assist people in travelling the city, they might give directions to locations of interest for tourists, prevent accidents from occurring and assist in helping you reach your destination as easily as possible. Billboards and advertisements are just as important, they promote products and services and even shape the way buildings are designed in order to promote these products or services. Look at the images below by Gregor Graf, they have been altered in such a way as to remove all forms of signs leaving a bland, colourless cityscape behind. 

Hidden towns by Gregor Graf with signs and details digitally removed

Hidden towns by Gregor Graf with signs and details digitally removed

These places look deserted and would fall into crime such as vandalism, it is also hard to tell the buildings apart and know what they are used for. It is clear just from looking at these images that a city needs signs to identify itself and provide an informative lifestyle for its community. Below is a video clip of Skymovies idea of a world without Billboards, rather interesting video clip:

Project #3

One week left until this blog and my assignment #3 are due for submission and I still have a lot of work ahead of me. As the week started I still haven't had my model of St Johns Cathedral 3D printed, as Simon had to prioritise other students work and I happily accepted being done afterwards. The creative essay was well and truly on its way to being completed, with the rough draft done by mid week and the CRA sheet adjusted accordingly. 

As the days passed I completed the creative essay and finalised the CRA sheet with a smile on my face. 
On Friday I was hoping to pick up my cathedral model, BUT another problem has occurred and now the workshop has run out of the bonding agent they need to seal the model and make it solid. TIME TO START STRESSING! I'll have to get into J Block workshops first thing Monday morning and pray to god they had a delivery of the bonding agent so that I can atleast start painting it before COB on Monday.

Reflections

Even though i missed out on the lecture, my brief research into topics on the urban city and signs has been very interesting and somewhat exciting! To be given a topic and the will to research it alone has opened my eyes to new meanings and images that I don't think I would have seen otherwise. In this case I followed a blog about cities and signs which can be found at Kosmograd: City of Signs that discusses a world without billboards, images or basically any evidence of human contact. Some people replied to this blog saying that the images were much cleaner and visually pleasing, I however have my doubts that such a bland cityscape could hold a community effectively. How would we know what shops to go to? or that its even a shop in the first place without some kind of signage? How would we learn about various products and services if billboards weren't there to encourage us? We would be stuck in a world were everything remained the same unless you read about it or seen it on TV, I personally think that is a very boring concept. 

Week #12

Eco-Cities

This weeks lecture was split into three separate presentations that each covered the idea of an Eco-City and how it should be designed. The first presentation was done by guest lecturer Elise Robertson, the second by Magdalena Kowalik and the final presentation by Susan Loh. 

Elise discussed three main types of Eco-Cities and their positive and negative points:

The Garden City - Centres become overcrowded due to circular shape, and affordability becomes an issue. These cities are planned and always include bounding gardens and parks.

Howards Garden City Plan

Historic City Centres - These cities evolve over time and are generally walkable cities such as rome. They lack the ability to keep up with current technology such as transportation, so the use of cars is rather difficult in these places.

Utopian Green Cities - These cities have continuous landscape and try to avoid the 'urban sprawl' by creating an ideal and hygienic housing environment. This unfortunately detaches people from the streetscape causing communal problems. 


Magdalena discussed the context of sustainability, and where we are with sustainable design today considering how long we have had the knowledge to be environmentally friendly. She went on to talk about how sustainability effects everything and everyone, not just the architectural community and this can be seen in the diagram below. 

Sustainability Diagram

As architects we need to think full circle and achieve, contribute, add, enhance and change the way things are designed. Most importantly change the way we think about design and the way others see it. 


Finally Susan discussed Eco-Cities from the points of view of other architects from many years ago and how these ideas could and have influenced future urban design. One way of tackling eco-design is to analyse the surroundings, the water, agriculture, slopes, animals, land use and pollution of an area and try to reverse the damage or design to filter it. There were many radical examples of eco-cities from famous architects such as Frank Lloyd Wright and many others. 

