Wednesday 8 August 2012

Peer Review 2: Simpli-city

Team 22 (Simpli-city) designed two plantrooms for their workshop, focusing on an exploration of materials, connection methods, and the experience of the space. The brief entailed them to design for "plants", whether that be organic foliage or machinery, and use laser cut elements to model their designs for the plantrooms. 
Simpli-city's plantroom for their utopia showed a relaxation space on top of their hotel where people could walk through and congregate. The plants would hang down from the ceiling which was made of a series of asymmetric, but modulated, shapes held together with cable ties and chicken wire. The interior was considered well, with a water feature designed to move through the interior, conserving the excess water from the rain. The plates for the water to run over were cut in a shape rather reminiscent of a stegosaurus spine. These plates were also engraved with  an interesting texture. Overall, the utopian plantroom showed an interesting exploration of a variety of materials, intriguing forms and shapes, and a carefully considered "experience" interior space.
The dystopian plantroom was designed for machinery, which was clear in the overall more geometric and coloured a silvery grey. The function of the architecture was expressed clearly in the structure of the room. The strong use of geometric elements and cutouts assist the ideas of "machinery" and industrialization. The plantroom had a large sliding element which showed a consideration for controlling the light and air quality/quantity for the building. This plantroom, unlike the utopian one, is almost entirely made of spray painted MDF. The pieces are connected with wire (which links well with the chicken wire on the utopian plantroom) and the connections are given expression, with no attempt to smooth or hide them. 
Simpli-city have two very successfully designed plantrooms which show a consideration of space, the experience of the client, light, air, a variety of materials and different connection methods.
Their blog: http://simpii-city.tumblr.com/

No comments:

Post a Comment