Week 6 - Seminar

24/08/11

Today we had our graduation project seminars. It was really interesting to sit through each persons presentation and see where they were up to. There are some really interesting and exciting projects that I'm looking forward to seeing progress. Personally I think my presentation went quite well and seemed to get relatively good feedback from the tutors and other students.

- Added a third precedent study.

- Contracts and documentation further altered and ready to be signed.

25/08/11

Andrew Lamond has sent me through some modelled information on the Lowy Research Centre. I should receive it any day now. It will be interesting to see what he has been able to provide me with.

Week 5 - Making Moves:

17/08/11

I was coming to terms that things were not quite going to plan for my graduation project so far. My weekly progress was looking quite plain and shabby compared with many others, and project research and testing was slow. At the end of the day this falls on my shoulders, but I partially lay the blame on client difficulties (which I have seen from the progress reports is a common thing). As my last post stated Andrew Lamond met on the 15th with the University to find out the direction they wished to head in terms of the facades environmental solar analysis. This is a very pivotal meeting for my project, as it will essentially tell me how much I need to adapt my original proposal to suit the needs of the buildings owner (UNSW) and my client (Andrew and Lahz Nimmo). As of today I still have not had a response from him, so I took this opportunity to give my blog an overhaul!

During week one I was under the impression that simple html's would be used to outline students work. I though I was being quite tricky utilising a blog format, however I should never have underestimated my peers. There are some really great websites that have been created to display individuals progress which made my blog fall to the way side. Determined to keep my intital idea, I simple made it more detailed (adding appropriate pages) and filling out the content in a more complex manner. I proceeded to update my previous weekly posts up to this point so that they would continue with the format that I now have.

18/08/11

Added a brief introduction into my client and the building that will be utilised in my Graduation Project under "Experimentation/Research".

My "Contracts" section was looking quite neglected so I added a form of proposal letter. I am aware that this required an outline of the project and clear statement of any input required from the client and the project deliverables, however there are still elements of this that remain in question. This will be again updated as soon as possible.

19/08/11

I was beginning to get slightly unnerved about our upcoming seminars this Wednesday, but thankfully some large steps in terms of progress were made today. Andrew Lamond got back to me with what I initially took as quite bad news, but the more I think about it the better it seems to get. The email is as follows...

Lachlan,

Unfortunately the University has decided not to go ahead with the submission so we have no need for any further modelling, for them.

If you would like to proceed with your assignment we can provide you with some modelled information but we’re limited with what we can give you.

We work in ArchiCad so please let me know if you would like to continue and in what format you would like the information. I know we have previously issued 3ds files with some success.

If you do proceed we ask that you show some discretion and acknowledge both lahznimmo architects and Wilson Architects.

Regards

Andrew

Andrew Lamond

Associate Director

21/08/11

I spent the remainder of Friday deliberating about what to do next. However after a few more emails, and a weekend of brainstorming I came to the realisation that the limitations UNSW were going to put on the project for Lahz Nimmo meant that it would have become quite stale and was beginning to lost sight of what I had proposed and what I wanted to investigate. The fact that Andrew was still willing to provide me with some models and access to a great deal of information on the building, whilst still giving me the freedom to adapt the brief more appropriately to want I wanted to achieve rather than what they were employed to produce.

My proposal wanted to look at the effect occupants were having on the environmental outputs of certain spaces. Regardless of how well they were designed architecturally, they needed environmentally conscious occupants before real results could be seen. My proposal wanted to take some of this control from the occupants and force them to work in collaboration with the architecture to achieve the most ecologically efficient space possible. There were some points introduced after my meeting with Paul Osmond (UNSW representative for the environmental elements of the LOWY project). These included...

Green Stars: Green Star is a comprehensive, national, voluntary environmental rating system that evaluates the environmental design and construction of buildings. With more than 4 million square metres of Green Star-certified space around Australia, and a further 8 million square metres of Green Star-registered space, Green Star has transformed Australia's property and construction market.