Project #3

This week I have been working on my creative essay component for the final assessment piece. I have almost completed an entire draft, however some parts I'm not entirely happy with and they will require more work later in the week. I also visited Simon this week to see how the model of my Cathedral went, and unfortunately the model cracked because the walls in the 3D model (.3ds file) were too thin to support its weight in the machine, and oddly enough part of the powder didn't attach correctly which was a fault on the machines behalf. So I've readjusted the model and thickened various parts as well as added some additional details which can be seen in the images below.

Wall thickness of Cathedral model

Front of Cathedral

Back of Cathedral

Reflections

This weeks lecture series has been a bit of an eye opener in regards to how slowly we have adjusted to the concept of sustainable design. For almost the past 90 years or so architects and artists have been thinking of sustainable design in both small and large scale projects, most of which have never come to realisation. Only now is sustainable design becoming the norm. However the damage is already done, I believe as architects we need to know how to design for the environment and how to redesign what has already been made. I think the money will be in refitting old buildings to bring them up to sustainable design standards. The idea of an Eco-City might be achievable by keeping what we already know and own but just renovating it to create a healthy lifestyle for us and our environment. 

Week #11

Architecture + Architecture

This week we had the privilege of having a lecture presented by Peter Richards from Deicke Richards, an architecture firm in Brisbane. Peter discussed urban planning and how to create a memorable place by considering walkability, diversity, proximity, connectivity, accessibility, legibility and community. 
The first quality that is noticed when looking at a place is its setting or location, the geographical and typographical features create a place by altering its appearance naturally. The next important quality is an identifiable centre or edge such as a main street or shopping district and so forth. A town becomes memorable from the experiences a person obtains in city centres or entering the city from the countryside. Streets are also important in creating a memorable experience, they create mobility in a city for cars, bicycles and people who use them for a variety of purposes. Parks and Squares reveal the collective personality of a community, they usually host events such as markets, meetings places and areas of play. The architecture is another important element in creating a memorable place, urban facilities assist locals with everyday tasks and heritage structures give the city a rich historical diversity. Lastly, the activities and the people in the area contribute to the experience of place by providing something unique to the area or culture. 
All of these elements are what create a place and more importantly make a place a memorable experience.

Project #3

This week I worked on completing a 3D version of my Cathedral model which can be seen below. I'm hoping when I go into University on Friday I'll be able to book myself in to use the 3D printer in the J-Block workshops. I think the 3D Printer is the best way to make such an intricate model and it will be a new learning experience for myself, as this is the first time using Google Sketchup and the 3D printer.

St Johns Cathedral

St Johns Cathedral

Reflections

This week has been productive on a number of different levels, I have learnt how to use new programs and create amazing objects with them and I have had the opportunity to look at a city from the perspective of a well known architect. Peters views however are very much in line with Mirko's idea of memorable places and it's nice to see that these ideas are considered and carried throughout the professional practice. 

The topics covered in the lecture this week can all be applied to Brisbane city, even though I have limited experiences with different cities, I believe that Brisbane is a good example of a memorable city. Brisbane has a good public transportation system that allows you to access almost any part of the city as well as great walkability and proximity. However as a community Brisbane seems to lack a cultural identity due to mass diversity of people, we aren't as rich in community as most other places. As for legibility, Brisbane can at times be rather confusing unless your local and well adjusted to the area. Overall I believe that even if a city is missing some of these key elements or doesn't cover them sufficiently, the place may still have a chance of becoming memorable, just maybe not in a good way.

Week #10

Cities and Memory

This weeks lecture discussed the concept of memory and place and how we create a sense of place from our own personal experiences. An interesting concept was mentioned about sense of place about if you've never been somewhere where the culture and lifestyle is different you'll take a long time to regain a sense of place. However if you move from Brisbane to Hobart for example, your sense of place won't take as long to develop as your already adjusted to the culture.

Another important topic covered in this weeks lecture was history and how every place has its own historical background. Since architecture is a four-dimensional element (with time being the fourth dimension), all structures carry a sense of time with them and time can age them badly if they aren't correctly cared for. In an attempt to preserve our history cities use the following methods:

- Reproduce damaged structures

- Copy the previous morphology 

- Maintain or preserve the existing structure

- Relocate nearby and keep the original structures

An example of preservation is the Coliseum in Rome as shown in the image below. The coliseum has been restored in various ways after being destroyed in order to create other structures. A part of the coliseum has been reproduced as can be seen below, while on the other side a part of the structure was reinforced in order to preserve it. 

