studioHKK: v6 Michael Thomas

Thursday, September 16, 2010

Site Diagrams ---- Mike Thomas

Masterplan Options

Thesis Proposal ---- Mike Thomas

The growing need for housing has invoked the rise of endless repetitive apartments or lines of standardised housing. The loss of the public collective is, as theorist Oswald Ungers describes, also coupled ironically by the loss of the individual within the city. Building projects done en-masse such as low cost, high-rises of the 1960’s have demonstrated that such repetition of the same program ad nauseam does not lend itself to life.

The ideas put forward by theorists such as Oswald Ungers and Rem Koolhaas as in 'The Green Archipelago', 'Grossformen' and 'Delirious: New York' hint that a new solution to the loss of the public collective is found at the building scale as opposed to the city scale.

By taking city planning and applying the same principles of diversity to the building scale, a COLLECTION of programs has the potential to enrich and intensify a city life.

The thesis proposes to:

1. Take the diversity of the city and the planning of a city to the scale of the building.

By doing this, the SOCIAL COLLECTIVE is created which is the frame for individuality. Fragmentations of green and cultural spaces emerge as they do in a city. The public realm is reinvented at a new scale next to the private. The collective experience is then also transformed, though not suppressed, by the increasing importance of individuality.

2. Encourage a building within a ‘walking city’ where the needs of contemporary life are met within a walking distance.

The ‘walking city’ aside from having the intention of reducing carbon emissions from transportation, also changes the perception people have of the city. Where an unseen objective must be known and planned out before making the journey, something local can be discovered. The result is that accidental ‘gems’ can exist within the daily experience and enjoyment can be taken in finding something new and fulfilling. Thrill, excitement and even fear become a greater factor in the walking city.

This is a project of FRAGMENTATION and COLLECTION

A city in a city.

Material System Models ---- Mike Thomas

Friday, September 10, 2010

Deep Impact Moon Capital ---- Mike Thomas

In the year 2069...

Life on the moon had become quite normal for the human race.

The Deep Impact project, a revolutionary lunar habitation concept had changed all that had gone before...

Unlike the outdated lunar habitation ideas already established such as the glass bubble or the 1950’s Buckminster Fuller dome in space, the Deep Impact project had challenged these ideas by conceiving a colony that could be built on Earth but could drop into the surface of the moon via a dropship which carried to the moon’s outer space.

The colony, the first of many, crashed into the side of a lunar crater using sonic technology to break up the rock up upon impact. Once inside the rock, the colony retracted it’s shape much like the late 20th century ‘Dynabolt’ to form it’s correct habitation position.

The Deep Impact project maintained that building a more sophisticated colony on Earth was easier than constructing a colony whilst already on the moon.

The threat of excessive heat or sudden meteor strike was ever a problem in lunar conceptual design. To counter this, the Deep Impact project devised large shields which stood at the entry to the colony. The shields could be closed at will which protected the colony from the above threats.

Above everything, the designer of the Deep Impact project was concerned with the quality of life within the colony. Unlike previous habition modules which separated the spaces via corridors, the project arranged all of the necessary spaces into one large unit. The colony was open and spacious, marking a change in the traditional claustrophobic design of outer space living. The designer maintained also that a quality living space always connects with the outside - regardless of what that might be. The living quarters were because of the this constructed within the rock but partially outside with views to the vast outer space.