Is there light at the end of this tunnel.....

Wow just five days left and then we on holiday!! But five days of very hard work and no sleep! happy designing all and good luck with your portfolio's, we are almost there! do you see the light.. ;)

A design that is slowly coming together....

Portfolio is just around the corner and my design is no where near complete or finialised!!! Is that normal?? I seem to never stop working. Computer portfolio is done and dusted, very chuffed about my 3d annimation. The project was a very intersting process and am looking forward to experimenting more with 3d max... its still abit challenging ;)

Thought id share some of my sketchup views of my design space for the Oceanarium that i have been designing. The design is no where near complete, but at least this is a start, i do apologise for the ruff 3d pictures, but the second semester the real thing will be presented to you all :)

The front entrance into the center. The name of the new Oceanarium and retail facility is O.C.E.A.N - Observing, Caring, Educational, Aquarium, Niche.

                                        Information and ticket office as one enters the main door

                       Access gates into the facility. Roof design plays with the different light intensities.

                                             Cocktail Lounge area with a lovely ocean view

                                                           Bar area in the cocktail lounge

This is a small section of the dive store. It has a lounge, open class room to the beach, and one can dive straight into the main dolphin pool from the landing :)

Font entrance to the restaurant. This area looks onto the main dolphin lake and the back of the restaurant looks onto the beach front

                                                        Part of the interior of the resturant.

                                      Health Spa interior. Foot and nail section with side displays

Spa reception- made from natural river rocks with frosted glazing,  LED lighting and white high gloss MDF

                                               Side displays and center nail and foot areas

                         Interior of the staff open plan office. Hotting desking is used in this office

                                                   Kitchen  and lounge area in the office
Well thats where the design is at the moment, still lot to progress on, but at least its a good start. Happy designing all :)

Creative & Sustainable Street Design

Good day to everyone :) It has been a very busy week again with deadlines and intense submittions. During all the haze i managed to find some inspirational street design for public open spaces. This designer has created a very organic sustainable approach to public spaces that i find very intersting as the exterior of our lives do not always have to be normal, why not have designer looking elements around us all the time while conserving our enviroment!

The goal of the intervention at Eduard-Wallnöfer-Platz (Landhausplatz) was to create a contemporary urban public space that negotiates between the various contradictory conditions and constraints of the site and establishes a stage for a new urban activities characterised by a wide range of diversity. The realised project consists of a 9.000 square meter undulating concrete floor sculpture surface that was done by an Austian design Studio LAAC Architects and Stietel Kramer Architecture.

The Platz square retains the site’s four monuments with the addition of new trees, benches, lighting, a fountain and drinking fountains.

The huge concrete slabs swell upwards to frame these elements, with textured surfaces giving way to a smooth polished surface.

Water is allowed to drain away through the gaps between the slabs and is absorbed on site. Before the transformation took place, the square’s atmosphere and spatial appearance was dominated by the facing facade of the Tyrolean provincial governmental building from the period of National Socialism, and by a large scale memorial that looks like a fascist monument – which in fact and in spite of its visual appearance is a freedom monument that shall commemorate the resistance against, and the liberation from National Socialism. The intervention aims to compensate for existing misconceptions and to reinforce the monument’s historical significance. The new topography of the square offers a contemporary and transformative base for the memorials and makes them accessible with a new perception.

The Platz has been transformed into a urban scuplture through its city context and its finish in concrete.

The surface of the square is designed in modulated slabs that have been cast in-situ

from concrete and joined by bolts that deal with shearing forces. Drainage of the whole square including the fountains are located at the open joints between the individual fields so that there is no drainage pit visible on the whole site. An innovative buffer system helps to accomodate the drainage design.

Hope you found the article as interesting as myself. Good luck and happy designing to all :)