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School of Architecture: An Urban Intervention (Howard Smith Wharves Design Proposal)

Part 1 Project 2012
Ofel Ribu
Queensland University of Technology Brisbane | Australia
The project acknowledges the disconnection and lack of knowledge transfer between public, private and government bodies. It explores the relationship that can occur between design students, teachers and the surrounding community through architecture.

Situated in the intersection of four major suburbs in Brisbane at Howard Smith Wharves, the project proposes to provide a building program that will give back to the public in the form of a design school for Masters of Architecture students. The transient nature of the site means that placing a typical building typology on site creates yet another divide between the public and private. The solution is this: a folded structure that incorporates public and private use. One that flows with the site and the traffic producing a series of “urban surfaces” – both “hardscape” and “softscape”. It aims to acknowledge and engage with the city’s various cultural and educational centres as well as the public as equal partners.

The project aims to provide an understanding that the school will not only need to combine the functions of a traditional learning centre, but also place an equal amount of emphasis on digital/virtual learning spaces if it is to be a successful design school for the future. This is to ensure that the building can grow as the students, teachers and community do. The structure does this by combining a variety of prefabricated modules that tie together into a continuous surface. It can be varying lengths and varying layers like a roll. The building can grow as the cohort grows.


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2012
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