Rome - Coliseum

Project #3

This week in our tutorial group we had the chance to look at the 1:500 Brisbane City Model in D-block and choose a building that we would like to model and discuss in our final piece of assessment. I chose to do the St Johns Cathedral, a 100 year old piece of Brisbane City heritage. Below shows the Brisbane City Model and the Cathedrals location and surroundings.

Over the weekend I took a trip into the city to analyse the context of the city around the St Johns Cathedral. Catching the train to Central Station and walking to the Cathedral allowed me to take in the rich context that surrounds the site. A lot of old churches and buildings are found along this route, making it rich in historical context which will be excellent for my creative essay. Below is an image of the St Johns Cathedral.

St Johns Cathedral

Reflections

The idea of preserving our heritage is something that young architects today will have to embrace as time goes on. Brisbane is a good example of this, as we continue to expand our infrastructure we consume land at an alarming rate. Today it is becoming more important to reuse previously neglected spaces, such as old buildings and refit them to be more sustainable and modern. As an architecture student I'm very focused on sustainable design and believe that it will be more important in the future to reuse rather then rebuild, saving both our heritage and our land from being consumed. 

Week #9

Considering Project #3

Over the semester break I've given consideration to what I would like to do in the next project for DAB525. We were given the opportunity to continue working on our current city (mine was Kabul) or start again on the city of Brisbane. Today I emailed Mirko asking to be placed in the Brisbane group since Kabul's infrastructure is severely damaged and provides hardly any interest for me.


The Brisbane City model looks amazing, and I can't wait to get started working on a section! Hopefully I can select somewhere close by or easy to access via public transport so that research the site won't be too time consuming. 

Brisbane City Model

Reflections


Over the break I have been considering this new project and the history of the city of Brisbane and how I'll tackle the next research component. Fortunately we have various historical maps available to us on Architecture and the City's BlackBoard site as well as a 1:500 scale model of the entire central area of Brisbane, showing a rough (uncompleted) context of the city and various areas. It is good to see the scale of structures compared to others and how they've influenced the various spaces in the city. 

Week #8

City Exhibition

This week we had our city exhibition in J Block which required us to display our poster on an A1 panel along side our scale model of Kabul. The Exhibition was rather exciting, it was good to see the level of work that other groups were capable of achieving, and it was beneficial to speak with other students on the processes they went through to construct their scale models. Overall our entire piece of assessment was of good quality when compared to some other pieces of assessment, the photograph below shows our presentation set up.

Kabul Exhibition set up

We received our feedback for our poster and I needed to make the following adjustments before the 27th of April:

- Include Kabul in its true name

- Enlarge the image size of the traditional house and elevations of the city of light

- Reduce the size of the map of Afghanistan

- Remove the title decoration and choose one that is more suitable to Kabul

After making the above adjustments to the poster, I arrived at the following poster design for our final submission. Although I'm not overly happy with the layout of the report, I'm very happy with the way the images sit together nicely in the space provided. 

Poster redone after the exhibition

Reflections


Now that the assessment is over, my final reflection is that I now know how to analyse a city and put that information into suitable images so that the data can be compared effectively. My techniques may need improvement, but this is something that I can fine tune over a period of time and through-out my many assessment pieces that I'll complete in the not so distant future.  

Week #7

City Desires

Unfortunately I missed today's part of the lecture series, and an interesting discussion about cities from the guest lecturers. However I have seen the online podcast and managed to get a few pieces of the guest lecturer answering students questions. The questions revolved around privately owned public spaces, areas that were required to be returned to public use but don't follow public area rules. In this discussion it was mentioned that private refers to customers with public refers to citizens.
I also learnt a great deal about what can be analysed in a city using Luino in Italy as an example. Project #3 was also discussed as next week there will be no lecture because of the city exhibition and project #2 due date. 
Project #3 is a Student Negotiated Assessment that is due in week 14, we are allowed to remain with our Project #2 city choice or we can email Mirko (between the 1 and 5 of May) and ask to do Brisbane city, which is what I might do. 

