ArchShowcase Sumit Singhal
Sumit Singhal loves modern architecture. He comes from a family of builders who have built more than 20 projects in the last ten years near Delhi in India. He has recently started writing about the architectural projects that catch his imagination. A Place to Catch (SEA) Breeze in Brisbane, Australia by BLOXAS + Chian QuahMarch 16th, 2011 by Sumit Singhal
This proposal has considered the climactic condition and placement of Brisbane, within it’s geographical context. Brisbane city is located approximately 21kms inland from the nearest coastal edge. Subsequently it is starved of any significant reprievable, or recurrent, sea breeze. This, coupled with Brisbane’s unforgiving sub tropical summer humidity, was the idealistic catalyst for this design concept. Slender, sculptured towers range in height depending on their topographical location.
An amalgamation of their atmospheric height, form, and diverse material applications and techniques, allow the ‘installations’ to collect dew, moisture, and condensation from the atmosphere on their varied planes throughout the winter months. Surface treatments include mesh, corrugated and dimpled metals, timber/moss, the density of concrete, and ETFE (Ethylene tetrafluoroethylene). Contrasting materials produce or create moisture, which is then collected internally and retained in intermediate guttering systems. In summer, the pooled water runs through a conduit of intricate vertical pipework, and is dispersed through hundreds of heads, akin to miniture sprinklers. A fine mist subsequently drifts across selected parts of the city, southbank, the urban fringe and suburbs. This mist doubles as a screening device to ‘stealth’ or conceal the source during the summer months, assimulating them with the sky, rather than the colours of the landscape. In winter these towers, reveal their sensitivity to the landscape, in a binary fashion. Winter for these installations is a period of moisture collection, but the visibility of colourations of green moss on sections of timber, fusing with dimpled metals, reflecting and mirroring the landscape, proffers a profound dual intention for the towers. Concrete absorbing the suns rays, dimpled metals undulating, as well as the mesh shimmering with beads of collected water. These act as beacons of the ephemeral nature of seasons, and create vertical extensions of the landscape within which they are situated. During summer these finely detailed sculptures emerge in a completely different manner. They are, to a degree, secreted from view, and merge with the sky rather than the landscape. Summer beckons the diffusion, when the amassed moisture is fed through a sprinkler head forming a fine, cooling mist which travels with the inland zephyrs, draping parts of Brisbane city, it’s urban fringe and suburbs. Contact BLOXAS + Chian Quah
Category: Skyscrapers |