Design Development

Considering Program

Folie to Building

Project 2 Concept Development

More and More Blender Tutorials

Playing with Blender 2.6

4D Diagramming

Folie Proposal

Folie Concept Developement

What is a "Learning" Space?

How do we learn? At the start of this unit, we were given the following quote:

"An object of an encounter is fundamentally different from an object of recognition. With the latter our knowledges, beliefs and values are reconfirmed. We, and the world we inhabit, are reconfirmed as that which we already understood our world and ourselves to be. An object of recognition is then precisely a representation of something always already in place. With such a non-encounter our habitual way of being and acting in the world is reaffirmed and reinforced, and as a consequence no thought takes place. Indeed, we might say that representation precisely stymies thought. With a genuine encounter however the contrary is the case. Our typical ways of being in the world are challenged, our systems of knowledge disrupted. We are forced to thought. The encounter then operates as a rupture in our habitual modes of being and thus in our habitual subjectivities. It produces a cut, a crack. However this is not the end of the story, for the rupturing encounter also contains a moment of affirmation, the affirmation of a new world, in fact a way of seeing and thinking this world differently. This is the creative moment of the encounter that obliges us to think otherwise. Life, when it truly is lived, is a history of these encounters, which will always necessarily occur beyond representation."

O'sullivan, S. 2006. Art Encounters Deleuze and Guattari: Thought Beyond Representation. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. p1.


As a group, we felt that in many ways this quote inspired our approach to the idea of learning. From the beginning of time human beings, in fact all living organism, have evolved, grown and learned through adapting to the environment. 

First Encounter

We expand outside ourselves in order to drive a car, we may trip over a bump in the road the first time we ride over it but through repetition we learn to stay upright. Growing up we learn the functions of a chair, a door etc. We learn from our mistakes. We learn from encounters. 
More and more however, we have designed our environment to adapt to us, therefore rather then experiencing encounters we are faced more often faced with objects of recognition. A vertical wall and a horizontal floor.

Our aim therefore is to create an installation that in some way plays with the idea of recognition. To perhaps present a recognisable object that does not perform the way one expects it to. To force those who encounter the installation to adapt in order use it.

Create a space that forces users to ADAPT.

The Site

What is a Folie?

In order to understand the idea of a Folie, we look at Bernard Tschumi's Parc de la villette. A project that essentially redefined the architectural term (Tschumi, 1987).

"For Tschumi, the bright red folies were meant as "activators of space" rather than sculptural objects. They became a sign for La Villette, much in the way that Giles Gilbert Scott's red telephone booths epitomise London or Hector Guimard's Art Nouveau Metro stations provide a leitmotif for the city of Paris (Bure, 2008)." 

Folie (Bure, 2008)

Parc De La Villette Folies (Bure, 2008)

Parc de La Villette layout (Bure, 2008)

"Far more than isolated sculptural objects, the folies appeared at once punctuation, animation and action. The simplicity of their assembly system belied the sophistication of their potential configuration (Bure, 2008)."

A folie is therefore an architectural installation that activates space… That rather than specifies a function allows for multiple translations, that is simplistic yet punctual within the site.


Bure, G. 2008. Paris / La Villette. In. Bernard Tschumi. ed. G. Bure, 47-73. Birkhauser: Basel.  
Tschumi, B., 1987. Cinegram Folie: Le Parc De La Villette, Princeton, N.J: Princeton Architctural Press. pp1-27.

Week 1- Project 1 Brief

and so it begins…

In a group of 4, we are asked to design a FOLIE in a location of our own choosing within the site that is- Howard Smiths Wharves, Brisbane. We are to keep in mind the idea of a "Learning" space...

Prior to commencing design, there are a few things to consider… 

• What is a Folie?
• What is a "learning" space?
• The Site

Hello & Welcome!

If you are involved with Architecture in anyway, I’m sure that more than once you have had someone tell you that all architects do is draw pretty pictures. Because coming up with a design is almost instantaneous. 

If only it were so simple!

Design is crazy and relentless at its best; you start with one idea and somehow wind up with too many to count. You often have to go backward just to go forward and you have to consider every little aspect and justify every little decision in order to come up with something that might just cut it. 

We all know now “because it looked good” is never the right answer. 

So how do we prevent ourselves from ending up staring blankly at the tutor with no idea how or why we came up with something so random?

By understanding our design process of course! 

As part of my Design course this semester, at the Queensland University of Technology, I have been asked to keep a blog of all my design processes; the good, the bad, the ugly and the sometimes insane. 

I present to you... Archii & me...

It promises to be one hell of a ride, do feel free to critique as you please.