Project #2 


This week our group needs to basically have the entire piece of assessment completed prior to the weekend. I've been left in charge of assembling the poster and considering a layout for the report, while the rest of the group works on constructing the model in J block this Friday. 
The poster layout has been rather difficult to assemble due to the various sizes that are needed for certain elements and the amount of text from the report, as well as a general lack of time due to group members not sending their contributions. Another major issue was trying to enlarge the images without causing too much distortion in the process. The completed design can be seen below, this was printed and placed on a panel ready for the exhibition on Monday.

Poster used for City Exhibition

Reflections


This week has been a nightmare, I have two other pieces of university assessment due as well as numerous rostered days at work, I've emailed the team regarding my concerns and hopefully Friday we can help each other complete the report and model. 
One thing I regret about this assignment is not having most of the major components finished or drafted prior to tutorial sessions. If we were better prepared we could have received valuable feedback from Helena on our images and report. As it stands I'm rather worried about the content of the poster which is basically worth 80% of our marks for project #2.

Week #6

Around the world in 8 Cities

Today's lecture discussed a variety of cities and previous examples completed by past design students. After today I have a good idea of what is expected from us for our poster in project #2 and how our scale models should be done.

Things to consider are:

- Report has no word limit

- Nolli map is required (week 3)

- Urban environment investigation (weeks 1 to 4)

- Images sized according to importance

- Blackboard readings should be incorporated and referenced

- Monuments etc should be highlighted
- 1:1000 model (600x600)
- A1 landscape poster

Project #2 Group Work

Today as a group we distributed further research and poster components between each other, with a goal of completing the majority of the A1 panel by next Monday. The remaining part of the panel (report) will be left until after the model construction has begun.

The tasks were divided as follows:

- Blair: Complete Nolli map of our selected area

- Angela: Street sections of both new and old parts of the city

- Alan: Timeline, historical analysis maps

- Myself: Poster layout and any additional components

I begun work on designing the poster straight away, sketching out rough layouts for the A1 panel as can be seen in the image below.

As the week progressed I continued work on the poster template and have arrived at the design shown below. This design will inevitably change over the coming weeks as the team sends me the nolli maps, timeline and other imagery. 

Reflections

This week has been much slower than I would have liked, I haven't heard anything from the group members, and I haven't received any images to contribute to the poster. The lecture from this week has further reinforced my previous reflection from week #5 about the layouts of cities and where their original inspiration came from. We looked at Roman, Spanish, American and British styles and how they were analysed and applied to other cities. Today we looked at 8 different cities across the globe, and while most of them had certain elements that could be directly related back to the 4 different designs, a lot of them were a combination or seemed to follow more dominating influences such as the landscape or transport hubs. Its seems that this idea of categorising cities is a lot more complicated then first thought. 

Week #5

The Design of the City

Todays lecture discussed the design of cities, which can be broken down into three different categories consisting of utopia, view and power. The Utopian design of a city involves the idea of perfection in all of its elements such as its geometrical layout and style. The View design of a city concentrates on the perspective and visual experience of the city, such as curved streets to hinder the view of enemies or to make the city seem larger than it is. Finally the Power design of a city relies on the administrative, cultural and symbolic components to establish the idea of power, such as large open spaces decorated by government.  
The lecture also discussed how to recognise the origin of a city and whether or not it was of Roman, Spanish, American or British design. The image below shows some examples of these city layouts:

Roman - Follows a castrum layout that extends into the countryside, they also considered main environmental features such as mountains and rivers. 

Spaniard - The city grid in rotated 45 degrees in respect to North

American - They have subdivided the land into townships consisting of squares (6 miles long) and follow a grid that is north to south.

British - Have wide streets with land subdivided into one square mile sections. There is also a clear distinction between town and country by the use of a green belt or common land (parklands).

