Initial Design Development

Once we got into our group and began discussing potential ideas for our folie design, we found it was quite difficult to get a strong concept going. We began by focusing on the "learning" part of the project. We found ourselves considering if we should focus on direct or passive learning, the one potentially being to boring of a way to consider the project and the other could have ended up not teaching the occupant anything if we lost focus during the design phase. After a while we decided it would be a better idea to decide what we wanted people to learn about before we considered the mode of delivery.

We thought about how during our walks around the city it just seemed like such a hectic place and that perhaps people needed to "learn to relax". This lead us to considering a how people could relax and how we could provide this space in the site given to us. Although, after consulting with one of the tutors we began to see this as a bit of a weak concept and began to explore different directions.

Eventually, after considering several options, we decided to focus on learning through the senses. After all, the site is full of potential for this kind of learning:

• Sight: It over looks a large stretch of land and river (especially if you built out of the cliff or from the bridge).
• Sound: You can hear the background noise of the CBD as well as the rumble of traffic from the bridge above.
• Touch: There is alot of interesting textures around the site, from the steel of the Story Bridge, to the concrete walkways near the site and the old buildings within the site.
• Taste/Smell: The city pretty much smells like the city, so we weren't going to focus on this sense to much, although its worth noting there was more of an earthy smell around the site (probably from the river and vegetation).
• A sense of history: Although this doesn't really fall under this category the same way as the conventional senses do, we thought it was worth considering the kind of historic feeling you get from being near the site and being able to see the old bunker/buildings. As this is an older part of Brisbane we thought it would be well worth considering some aspect of it for our design.

Now that we had the basis for our design, we decided to gather examples of other sensory structures and do a bit of research as well as some rough sketches for our next meeting.

Walkshop Log

The above map shows the path taken to reach the building site for our folie design from start (QUT) to finish (Howard Smith Wharves). For the first part of the journey we took the loop bus to Adelaide St and then walked through the CBD until we reached the river. This part of the walk proved to be quite chaotic as the bus was full and walking along with the fast-paced pedestrians made you feel quite rushed. We walked through this section at about late morning, so it was safe to assume that most people would be at work by this time. The fact that it still felt so rushed and busy shows that this section of the city would probably be like this throughout the day, regardless of time (although on weekends this would probably be different).

Once we reached the river and started walking towards the wharves (see images above) there was considerably less condensed pedestrian traffic. Most of the people passing by being were in casual dress, not business wear, and didn't seem to be quite as rushed as the pedestrians in the CBD. This provided a much calmer atmosphere.

Above are some rough sketches of the Howard Smith Wharves showing its location in relation to the river and the bridge. The large pillars under the bridge could potentially impact the design of the folie, as could the elongated nature of the site. It is assumed that when the folie is constructed there is to be access to a ferry terminal near the site. This would help to bring pedestrians through the location. During the walkshop most of the people who were walking along the river seemed quite casual and in no particular hurry; having a ferry terminal near the site could help bring through a greater variety of pedestrians, such as business people and tourists. Therefore, it would be important to keep this in mind when looking at the folie design.