http://www.beatricet.com/

Short listed for the Bates Smart/RAIA Award 2011 Short...

Sun, 11 Mar 2012 10:28:00 -0400

*Short listed for the Bates Smart/RAIA Award 2011

*Short listed for the International ‘Capithetical’ Competition 2012

http://www.capithetical.com.au/shortlist-announced/

The State of Mine is a critique of the current Australian capital city, Canberra. The project questions the essence of an Australian Capital and challenges the co-existence of capital/city; as well as parliament/public. We begin by asking ‘Will Canberra survive if Parliament and all its associative were to be plugged out of the urban fabric?’ More importantly

‘Will it even exist?’

Has the 20^th century efforts to design a perfect city proven to be counter progressive? Building on the observations drawn from the growth of Canberra in the last 100 years, this thesis project aims to rethink the approaches in designing an Australian Capital city for the 21^stcentury. The idea of a capital city is rich with political metaphors and morphological connotations, but also with uncertainties that prevent the growth of a new city and fail to attest to the reasons for starting anew.

Can a new city be expected to be a working capital or should it remain a symbolic capital? Is it possible to accommodate a 21^st century democracy in the planning of the city? Beyond all that, could this new city change the current political agenda of Australia? It is our sincere hope that the rethinking of our capital will be extended politically to the leaders of the nation and progressively usher Australia into a new era.

Project team: Samson Tiew, Beatrice Toh

Labthreeofive recently completed an installation as part of its...

Sun, 11 Mar 2012 09:57:00 -0400

Labthreeofive recently completed an installation as part of its Re:Launch event. The event was held in conjunction with the debut of the gallery located next to our new studio.

The gallery measures approximately 4m x 4m. With a single entry and exit point; circulation and flow within the gallery were important factors in the overall configuration of the design. To create multiplicity in the experience of the installation, an elegant curve was derived. This curve gently divides the room, creating one space that is intimate and another that is more transitory. The design was configured in a way that would guide the viewer around it on one side, while being drawn into it on the other; resulting in a C-shaped wall.

As one enters the space, they first catch a glimpse of the external face of the structure. While navigating around the wall, it gradually increases in height before diminishing as the viewer approaches the more enclosed viewing space. The enclosed space showcases labthreeofive’s product range housed in individual modules.

Exploration into modular structures led to the implementation of hexagons as an effective load-transferring geometry. The resultant module was composed of a hexagonal structure projecting from both ends of a central square shaft which each house removable 90x90 boxes for the display of brooches. The hexagons were then manipulated in size and shape to create a site-specific form. The duality of the two wall surfaces was celebrated with one being fortified in nature and the other being intimate and personal. A stop-motion documenting the construction process of the installation was projected and stretched onto the outer skin of the angular wall, engaging the viewer on the formation of the installation.

The final design consisted of 53 hexagonal modules, which were decomposed into 1376 laser-cut triangular faces held together by 3316 cable ties. The entire design and construction process took 6 days and 7 people to complete. Labthreeofive aims to venture into future projects exploring further methods in digital fabrication.

DESIGN: labthreeofive ©2011 www.labthreeofive.com
DESIGN TEAM: Adelle Tan, Beatrice Toh, Christopher Loh, Matthew Tam, Rodelle Lee, Samuel Liew, Samson Tiew

LASERCUTTING & FABRICATION: makethreeofive www.makethreeofive.com

Video and photography:

- Mattski Striling, Em, Chloe

- Weixiong Yap (twofrontteeth.net)

- labthreeofive

Design Time: 3 days

Construction Time: 3 days

Overall dimension: 2.59m length, 1.83m width, 2.28m height

Components:

- 55 hexagonal modules

- 1060 triangular faces

- 212 square faces

- 3316 cable ties

- 450 300mm x 600mm plywood sheets

Through connect 4, residents are brought together through...

Sun, 11 Mar 2012 00:09:00 -0500

Through connect 4, residents are brought together through architecture to experience and share life with one another. Here, boundaries of ownership are challenged at multiple degrees to push co-habitation to the next level. Through a series of reconfigurable rooms, residents can vary how much of themselves they feel to share with the rest of the community. However, it was envisioned that residents of this building project will make the most of this to create Better shared spaces instead of compartmentalising it to create their individual private spaces.

Living together makes living worthwhile

The constraints of the narrow site pushed the exploration of...

Sat, 10 Mar 2012 23:43:00 -0500

The constraints of the narrow site pushed the exploration of integration into the direction of the double helix. The double helix allowed for both functions to coexist individually, but at the same time made it possible for varying degrees of permeation between the two. Further planning exercises saw to the distribution of programs that allowed both functions to share in the benefits of the South facade. With the aim of turning this building project into a passive house design, several design factors such as triple glazed windows and well insulated exterior walls have been incorporated to reduce the amount of energy required to provide comfortable temperature for the occupants.

The deployable hospital consists of 3 different structures, the...

Sat, 10 Mar 2012 10:15:00 -0500

The deployable hospital consists of 3 different structures, the mega dome, standard tents and the corridor shelters. Each of these prototypes uses a series of hinges that were products of several stages of development of the study and experimentation of the hoberman structure.

