Week #4

Exhibition


The final week leading up to the exhibition was exhausting and multiple last minute touches were done to the panels prior to submission. Finally the time came to set up our panels in J-block along with 40+ other groups. This provided an interesting opportunity to wander around and view the quality of work that other students had presented. 


Our Design


300 Words:
Most members of society choose to process the trauma of disaster by rebuilding their lives anew, washing away the past, leaving little or no reminder of the event. Others choose to erect structures, which remind us of the physical and emotional scars inflicted by these disasters.

Our Folie aims, through remembrance and experience, to prompt visitors to understand and respect the natural, destructive power of the river and the devastation brought with it throughout Brisbane’s flood history. The Folie’s structure, thrust into the cliff face, allows visitors to experience and remember the impact of the predominantly dormant river, which has and will continue, to unleash its destructive power upon those who live and play near its banks.

The literal translation of flood ravaged Brisbane, provides a clear and unmistakable image of the devastation caused by the floods. This is a message our group didn’t want to stylise, as an abstraction of the concept would lose its effect and confuse the general public.

To achieve this literal translation, the Folie’s tectonic arrangement placement within the context, replicates the violence of debris being catapulted into the cliff face by the force of the flood.

This debris, such as structural elements and items of personal value, stripped from residences upstream and convulsed out of the mouth of the river into Moreton Bay, are items impregnated with personal stories of remembrance.

The collection of debris that forms our Folie is cantilevered out from the cliff face creating a structure still in motion, as though the impact of the flood had only just occurred. The function of the Folie provides the opportunity to walk under the structure, which accentuates the uneasiness of the cantilevered design, and provides the irony that beneath its roof was once a shelter and place to call home. 

Final poster design

Reflection


The design Folie was an interesting and fun piece of assessment, providing another opportunity to get to know more students within the degree and allowing us the freedom to create a structure that has few boundaries. This assignment has also presented an opportunity to further my design skills in photoshop and other programs as well as improving  and building upon my already acquired multimedia design knowledge from my previous degree. I also managed to get into an awesome group this time, huge thanks to Joel, Rob and Carol!

Week #3

Folie Design Process


The Folie seeks to instil remembrance and provide an experience of the force of nature and the loss thousands of people suffered through-out the years of severe floodings in Brisbane. Below is a link to footage on Youtube demonstrating the horror of Brisbanes 2011 floods.

Video of flood chaos in Australia (2011)

This week we focused on finalising the design concept and perfecting the appearance of the Folie in sketch-up. We wanted to created a literal piece of work that demonstrated the shock and terror that the gushing flood waters brought with them. The final rendered version of the Folie can be seen in the image below:

The Folie incorporated a combination of design qualities as mentioned in the design brief:


- tension and compression (supports)
- heavy and light (material weight, yet floating)
- bright and dark (light access)
- natural (floods destruction) and artificial (materials)
- hard (rough edges)
- disturbing


Group Meeting


On Saturday we had an 8 hour group session to tie together all our components and begin designing our posters. Robert and Joel worked on the model through sketch-up and other various programs to play with lighting and other images, while Carol worked on our 300 words and I began to compile the posters. Below is a diagram of my initial poster design layout and the components I wanted to include on each poster. There is also an image of the layout I originally came up with, with random images inserted into the template to demonstrate the general idea to my group.

Poster design sketch

Initial poster design 

Hero shot

Week #2:

Group Work
The tutorial session provided our group with ample time to throw around design concepts and extend our individual ideas into suitable Folie proposals. During the tutorial we considered the topics of Brisbane flood awareness and Brisbane's heritage trail. Below is an image that shows how we played with the idea of boundaries within the context of the site and how these lines could form the perimeter of our Folie or shape the journey through its interior. We used the walking trail from our walkshop journey in order to plot out the red line which resulted in an interesting artificial vs natural footprint.

Discovering boundaries

Folie Design
During our own time outside of university, we each had an opportunity to develop the initial ideas further to provide multiple design concepts for our elimination process at Mondays group meeting. I decided to play with the idea of flood awareness because of its direct relation to the context and the interesting experience it could provide for the Folie's users. 

Flood Folie design idea

The above sketches show the elevation and floor plan of my flood design Folie and how it works within the 5 x 5 x 5 metre allowance. The concept of this design was to capture the brutal truth of past flooding events by erecting a Folie that functions as a platform showing the destruction or disrepair in the wake of a flood crisis. The users could then interact with the space by walking up a series of platforms and experiencing for themselves the various heights that the water has reached in this particular area of Brisbane.

Transition Folie design idea

My second concept revolved around the idea of transitional spaces and providing the user with an experience of familiar space within an unfamiliar object. In this example, the user would experience the tectonics of the Folie and various spaces within and be able to link those experiences back to a particular area of Brisbane city. 

Transition Folie design developments

Concept Finalised

Our Monday group meeting resulted in a firm grasp on our concept idea, which put us back in the direction of flood awareness and the difficulties locals have faced during these times. We believed it was important to acknowledge the hardships Brisbane has faced and the context of Howard Smith Wharves was the perfect location for this Folie.

Town of Grantham devastated by floods (2011)

The groups idea was to create a Folie that resembled a house or shed smashed against the cliff face after being washed away in severe floods. This structure would be located at the base of the cliff along Howard Smith Wharves and provide an interior space within which to learn about these tragedies. The above photograph shows an example of the type of tectonic elements we will be aiming for.