prev / next

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16

· · · · · · · · · · · · · · · ·

Stage: University Project

Tools / Skills: Model Making, AutoCAD, Sketching

Awards: Best student in design

Time: 2003

Brief:

A visitors centre at a gateway to the Constantia hills which serve both the public and the forest.

Concept:

• Transformation of man made to nature, hard to soft, formal to organic.

• Expression of nature by contrast with juxtaposed man made intervention which is a walled gateway bridging a ravine.

• Through its transformation from formal to organic and horizontal alignment it expresses change of context and the verticality of the forest one is about to enter.

The concrete wall houses various services and becomes the backbone around which the rest of the intervention organises itself.

Entrance is signified by the existing road and pathway cutting through the wall. Once on the other side, an elevated cantilevering path crosses a perpendicular wall plane. At this point the plan pinches as one enters a shop constructed from lightweight but dense steel construction.

Spacing of steel structures now becomes increasingly bigger and the steel members smaller in size. This language of deterioration is also expressed in the concrete wall as it breaks up into 3 boxes - timber (reminiscent of the off-shutter concrete finish), translucent glass, and finally clear glass.

The boardwalk ends halfway over the ravine and is supported by a steel structure. Access to the forest is through a lower hanging bridge organically shaped swerving through the trees.