Project #2


Using the information from the lecture today, I would say that Kabul is a city that uses a combination of layouts similar to the British style. The streets of Kabul are wide and the distinction between the city and countryside are clearly defined, however the country follows the city template which is a design aspect of roman cities. 
In tutorials today our group discussed our site selection, which research components needed attention and how to arrange our maps for the poster. The below image shows our 3 preferred site choices for our model, each square contains part of the river as well as major intersections and variances in city style. 

Site selection options

For my part of the research, I've collected various maps of the Kabul city showing a variety of different data, from major tourist highlights to future development plans. The future development plans are the most interesting piece of information that I have researched so far, since in its current state Kabul is in ruin. Belows is a site plan for the new Kabul referred to as the city of light:

City of Light development plan

  
Reflections


This week has been productive in regards to the project #2 workload, I have done a lot of relevant research and considered how this would work into our poster and report. I have also thought about the weeks lecture and how cities are categorised into certain styles. I find that selecting which styles influenced which city layout to be a challenging task. A lot of the cities I have seen have been a complicated combination of the various types. For example, Brisbane's central area seems to follow the Spanish layout with the use of the 45 degree grid, however this grid is lost in the rest of the city which seems to follow a British layout. The purpose of learning these layouts is purely from an origination perspective, but it's clear that today most cities tend to use the parts they favor from previous designs.

Week #4

Analysis of the City

The lecture this week discussed how to analyse a city by looking at the following information:

Historical growth - Analysing various historical maps of the city

Mobility maps - Identifying railway, roads and paths used in the city

Functional aspects - Locating land types and buildings and discovering their function

Morpho- typological - Form determined by buildings and spaces

The above analysis methods show how a city works, you can discover simple and effective information such as desirable locations and the most effective method of transportation to reach them. These analysis techniques work well when combining the information into a single map, providing a deeper understanding to the positioning of certain city elements. 

City styles were also discussed in detail covering French, English and Italian urban planning techniques. And finally a discussion on the architectural elements of a city and how they might be described:

Type - Model =

- Stereotype (reproduction or a copy)

- Archetype (original model or first of its kind)

- Prototype (developing, original but not the 1st)

Urban Analysis Workshop

The tutorial today involved analysing the Brisbane, Howard Smith Wharves district and representing it in various mapping methods. These methods included a historical analysis, a mobility analysis, a functional analysis and a morphology analysis.

Historical Analysis:

The historical analysis was achieved by analysing information from various maps of Brisbane's development and combining it into a single historical representation. The above diagrams show (from darkest to lightest shades) the original Brisbane city layout before it gradually expended over the last 155 years. According to Whitehand (1987), a townscape, especially a well-established one, provides a strong visual experience of the history of an area as demonstrated in the city of Brisbane .

Mobility Analysis:

The mobility analysis was also achieved by combining information from various maps of the Brisbane City transport system. The above diagram shows the routes for roads, railways, ferry's and the inner city loop bus as well as the Brisbane River and parklands. This information shows us where the busier parts of the city are located and the transport access options that are available to us. 

Functional Analysis:

The functional analysis is a combined analysis of various Brisbane City maps that focus on the function of various structures and open spaces, such as a tourism map or land use map. The above diagram shows the functional aspects of the buildings and spaces located directly above the Howard Smith Wharves. From this functional analysis we can observe the connections between various structures and the streets. For example, the roads thin out towards the industrial area meaning less congestion in this part of the city. 

Morphology Analysis:

A detailed morphology analysis would require an accurate Nolli map to show sufficient information on Brisbane City, but for the purpose of this exercise analysing the areas structures through maps was sufficient enough. The above diagrams show both the scale of the structures and the age of the structures in specific areas. The first diagram represents the size of the buildings and suggests a rough timeline as to their production while the bottom diagram shows the age of the buildings and the growth of the city. 

Project #2

This week our group received our options for project #3 and we decided to go with Kabul, the capital city of Afghanistan. Kabul is a war torn city with much destruction to its infrastructure and large areas of poverty and ruin.  This week we agreed to do a thorough research of the city of Kabul and reconvene next tutorial to begin site selection and delegation of tasks. 

