Victorian Coach House Extension

Myself and fellow MSc student Joe Williams from http://joewilliamsarchitecture.blogspot.co.uk/ were approached by a senior member of staff at NTU to design a small extension at the back of his garden. We took the opportunity to get our first live project on our portfolio and to demonstrate first-hand experience of the planning application system in the UK.

The extension is a retirement cottage for the clients in-laws so it was decided that it would be designed around the lifetime home standard. The client required an extra bedroom which he originally assumed would be best in the new extension rather than the existing building. Our design proposed that the existing kitchen would be converted into the second bedroom and the new extension would house a kitchen, new entrance, toilet and living space.

A clear link between the interior and exterior environment is made with large south facing glazing and bi-fold doors. The reduce solar gain visors have been designed to support crawler plants which would grow from a green roof. Originally the roof form over the entrance was brought the entire way across the decking to connect to the existing building but it was decided that this was too intrusive.

Final Major Project Annimation and Expo stand

MA Expo Nottingham

After a excellent 5 days in London with a lot of interest in my project I'm now back in Nottingham for the MA Expo show in Arkright 111. I thought I would mark this occasion by posting the remainder of my work for the final major project. I now have the luxury of uploading on universtiy computers rather than internet cafes on brick lane.

The approach to the spa building uses the top of the sailing club as a base to exemplify the 19th century lighthouse at the other side of the harbour. The space left around the spa building is adaptable and can be used for markets, sailing events and general public activities. The floating planes of the spa viewing platform over the harbour give clear views of the marina the retention pond below.

This is the view along the viewing platform from the dinghy park entrance to the spa building. The storm wall and fishing section of the harbour can be seen in the distance and the gabians to the left supply dispirsed light to the reception area creating interesting shadow effects.



Plan drawings of both buildings at 1:200

This is a ariel view of the development taken from the Southeast Coastguard Helicopter (Rescue 117). The visual shows how the leisure and fisihing industries can coexist in Dunmore East and how leisure could drive the economic and social future of the village.

This is the technical detail of the attenuation system that increases the water flow into the harbour to reduce the build up of silt.

Final major project [Free range expo]

This week has been a seriously hectic one with the final visuals being created for the free range expo in the old Truman Brewery, Brick Lane, London. Below are the images I chose for the expo with brief descriptions of what they are communicating.

This is the overall master plan of the project with the sailing club, marina and retention slabs located on the west wharf of the project. The retention pool that divides the two buildings offers two functions to the harbor. It retains water to be slowly released onto the slabs located behind the marina and it also doubles as a public swimming space for the spa and sailing club buildings. The purpose of retaining the water is to architecturally reintroduce water flow to reduce the amount of silt build up under the marina. 

The shining light at the right of this photo is the sailing club viewing platform acting as a safety beacon to anyone caught out in this force 8 gale. The image also adds a greater idea of the site context and how a generally dark and unwelcoming harbor can be transformed into a calming place of shelter. 

This view has been taken from the existing lifeboat dock looking over the water towards the marina, sailing club and viewing platform for the spa in the foreground. The language from the rising slabs is continued into the building until it starts to fall into the background with the headlands. The end of the breakwater is also framed by the cantilevered building at many points along the south and east wharf's. 

This nighttime visual gives the viewer a sample of what it may be like arriving into Dunmore East after a long days sailing. One again the welcoming light of the bar and viewing platforms invite the sailor to enjoy the facilities. 

The interior space of the spa building is framed by a colonnade but 1.5m gaps are left open to allow the salt water pool to flood at high water. The fully enclosed parts of the building are the changing rooms, steam room, reception and the sauna which can be locked when not in use.   

link to my profile on the free range website http://www.free-range.org.uk/cgi-bin/portfolio.pl?yearID=17&exhibitionID=886&memberID=22224

First revision of sectional drawings

These drawings are first stage design sections cut through the entire development at Dunmore East. Fig. 1 is a plan view showing where the section cut lines are taken from. Fig. 2 shows the detail sections with
(a) at the top working down to (d).

These sections show clearly the different level changes that occur between the retention slabs (slabs that hold water for sustainable flow into the harbour) and the two buildings.These drawings are still in quite a raw stage and have yet to be annotated but I thought uploading them would give a quick update on how the final major project is progressing.

fig. 1

fig. 2

Falling tide diagram



The abstract images below represent the direction of the flow out of the harbour mouth during a falling tide. The purpose of these visuals are to try and show in a conceptual way the idea behind the project. The smoke effect is the direction silt will be removed around the breakwater as a result of the architectural manipulation of the tidal flow.



Development render

Design progress on the 26/06/2012 test render in C4D

Entrance to Spa Building

The image below just shows the concept ideas for the spa entrance built in grey card and shaded to highlight ground levels and light. The steps into the span building are shown in the bottom image as a elegant approach that is framed by the planes of the viewing platform which projects over the marina section.

Development Model of Site

This is a 1:200 grey card model of the final major project development. The massing of the buildings can be seen and a general form of the stage 12 design. The final slabs and landscape have yet to be put onto the model but the layout of the retention slabs can be seen clearly.

Stage 12 design for Sailing Club and Spa