Presentation A0 - Tree of Life

Had to call it a day on this one, which is a shame as there's so much more I'd liked to have done, including more photomontages and working details. Overall I'm pleased with the result give or take a few presentation tweaks. We'll see how it gets received tomorrow!

Tree of Life Renders

A few renders of the finished model. Just need to bling it out in Photoshop and put it on the A0 and we're done!

New Materials

After more rationalising, I think ETFE is the way to go for the modules. I'm imagining a reinforced concrete floor deck supported by the truss, with underfloor heating/cooling direct from the solar hot water systems and providing some thermal mass. The walls and roof would be ETFE panels on an aluminium frame, with an inner lining of steel mesh to protect the cells from internal damage. Think Eden Project.


The cells could be arranged like the weaves found on the new technology of Carbon Nanotubes, linking in with the 'weave' idea of historical Briggate - but updating it with a thoroughly 21st century technology.



Meanwhile the inner mesh could have fibre optic or LED lighting tubes further weaved into it to provide lighting - such as the MediaFacade system

After a little rethink, the design has been reduced considerably in scale - the sky cafe is now a mere 25m and with the additional wind turbine the entire building is now just over 36m in height. The rings are now open air - solar hot water tubes running over a walkway.

Of course, the larger model would fit in just fine next to Bridgewater Place!

Presentation A0 - Tree of Life

Here's a first go at a final presentation board. On the right there is a funky wireframe/full render split, with annotations going to technical details and internal views (not done yet!).

Only 1 week to go!

Tree of Life Refined

The design has now been rationalised somewhat - scaled down further, properly modelled and with new materials proposed - the in-situ cast concrete uprights have been replaced with three steel trusses for a better strength/weight ratio and a more slender form. There is also an additional vertical wind turbine at the tip of the spire, a scaled up version of the one by Helix (previous post)

Wind Turbines

I'm tempted to add a wind turbine to the tip of the design for extra renewable energy potential. That way, you get the full range of systems which complement each other throughout the seasons. Here are two designs for helical wind turbines, including a new design with a sculputured blade which is even more efficient.

Hmmm

Here's the Tree of Life in that all important context. Definitely needs scaling down and rationalising somewhat, so that's the current task. Overall the brief is turning into an "urban powerstation" but with ancillary community facilities - in this case it would be a gym which collects all that energy generated from people lifting weights or pedalling exercise bikes. However, there's no reason why the lower levels couldn't be adapted for other facilities - a theatre, swimming pool, market or whatever. This means you could have many of these installations in an urban area, all feeding energy into the local system and providing facilities to benefit society

Tree of Life Proposals

It's been a busy weekend but here are 5 ideas for the tree of life, in backtracking order of development

This is the most recent design (above), using two uprights to support the 'ribs' which contain the energy generating kit There would be a central stair and lift core, a sky cafe and lower gym levels.

This design was inspired by the Montjuic communications tower by Calatrava, with the rings forming a ribcage of sorts around a central spine.


This idea integrates the gym modules with the energy generating systems, and could have a series of archimedies screws to lift water high into the air before dropping it back into a pool, generating energy on the way down. The stacked modules resembles Foster's London Council Building... though this is merely co-incidence!


This design uses a spine to angle a series of rib modules around a central lift/stair core.


Lastly, this was the first design which is most in keeping with the original sketches.

Precedents for the 'Tree of Life'

This is the Yugoslav Aeronautical Museum, just next to the airport in Belgrade, Serbia. The steel and glass ring reminds me of electrical capacitors and insulators you get on electrical pylons - pretty fitting as the Airport is named after Nikola Tesla. You could have a series of these constructions, lined with PV and Solar evacuated tubes to create the 'Tree of Life' - architecturally expressing it's function as an energy collector.

Proposals

It's been a while since the last update, but we're storming ahead with proposal ideas.



We've taken a three tiered strategy for our proposals - over, under and above. Wai plans to design a bridge link, Chris is looking at facade treatment, Martin is developing a renewable energy generator to take Briggate off the grid.

Briggate - Redefined

Oops, forgot to post the finished A0 for "Redefining Briggate" - introducing our concept of draping Briggate in a fabric and seeing how it could manifest itself on the ground. On with the proposals! Above: Finished graphic, Below: Work in Progress

Death by Powerpoint

Presentation on Thursday went well, a shame there was no individual feedback in between group presentations.

In the meantime, I present "Death by Powerpoint"

Visual mapping

Some excellent links using projectors and specialist techniques to create audio-visual installations. Seems to be mostly the French doing this thing at the moment...

www.antivj.com



AntiVJ + Créa Composite / Nuit Blanche 08 / BXL - Click here for another funny movie.

Briggate - Defined

The story so far - our group has been tasked to define Briggate - the main shopping street in the centre of Leeds.

The conclusion and definition was "Layers of history composited together, creating disjointed spaces with opportunities for the future."

That is how we see Briggate now - in a physical, tactile sense. The challenge now will be to redefine Briggate in a conceptual sense and put forward our proposals