Folie News

Got the best news yet; our Folie gained a High Distinction! A 7!!!!! Really has made my day.

.........and the final result is...........

After a bit of to-ing and fro-ing, our posters came together really well:

Initial layout design, to give us an idea how it would all fit:

First draft, a little more edgy with the words, which I liked because it reminded me of the despair some flood victims would have experienced:

.....and what we ended up with was something everyone was very happy with......

Site analysis drawings

For our posters, we all put together different sections and mine was to do some site analysis drawings. I had a few images as well.

Overhead shot of the site:

Site drawing showing path in and out of the folie:

Looking northwest from the riverwalk:

Closer view looking northwest:

Looking west from the top of the Kangaroo Point Cliffs:

 Google Map view:










Greater context drawing:

Urban views from the site:

After the storm.........

At our group meeting on Monday March 12,three of our members met to come up with a concept about our folie. Lots of ideas were thrown around, but the one that 'stuck' was a design where a worker's cottage, or what was left of it and other debris, was dashed against the southern end of the cliff and stayed there.
The concept was to remember the floods and experience the power of the flood waters with the wrecked house.
My first sketch:

More scribbles and doodles on ideas

5. A structure for children to play in, taken from the inital ideas of joining shapes together. Each shape is a primary colour and a different material, such as timber, steel and plastic.
This gives the children (or adults) a tactile, as well as a visual experience.

Random doodles and scribbles: initial thoughts

 1. a tunnel

 

 2. a transition space

  

 3. an arbour

 4. a 'shaped' space

More random musings:

Came across a project that outlines the Seven Principles of Learning Space Design.

From:

http://www.skgproject.com/learning-spaces-toolkit/design-principles/

Seven Principles

The SKG project has established seven principles of learning space design which support a constructivist approach to learning: that is, principles which support a learning environment which is student-centred student-centred, collaborative, and experiential. Click on the hyperlink for more on the principles:

• Comfort: a space which creates a physical and mental sense of ease and well-being
• Aesthetics: pleasure which includes the recognition of symmetry, harmony, simplicity and fitness for purpose
• Flow: the state of mind felt by the learner when totally involved in the learning experience
• Equity: consideration of the needs of cultural and physical differences
• Blending: a mixture of technological and face-to-face pedagogical resources
• Affordances: the “action possibilities” the learning environment provides the users, including such things as kitchens, natural light, wifi, private spaces, writing surfaces, sofas, and so on.
• Affordances are the aspects or qualities of a space that allow actions or experiences. Donald Norman refers to ‘perceived affordances’ (1999) to emphasize the fact that it is not just the actual facilities or action possibilities of a space, but the users’ perceptions that matter.
• Repurposing: the potential for multiple usage of a space

While, most of these principles don't fit too well with our future learning space, I distilled them down to the following:

·         Comfortable

·         Interesting

·         Has good flow through

·         Possesses “action possibilities”

·         Looks good - has most or all of these qualities; symmetry, harmony, simplicity, is fit for the purpose.

·         Equity - caters for age, ability, mobility

Folie à Deux

This project is to design a "folie" in the spirit of Tschumi's 'folie's' to be found in La Villete in Paris.

So, what on earth is a “folie”?

My initial thought was, “Shouldn’t that be FOLLY?” No, Folie it is.

From The Free Dictionary: a psychiatry term meaning a psychological disorder of thought or emotion, a more neutral term than mental illness.

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/folie

The Medscape Reference site describes an associated disorder, Folie à deux. A shared psychotic disorder that is a rare delusional disorder shared by two or, occasionally, more people with close emotional ties. An extensive review of the literature reveals cases of folie à trois, folie à quatre, folie à famille (all family members), and even a case involving a dog.

http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/293107-overview

From these two definitions, it can be extrapolated that, our Folie can be experienced by more than one person at any time to encourage ‘dreaming’ (or delusions) regarding the previous/future history of the site, hence, this projects name, Folie à Deux.

For a long time this site was disconnected from the surrounding area after the Howard Smith Company left the site, even though it was occupied by the Water Police and as a storage depot for the government, over time.

In other words, it was forgotten by the city and was regarded as a dumping ground for all sorts of refuse.

Reading - Week 1

Bure, G. (2008). Paris/La Villette. In Bernard Tschumi. G. Bure (ed.), pp. 47-73. Basel: Birkhauser.

La Villette was a former cattle market in the north-east of Paris destined to become an abattoir, then a science park and now a 21^st century park, quite a change in use if you ask me.

This 135 acre site has become home to some amazing ‘sculptures’ called ‘folies’, not ‘follys’, in reference to a structure that lends itself to any function. Instead of a ‘folly’ that does nothing but sit there and looks cute, a ‘folie’ is a structure that does something else, as well as looking good.

I thought Tschumi was quite brave (or loony) to take on such a task when there was only him in his practice, but he was smart enough to collect talented and able people around him to complete the project.

 

I do like the way the ‘promenade’ winds its way through the park, criss-crossing the main axes, it reminded me of a caduceus, the medical symbol, or a vine on a trellis. It breaks up the park into smaller gardens, which could be thought of as a voyage, something like Cullen’s ‘serial vision’.[1] 

The park unfolding in front of you and urging you on to see what is next and it also reminded me of a ‘Moon Gate’ in a formal Chinese garden, the view beyond just peeking through the opening.

Within these gardens, you can find the ‘folies’, each painted bright red, but of differing shapes to create multifunctional spaces within the gardens.

The blue of the sky, the red of the ‘folies’ and the green trees all blend together, along with the people, to  create what looks to be an enjoyable, vibrant place to be. A long way from a cattle market.

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[1] Cullen, G. (1995). The concise townscape. Oxford; Boston: Butterworth-Heinemann.
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2382/2258095263_3ba5c976a9.jpg 
http://content.answcdn.com/main/content/img/oxford/Oxford_Architecture/0198606788.caduceus.1.jpg

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