The Triangle Collective

We, The Triangle Collective, is a group of 3 students studying Architecture at the University of Auckland who are participating in the annual Auckland Architecture Weekend 2010 competition- SKYRISE city.

The event will be held on 16th October 2010 in Sheds 1+2 on 135 Halsey Street, Auckland CBD.

The competition brief is to design a 8m tall skyrise with a 2m x 2m square footprint at the bottom.

Our Design 4 group brief is Recasting, where we have to recast an everyday material and put it into an environment that we will not normally associate the material to.

The blog is to note down important sessions, crits and experiments throughout our design process from the beginning to the night of the event.

Hope you enjoy the project as much as we do.

Thanks for your support,
Cameron, Kassidy and Kelvin @ The Triangle Collective

Thursday, September 2, 2010

23.08.2010 Mid Semester Crit

After the jury presentation, we realised we had to make our project more precise. The problem with the project was with what we wanted to acheive, and what materials we needed to achieve that as well as how it will hold up 8m. So after a while of discussion, we have chosen to use "Emergency Blanket" materials its is similar to Tin foil in terms of appearance and reflectivity, it is also more delicate and less easy to tear as much. The best thing about these blanket materials is the opacity of the skin against light. It becomes totally transparent on one side, and totally reflective on the other. This light effect will be what we wanted to acheive where we can see the occupants inside our skyrise.
To hold these blankets up however, we needed to use a structure to support them because they are so light. We came up with Tensegrity Structures where they come in units, different levels that we can transport them easily to the sheds. The emergency blanket will be sewed and pleated at the edges to allow the tensegrity Tension unit threaded through. This will be in the form of high tensile fishing wire. The compression units will be revealed inside our structure, made of dowel wood and fluorescent light tubes will be attached on to them.
Each of these unit will be prefabricated and taken to the site. At the connections of each of the emergency blankets, we will be sewing zips to the edge when it can zip up the gaps. The entrance of the skyrise will be a triangular prism where the blankets will be pleated like curtains that can retract and cover up.

For our Midsemester Crit we printed off a strip of 3 A1s showing plans, section, elevation, details and perspective. We also produced a 1:1 detail of the curtain entrance and a 1:20 model along with other working models.