Friday 26 November 2010

Reviews and Conclusion

South London gallery received many positive reviews such as;

The Evening Standard (south London gallery – a place for the people) - 23rd June 2010
Dezeen.com - June 23rd 2010
DBonline.co.uk – 9th July 2010
Financial Times – 23rd June 2010

Someone once said that community centres aren't the centre of anything. Today, galleries of this scale act like community centres but with content. Galleries are the centre of something; they can inspire creativity, reverence, excitement. They alter the behaviour of people who visit them.’ 
                                                                                       The Evening Standard 23rd june 2010 by Kieran Long.



Conclusion
We found that this statement best suits the building. During our research we also concluded that the gallery extension helps bring the local people together via the café and the warm interior. By keeping basic elements of a Victorian Terrance house the same also helps people feel comfortable and welcome. This helps build a relationship between people and the gallery. When building this relationship many people weather interested in arts or not do subconsciously interact with the art exhibited in the café and the dinning room. This project is more about bringing different people together. 


We really enjoyed the time working together and the project itself, we learnt a lot about it and are looking forward to see how these things we learnt will help us in our studies. 



Wednesday 17 November 2010

Environment and Habitation

General Circulation- Where do people mostly move to?

We' observed that the extension by 6 A Architects has been loved for its cafe, and that most people come for a nice lunch or coffee to socialise in a warm and cosy environment. Therefore the space is more than an extension of just a gallery but also a space where people come together .

Scences
Experimenting:
Standing at specif distances until we felt the cold air once the door was opened.
Using the rope to measure the distance.



Reflections
 Outside becomes part of the inside. Nature let in.


Experimentation: 
Attempts to separate and blocking the exterior from penetrating into the interior with our bodies, to investigate the differences between the two.



Reflections
We noticed that in the late afternoon reflections become more vivid, linking the outside with inside.






















Section view of extension



For this section of the building, we were very much interested to understand the way that the building has been constructed, for example, where all the pressure lies within this wall. So we firstly, researched the material used underneath the cladding. Through doing so we learned that a possible material used is steel
and because this just forms the skeleton of the wall as a matter of fact it is not as heavy as we predicted it to be. Therefore, we can come to a conclusion that the blocks on either side of this section are what's used as supports for this building.


Barriers
The way space is divided into three parts. We first have a public space whih is the road and pavement, we then go into an encosed public space which is divided by a gate and the we have a cross of barriers. An enclosed space which has a protective skin, which protects you from the elents outside, but also public because as a gallery space it is open to anyone.



Transformation of the Tree






For this part of the project, we wanted to analyze changes that had occurred within the space of the SLG since we had begun this project. In addition, we looked back at the first day we visited the gallery and the first difference we noticed was weathering: the huge tree located at the front of the gallery had lost all its leaves and it was interesting to see how more spacious the front of the gallery actually looked. With the leaves fallen, we feel that this makes the building look more vivid. Something else that stood out to us was the entrance door, on our first day the door was kept opened because it was warmer outside and this made the gallery feel more welcoming, however, now with cold weather the door is kept shut and for us this evokes quite and uninvited feeling, especially if you do not live locally!

Construction



Extension's facade 

Cladding involves the process of putting two layers of a material one on top of the other. In addition, within our building these concrete plates have been placed one on top of the other. We learned that, a use of these plates is to protect against weathering conditions for example, it acts as a shield to water leaks and works against the wind. Another use is to give an aesthetically pleasing look.





Image of the completely new section of the site before construction

Image of the same view point after the construction are completed






Plan for renewed victorian house
his image looks closely at the construction changes on a plan drawing. on the left hand side is a bottom floor plan of a victorian terrace house and on the right hand side is the bottom floor plan of the gallery. the dark lines show the changes made in the plan. as you can see there are not many changes made the feel of it being a victorian terrace still remains. in addition changes have been made to give a better flow through the building.


Staircase
Looking at the stairs we concluded that it must have been made up of a steel or timber structure, where a square joict moves its way upwards, then becomes level and then again moves up following the design of the stairs. Steel or timber triangles are welded onto the joict.This process is repeated on the other side of the structure too. Wooden planks are then screwed onto the steel or timber structure vertically and horizontally. The handrail is also welded onto the framework. The area left is then covered with gypsum board (white area) making the stairs have a solid feel to it.




Lights
Lights are taken as a huge character in effecting how a building is designed and constructed. As much as it effects how the building is constructed, it always effects how the visitor's feelings and emotion towards the building. The control of light of the interior determined the experience the vistors have within the building.


With allow natural light penetrating from the exterior brightens up the inteiror and creates a warm atmosphere. Lights also sharpens the shape of the interior giving highlighting the smooth or sharp edges which hence exposes the quality and age of the building itself, hence new buildings tends to have bright lightings as it allows the vistors to see the craftsmanship of the building.








Examples of well used light within architectural space
(The Architecture of Natural Light - Henry Plummer) 





Wednesday 10 November 2010

Structure

What is holding the South London gallery extension together? 
Here are some structural examples... What lies beneath...

Arch


Wood panel flooring
Stell structure covered with concrete tiles
Steel Structure Frame
Foundations


Brick Walls


The Model
This week we decided to create a structure which represents our interpretation of the South London Gallery Extension. The most important aspect of this design project by the 6A architects is that they have left the victorian terraced brick structure untouched and created a modern interior to it. We collected the most interesting feautures of this design such as minimalism, streamline, modern and incorporated a brick wall into our structure to create this stark contrast.
Materials used:

Wire mesh, smooth surface , streamline shape- representing the new..
brick straight wall- representing the old.