THE SITE
The chosen
site is on the corners of King and Castlereagh Street in the heart of the
Sydney CBD. It runs adjacent to one of Sydney’s most famous icons in the Sydney
Tower and is a central HUB for both Sydney’s shopping, commercial and
residential districts. The site provides verticality as well as a large floor
site for shopping on the lower levels with the upper levels providing space for
both commercial offices and residential apartments. As the site allows for
verticality 360 degree views from the interior allow for a complete
understanding of the Sydney CBD and how this site reacts to its environment.
The main concept for me was to still focus on using nature as an influence and
provide a location that supplies the demand that our Sydney CBD is in need of,
including shopping, offices and apartments.
THE INSPIRATION
The natural
realm has always inspired me and with the opportunity to develop a site, I
chose to follow this concept. The building on the site was inspired by the
spiralling form above created for my previous assignment. The structure of the
new building represents the same spiralling structure represented in a way that
could be used for structural purposes. My new design is not only inspired by natural
geometry on a macroscopic level but also microscopic as I used a voronoi pattern
that represents more of the cellular structure within plants. This work
inspired me to attepmt to morph both the man-made and natural realms into one,
where I believe my design really comes to life. “The future of architecture and
design is in genetic engineering, biotechnology and universal computing… think
of a new kind of xenoarchitecture”
THE BUILDING
The
building was aimed to be a multi-functional design where the structure could be
used for shopping, commercial and residential purposes. Using inspiration from
Biomimetics (the interrelationship between architecture and living systems”, I
developed a site to provide for these requirements. The bottom few floors provide
walk through access to Pitt, King and Castlereagh Street, and encompasses the
entire shopping district within the building to follow on from the Pitt St
Mall. Offices and commercial spaces are provided above this with access through
the centre of the building, with the residential space above this. The reasons
for this is because office spaces will have views out of about 90 degrees each
whilst as floors get smaller for the apartment complex, the rooms will have a
more panoramic view of the cityscape and beyond.
