Finger Wharf Essay

The Sydney Opera House is an enormously iconic building and sculpture which captures the eyes of many architects to this day. Its outstanding design has enrolled it into a World Heritage Site in 2005. The sculpture at the time of construction was thought to be a daring and impossible design but after years of close planning, it became a possible concept. The building is of outstanding universal value for achievements and structural engineering brilliance. It is one of Australia’s main icons, along with the Sydney Harbour Bridge and Australian War Memorial, but the opera house shows its significance as an architectural object of great beauty which inspires many young architects.

Architecture is a physical manifestation of the needs and aspirations of a society and is determined by few factors – context, climate, environment, and socio-cultural aspects of a place or a region. It includes not only monumental and professionally designed monuments but also quaint residential structures built by craftsmen and lay people for their own use. It includes the interrelationships of the built and open spaces within the larger landscape. (Tipnis, 2012)

“The good building is not one that hurts the landscape, but one which makes the landscape more beautiful than it was before the building was built” (Frank Lloyd Wright). Throughout the centuries, architecture has fascinated everyone. History is inscribed in buildings and they can express the political and economic power of a nation. Although time has gone by, buildings have not. You can still idolize ancient Egyptian and Greek architecture and see how the events that occurred at that time influenced them.

Whether it be buildings, marketplaces, transport, religious or political edifices the debate as to whether history changes are ongoing. Often people believe that history is always changing, but is that the case? The study of history can be perceived as “constantly evolving, never-ending journey of discovery” (Ponic, 2011). A comparison between Shakespeare’s original Globe Theatre and Sydney Opera House provides a good example of this. Both Amphitheatres were used similarly and both in different time periods. The following report will critically analyse the impact history has had on today’s society by comparing two buildings that were and are used for similar activities.

Creativity has come to be a key feature of urban development having an important role in ensuring the future sustainability of the Australian cities. The Population boom in Australian is placing increasing pressure on the government and infrastructure workers to redevelop old building into creative infrastructures. A growing trend throughout cities in Australia is refurbishing and rebranding cities this is way for the government to try address the issues of urban sprawl, economic development, and urban decay problems. Creative infrastructure offers opportunities for urban development to slow down the urban sprawl, increase employment growth and making housing affordable by attracting more people to the city whilst sustaining the environment. Strategic planning needs government and infrastructure workers for successful solutions to help support the

However, as the time passes, one can say that international architecture that totally lacks cultural symbols cannot always ensure what an ideal model of the city is striving at - creating the comfortable environment where people can live. The reminiscences of architectural post- modernism became the attempts to bring back the lost symbols into

There are a few approaches to preserving and remodelling Machiya. Several numbers of existing Machiya have been rehabilitated for modern uses.Rather than erasing all the traces of Machiya’s previous owner, some modern architects preserved the earlier haphazard extensions as a timeline of the building’s history. By analysing the structure of ageing Machiya and applying the appropriate modifications, they are functioned as accommodation facilities once again. Some redeveloped Machiya are also converted and now operate as resident inns, hotels and restaurants, providing a way for people to enjoy the experience of staying in a traditional building. Some of the floor plan and the finishing materials changed significantly throughout a series of haphazard modifications. However, there also existed some attractive elements that effectively captured the “timeline” of the houses as it passed through the series of

Dorf is a consulting firm specialising in adaptive reuse development of heritage and vacant building stock. We will provide strategic packages for developers, architects, planners and government agencies. We believe that the adaptive reuse of our heritage and aging built landscape is fundamental to environmental, social and cultural sustainability. Dorf advocates preservation through adaption, rather than blunt conservation and isolation. We believe that more attention and consideration is due to the respectful adaptive reuse of our Post War and modernist heritage, particularly in Brisbane. In the future, we aim to evolve our practice to include roles as developers, beginning with the development of a small scale reuse project in the next

With the growing presence of globalization and modernization, the pre-industrial building heritage is indeed under threat with modern methods prevailing. In that vein, we are seeing how the “designs, use and meanings of these traditions change within the concepts of the contemporary processes” in a globalized world (Lindsay Asquit, Marcel Vellinga, 2006).

The architectural legacy of the past is one full of astonishing, miraculously constructed buildings and urban spaces. Great books on architectural history and its dissemination can be found everywhere, and history of architecture courses offered to students are a reflection of our continuous amazement with architectural principles and manifestations all around the world. It interests us to see what civilizations of the past established. This is very well reflected in Frank

This translation is somehow getting lost from the digital through to the commitment of construction, but maybe the lost and the forgotten can become the interesting and the innovative. However, this contrast is rather intriguing and clever as it expands our possibilities and energies through the different ways of applying architecture.

“Architecture as space” by Peter Goldberger discusses the significance of the interior space within architecture as it is where the viewer has a true experience. The feeling when entering a building builds a foundation for the viewers’ expectations and is most influential to their judgement of the space. With a comparison of a person’s reaction to a building from the exterior to the interior, Goldberger explains that an exterior is viewed as a whole and seen in a context however the interior will mould the persons experience with choice of lighting, form and space. His discussion of how space can influence the users’ movement proves that the architect can directly ‘control’ the user or even through light determine the mood either with natural lighting or use artificial lighting for something that can be controlled .

This essay will explore the ambiguity of the Iconic, what does it stand for in the modern world of architecture and how does it originate. The obsession of architecture with this term is slowly taking over; architects strive towards creating Iconic buildings as a way to gain fame. How does one design an Iconic building and what does it imply when placed within a particular context? We will explore this through a particular architectural project of the church of San Giovanni Battista under Florence, an icon which never really succeeded in achieving its purpose and yet contains some of the very fundamental and curcial ideas about the Iconic which I want to express in this essay. Why does one building (such as the Eiffel tower or London Gherkin)become symbolic for a city while other attempt to replicate this phenomenon fail? And most importantly what role does the context (as a city morphology or natural habitat) play

A story makes an old building charming. In reality, a pleasing exterior view does not ensure people will be attracted to the particular heritage building. It is the story behind the heritage building that gives meaning to both building and people. As a heritage building, the building itself has been passed the test of time and becomes a typical landmark for a city. Hence, the story of the building explained its architecture style and structure which makes it be a remarkable building. For instance, Sultan Abdul Samad Building (SASB) has a unique architectural design which is the mixture of several architectural styles. This result is caused by the Charles Edwin Spooner, the state engineer of Public Work Department, Selangor, who worked in Ceylon before transferred to Selangor. He preferred to design a Mughal-style building on a Classic Renaissance style ground plan which suggested by A.C. Norman. Moreover, British Victorian style is incorporated into this building’s design as the British colonized Malaya. This story explained its unique architectural structure while gave the new generation a better understanding of the classic architectural style and the history of Malaysia. Thus, theories, ideas, and ideologies which influenced the

To begin with, the first research question is intended to investigate the consideration of modern design intervention of the three case studies, which represent three different approaches to design intervention. Three of the case studies share similarities as has been mentioned in the methodology chapter; nonetheless, all applied different strategies in the contemporary design intervention. The church of St. Pere of Corbera d’Ebre and The Convent of San Fransesc Auditorium approached the case with a more similar approach, first, structural mitigations of the ruins from collapse and further deterioration; and second, created interior spaces for a cultural purpose. Whilst, Santa Caterina market possessed greater challenges since the ruins were discovered during the construction. Correspondingly, the site function as a market has more significance to the current residences compare to its previous function. In addition, the new structure has incorporated the old market building fabric as well as the ruins; Therefore, the old market become a crucial part that needs to be taken account in this research.