This is a very respected measurement for a building to have in the current global climate. It was suggested that I should study the requirements behind awarding green stars on a building. Are these appropriate for a building to be considered green? Are these elements kept consistent when the building is occupied? Could better test be conducted? Once I understand what it is that makes a building "green" in the eyes of the GBCA (Green Building Council Australia) then I will know how to successfully adapt my project.

22/08/11

- Precedent Study 2 added.

Well it's the end of week 5 and I think I finally have a sense a solid sense of direction now. I have chosen to continue with Lahz Nimmo Architects as my client and obtain the information they have on the LOWY Research Centre. Their initial desire was for a façade solar analysis on the design drawings of the building so it could apply for a green star rating, whereas my proposal was to give power back to the architecture and let it work independently (but in unison) with the occupants to maximise environmental efficiency. Now I plan to incorporate them both together!

With access to certain modelled information I can...

- Complete a comprehensive environmental analysis on the design of the building.

- Take readings of the actual building.

- Compare and contrast the results.

- Look at how they could be improved.

- Work out how the occupants act and react to environmental factors within the spaces.

- Propose a re-design for certain elements if necessary.

- Work on how the building (or a significant space) could reduce its energy consumption independently from the occupants.

Also, now I can send off the outstanding documentation required for our Graduation Project and get stuck into testing/experimentation and design.

Week 4 - Progress:

12/08/11

* Updated my graduation project blog.

* Precedent Study 1 added.

* Research video added.

* Contracts and ethics documentation been appropriately altered.

Contact with Andrew Lamond from Lahz Nimmo Architects has continued regarding the LOWY Cancer Research Centre at UNSW.

He will meet with the university on Monday the 15th of August to discuss matters regarding the required outputs for the façade solar analysis and I hope that he will get back to me by next week at the latest.

14/08/11

Being torn between the strict environmental aspects I established in my proposal and the adapted solar aspects desired by the client has lead me to a slight conflict of interest. I hoping to resolve these issues once Andrew gets back to me.

I have been looking at the direction people are already taking in regard to "green" architecture, and what the future holds in regard to reducing the carbon footprint of a building throughout it's life-cycle. The building looked at in my first precedent study was very appropriate as it looks at reducing this impact through the use of its facades in relation to solar activity. Rather than be user orientated and manipulated based on their movements it is controlled automatically by the sun.

Week 3 - Progress:

This week we were allocated convenors for our graduation project. After discussions with Tam and Jim it was decided that Jim would be the most appropriate advisor for my selected proposal. I had begun emailing Sydney based architecture firms during the mid-semester break, however none had really been overly enthusiastic about the idea of our project. Jim came to me with an idea he had come up with in correspondence with Paul Osmond for an environmental based audit on the Lowy Cancer Research Centre located on UNSW’s upper campus.

On Monday the 1^st of August I met with Jim and Paul to discuss this further. We established that the building was applying for a green star rating and there were rigorous procedures that needed to take place in order for this to be approved. One thing I found interesting was that even though the building has already been built, they were applying for green stars based on the design. So measurements and readings had to all be taken from the design phase of the process only. One particular element that needed to be identified was a façade solar analysis. This deviated away from the guidelines of my originally selected proposal but held some potential in terms of an appropriate client, a real world project, and was still along the environmental lines of my proposal. The architecture firm responsible for the project is Lahz Nimmo Architects, and Paul has put me in touch with Andrew Lamond from this practise. I am in talks with Andrew to perhaps establish a brief more closely fitted to my original proposal. One other option is in relation to the green stars. I wanted to look at how people interacted within a space, and how their actions directly affected the carbon footprint of the building. Giving control back to the building would have more of an effect on reducing this than greener building design. If I was to look at what was involved with awarding green stars and the categories that they analysed I could see how this relates to human interaction within the building. My intention is to have a meeting with Andrew Lamond in person to discuss further the possibilities of using this project for my graduation assignment.

However if the prospect of Lahz Nimmo Architects as a client falls through, my back up plan is to use the clients I had established for my first proposal and adapt their needs appropriately. The plan would be to take their desired environmental renovation further and implement what I have outlined in my selected proposal. For obvious reasons I am persuing the intital option, but I wanted to have a safe guard in case it did not work out the way I plan.