Jamileh Jahangiri
B.Des (Arch), M.Arch
NSW Registered Architect
In this studio we were expected to interrogate and propose a solution to the place of a community centre in a contemporary secular society and into the future. The brief was asking to investigate the meaning of ‘community’ in our multicultural society, today and into the future of the information age and how the essential qualities of acceptance, welcome, and most importantly, the spirit of sustainability can be brought to the forefront of architectural design. The building had to be designed to use innovative timber construction and structural systems and to incorporate best practice passive thermal performance, energy efficiency and recycling.
To tackle the brief, I divided the project to 3 main elements including structure, sustainability & community. A separate attention to each element has devoted with keeping in mind to develop all of them as a united design.
The main concept of design alocated to designing a sustainable architecture by focusing on Iranian Badgir (windcatcher). After study on windcatchers, The design forwarded to use 2 sided windcatchers to face Sydney main winds facing east to west. Two edge windcatchers has allocated to bring fresh air to the building & a middle one to work as a suction for the building.
To deliver a new community for the future, followed by Marrickville Council 2020 plan, It has been expected an increase in the number of children by 2020. So the project intended to provide a place for children & inhabit artists in a community near their home.
As the structure follows the function & sustainable approaches of the building, the structure grid allocated in a way to provide windcatchers on the sides of the building & bigger spaces in the middle. The main interest in terms of structure was to work on the puzzle joint followed by case studies on Kengo Kuma’s structural designs with a slightly change in joint design to deliver a more structural sustainable design.
Sustainable Studio-Marrickville
Community centre
The key outline in this project was to design a cluster of 3 different components including Train station, a Portion of Public domain and a connective building that can act as a trigger for the urbanization of the entire precinct. With an understanding of it’s historical, social, physical & economic aspect.
To achieve the design brief, our group of two decided to firstly seeks an urban solution for Camellia isolation from the rest of the rest of Sydney in.
This project examined the importance of the Parramatta River to its urban community and how riverfront design from different aspect such as historical, social, physical & economic can function as a unifying element for the city centre and its ecosystem. Over half of Sydney’s future population will be living in Western Sydney by 2040, which will dramatically increase the stress on a vulnerable network of water systems. A restoration of a river can bring awareness to people while improving physical and ecological corridor connections.
The final master plan takes an approach by adopting the concept of soft and hard edges.
Soft Edge
The edge of the existing Parramatta River is restored from its intensive industrial use and given back to the nature. Broad walk are created along the river, creating an area of education and interest on top of the restored wetland (as per Des Moines Water Works Park). This part of our master plan therefore adopt the concept of what we called ‘soft edge’.
Hard Edge. A new river is created crossing the site from North-West to South. This new water elements will create what we called a “Hard edge”. It will provide an opportunity for economic development (as per San Antonio River Walk) while improving water connection with urban dwellers and preventing from floods.
The urban grid is proposed to dissolve -higher to lower density eventually - from the new canal, consolidating the idea of hard and soft edges and limiting the impact of urbanity on ecologically restored Parramatta River bank.
Connection was improved with surrounding suburban areas by creating north-south and east-west axis across the site.
A business district also created along the train station and high-density buildings along major roads axis to answer the future population.
Urban Research studio- Camellia
Urban research & train station
In the final studio, we focus on the current Sydney's architectural crisis. The brutalise architectural element, Sirius, has lost it's heritage appeal & defined to get demolished. At the same time, the Sydney College of art been called non-essential.
The studio outline was to relocate Sydney college of art to the Sirius building. The project looked at the possible ways of adding new meaning to the existing building.
The project looked at the possible ways to hide the building to bring the attention the the importance of this architectural elements to the history & planning of Sydney. The proposal aimed to explore the architecture that appeared in the guise of preservation. The concealing & revealing strategy was to change the context of the exiting building in order to make the Sirius appear more culturally significant as it is now. During the studio process, I explored the antithetical concept of hiding & revealing and the fantasy and curiosity that embedded in the way of concealing and showing. The process of translating into the project.
The work is focusing on altering the Sirius form by affecting it's figure with a simple intervention. So the Sirius become one new identity, distorting over perception or revealing a completely new form. In fact, the Sirius morphing to keep up with the new social mandatory & will have multiple faceted.
Graduation Studio
Morphing the Sirius