In Summery...

In looking back at this Conceptual Design Exercise, I think back to the 6 S's; Site, structure, skin, services, space plan, and stuff; and also the Main drivers of the design, Free, Clean, Renewable Energy and therefore minimizing the use of materials and the building design to be as sustainable as possible.

The building in site

The Site, 42 Elizabeth Street is a site with historic restrictions on the existing facade, however in the future, I would hope that the council would take a look at each case for its integrity and value.  To me the existing offers nothing significant to the site of Brisbane at a whole and definitely nothing to the site specific.  The site offers 3 access points, the front back and one side.  This then potentially offers access to 3 different clients of the site, but potentially, the users/clients of the site, and the management of the building.  So I’ve separated them as public at the front, and private at the back.

The structure is a permanent system of re-enforced concrete cantilevered floors over concrete and steel support pillars.  Each floor level is set at 4m to allow maximum flexibility for each occupant, and therefore looseness to allow a long life for the building.  This is an answer to the sustainability of the building to use as little material over a very long life.

Facade Panels with a Strap-on Unit

The skin is made up of glass panels of 4000mm x 1500mm.  These are to help relate to the break up the internal modules and to also offer frames to shape the views and also the potential use of the digital element of the panels into screens.

The floor plan is then augmented with strap-on modules that attach to the outside of the building to extend a module a few metres further outside the building.

1st-34th Floor

The services are in the middle of the building in a cruciform arrangement with a set of 3 lifts, fire stairs and a toilet on each side of the building.  This is combined with a double loaded corridor on axis with the long axis of the building.  There are also services hidden in the 500mm thick walls on either side of the corridor to allow service to each module of the building but built in a permanent way to avoid re-building and changing the services and rather have them in-place for the occupant to connect up to when required. 

35th-44th Floor

The space plan of the building is based on a deliberate separation of spaces into modules.  Starting at the first floor to the 34th floor the floor is broken into 16 modules while the 35th to the 44th floor in 4 modules with the top 5 floors into 2 modules.  This allows maximum flexibility with modules able to be opened up into several joined together or each separated into individual pods.  The spaces they create are then flexible enough to allow for a lot of different uses in the building as was desired by my brief but also to allow low cost living through leasing floor space rather than having to purchase.

A single apartment fit-out

This then brings me onto stuff, and as the building was intended as a system of forever changing modules of different configurations, it is hard to nail exactly what stuff will be involved.  The difference to other designs is that the furniture and fixtures are going to be leased rather than purchased.  The idea of the building is rather that it is low cost.  

An office fit-out

The occupants can just arrive, plug in their configuration and live, then when moving, just move without the need to drag furniture and fixtures with them; rather that the space is ready when they are, and when unoccupied; used by the building management to be pop-up hotel rooms.  This is to lower the waste of materials, the cost of living, and ultimately have the user concentrate on using the space, and change the digital rather than changing the physical.