On site, the mega dome will serve as an entry/ triage/ outpatient surgery area. So all the chaos is contained within this dome, patients who have to go beyond this dome will be directed according to their condition. Emergency operations will take place in tent 3 with pre-op preparations in tent 2. The trauma center at tent 7 is for operations that are severe and patients who need to stay will do so in tent 6. The convalescent care ward will house patients that still need some monitoring and this is the pharmacy for outpatients to get their medication and leave.

These structures will be made of carbon fibre rods and panels to give it the strength and rigidity it needs. It will be skinned with a unique recyclable vinyl that is used in stretch ceilings and is incredibly strong. That is the sample material sent to me by Barrisol, a manufacturer for stretch ceilings. The material will be held together via integrated tracts on the structure. There will be a combination of opaque and translucent fabric to allow natural light to better the ambience of the rooms particularly the wards to enhance healing for the patients.

The beauty of the hinge system is that it allows this entire hospital to be transported in one single plane. In total there will be 1 mega dome, 26 standard tents and 40 corridor shelters all up packed and ready to go.

For the purposes of this project, I chose to work with...

Sat, 10 Mar 2012 10:06:00 -0500

For the purposes of this project, I chose to work with attractors and their paths of attraction as a study for parametric designing. The red line represents the path of attraction as affected by the 3 existing attractors on LaTrobe st.

The attractor types used in this system are Entertainment, Nature, Office, Chill-out, Sport and Dining. Within these categories are Sub categories, allocated according to their size and capacity to hold people, represented by 4 different radiuses. For example, a hot dog stand can take say 5 people, and café 20, a fine dining restaurant takes about 100, and a food court would take even more.

Using these guidelines I created a library of attractors to assist in moving forward. Several case studies were conducted while employing the system mentioned above, resulting in various paths of attraction. The volume areas identify the attraction value of each street, proving that the quieter streets have a more unbalanced area of attraction on either side of the street. While Queensberry st/ Peel St was not a preferred path, it had a seemingly balanced attraction value. Looking deeper into the type of attractor that is present there, it showed that the street was flanked by offices and private activity, as is now shaded in black. The power of attraction is broken down to these values, x distance between attractors, y intensity of attraction and z the size of activity. Using these values as inputs for my grasshopper system generated an endless series of forms and geometries to represent the power of attraction.

Photo

Sat, 10 Mar 2012 08:55:00 -0500

The project brief called for a response to the current...

Sat, 10 Mar 2012 07:52:00 -0500

The project brief called for a response to the current terminal at Port Melbourne that lacked activity and was barren half of the day. The concept of Fusion City was to inject new activities that would maximise the use of the building and increase activity on site.

Like how the beach draws the waves in, so will Fusion City be the new point of attraction of Port Melbourne. Opportunities to recreate the identity of Station Pier as a mere terminal was taken with a bold step of introducing several extreme sports to invite a fresh variety of generations to experience and at the same time to set a new atmosphere at the pier. Integrated at the entrance to connect the pier to the beach is a proffesional sktate park bowl to draw skateboarders, cyclists or even those strolling along to explore the magnificence of this city.

The structural system of Fusion City transitions from the existing portal frames to a fusion with the free standing algorithm structure. At this point however, it is still constrained within the portal frames to illustrate some power balance between old and new. Further a couple of bays down, this fusion structure will start to take over the form with a new life of its own and in doing this drive the new dynamic architecture language of this city.

Labthreeofive was birth in 2008, not long after we submitted...

Sat, 10 Mar 2012 07:44:00 -0500

Labthreeofive was birth in 2008, not long after we submitted the final project for our undergraduate years. Since then, we have grown our way into 20+ designer shops internationally. On top of that, we have won several competitions and been commisioned for our design and manufacturing skills.

Our sister company Makethreeofive, provides laser cutting services to the public and have seen more and more customers from the design industry, including architectural practices, explore new methods for crafting and model making.

The company consists of individuals who rise up to the challenge of running a business and learnt to complete tasks outside of our capabilities. As a result, everything that ThreeOfive is, from marketing to sales to accounts, is done in-house.

Over the course of my summer internship I was given the task...

Sat, 10 Mar 2012 07:43:00 -0500

Over the course of my summer internship I was given the task of building physical models which included both architecture and urban scale models.

An exercise to learn the actual methods of construction of a...

Sat, 10 Mar 2012 07:36:00 -0500

An exercise to learn the actual methods of construction of a single storey house. The model was made using a mixture of materials, with the main timber frames represented by balsa wood. Model includes detail such as bracing, insulation, damp-proof course, noggings etc.

Photo

Sat, 10 Mar 2012 07:32:00 -0500

http://www.beatricet.com/

*Short listed for the Bates Smart/RAIA Award 2011 *Short...

Labthreeofive recently completed an installation as part of its...

Through connect 4, residents are brought together through...

The constraints of the narrow site pushed the exploration of...

The deployable hospital consists of 3 different structures, the...

For the purposes of this project, I chose to work with...

Photo

The project brief called for a response to the current...

Labthreeofive was birth in 2008, not long after we submitted...

Over the course of my summer internship I was given the task...

An exercise to learn the actual methods of construction of a...

Photo

Short listed for the Bates Smart/RAIA Award 2011 Short...