Reflections

This week has glued together a lot of the concepts discussed over the previous few weeks, finally completing our palette of city analysis tools. The various city analysis techniques have taught me how to analyse the most important features of a city such as time, travel, style and function. Using the historical analysis, you can learn how the city developed in the past and consider how it will continue to develop in the future. For example in Brisbane we have developed so quickly and consumed so much land we are starting to continue development within already densely developed areas.

The mobility analysis shows clearly how people travel across the urban environment, and where the main areas of interest are located. For example in Brisbane, the main railway lines and major roads aren't in the center of the city, they circle around the edges, however the loop bus accesses all the important sites in the heart of Brisbane. A transport system can show a cities dedication to sustainable living. 

The morphology analysis shows the various architecture styles within a city, in Brisbane an analysis of scale will show you that the highest structures are located in the central area and the smaller residential areas are located on the outskirts of the city. 

And lastly the functional analysis, which shows how a city comes together, what elements are important and how they are connected. Brisbane's central area is thick with congestion as all the office blocks and shopping areas are located here while the outer industrial area is generally only populated by workers and not the general public. 

Week #3

Elements of the City 


The lecture this week focused on the elements of a city and how they define a place. These elements included the streets, squares, the most recurrent building typology, parks, canals, urban facilities and mobility facilities. When we look at streets and squares there are numerous types that are used across a broad range of cities depending entirely on the city layout, history and typography. Doing a thorough analysis of these elements can reveal a lot of information on how the city works, how people get from one destination to another and how they interact within various spaces. These are all important considerations to make about our city in project 2. 


Describing the City Workshop


The topic of the tutorials today focused on representations of a city through various diagramming techniques such as the Figureground Plan, Nolli Map, Forma Urbis, City Pattern and the Street Section. Below is the image of Brisbane City (Howard Smith Wharves) that we were required to represent in the follow methods of diagramming:

Conceptual Representation:

The above diagram represents the Brisbane City in a conceptual sketch, this technique is useful in representing the structure of the urban environment or to highlight relationships between the main elements of the city (Guaralda, 2011). From the sketch we can see that the Brisbane River is at the centre of the urban structure, with all major streets in close proximity.


City Pattern:

The above diagram represents the Brisbane City as a pattern, the shaded areas are the locations of the city structures while the white areas represent the open spaces such as roads, rivers, parks and so forth. From this sketch it is clear that the centre of Brisbane City is rather dense in urban infrastructure, with the majority of open spaces close to the riverside. It is also clear that Brisbane City follows a grid layout, with the infrastructure and streets neatly aligned. 


Figureground Map:

The above diagram represents Brisbane City in a figureground map, this sketch is drawn as a section 2 metres above ground level and shows the city structures in black and the open spaces white with minimal plain details. From this sketch you can see the relationships between the structures and the open spaces and how they connect with each other in the urban template. 


Nolli Map:

The above diagram represents Brisbane City in a Nolli map which shows a much more personal relationship between the infrastructure of the city and the surrounding open spaces. Once again the structures are black while the open spaces are in white, showing more detail of how the buildings access the streets and where the public areas are located. 


Urban Section:

The above diagram represents an urban section of the Howard Smith Wharves showing the typography of the land and the various levels of the Brisbane City. From this sketch the relationship between the river, Story Bridge and the land is clear. We can see that the infrastructure is higher in respect to the river, which is a common urban design template for cities that are susceptible to floods.


Street Section:

The above diagram represents a street section of Brisbane City showing the relationship between the buildings and the streets in this particular area. From this sketch we can see the general height of the buildings and how they scale next to one another, also the vehicular traffic and pedestrian movement can be seen demonstrating the use of the open spaces. 


Reflections


After this weeks exercises and discussions I've learnt how a population occupies a city, how they interact with the spaces they have been provided or how they create new spaces. It is clear that popular urban facilities such as shopping centers and churches are always in close proximity to motorways and local transport. It is also interesting that depending on the type of street in certain areas, you will also see different types of traffic, people on foot my dominant one area over another, or faster vehicular routes may not always be the main roads. It is also clear that there are a variety of different squares in most cities, all performing different tasks depending on their location to public services. In summary I believe the public movement within a city creates thick places and these places are connected by important destinations within the urban fabric.