Pre-Design:
With the start of the design I knew that I needed to stick to the five steps I had correlated between Donovan Hill designs and the book 'A Patterned Language'. those five steps can be referred to on the 'Donovan Hill' page of this site.
Before I was even able to construct a cabin design I wonted to generally produces something that had all the elements that I wonted in the final design. I wonted to do this because I believe a design is something that grows and progresses I did not want to just draw up my final design in the one go after my analysis. As seen to my right is the first stage of my cabin design. it includes the changes of texture that i wonted between the spaces and follows the Donovan Hill design methods above. A couple of things that I was n to happy with was the size of the cabin. I wanted the cabin to be much smaller, in its current form it did not fit on the site well at all.
Also the current design did not use the site to its full potential, a lot of it was just left as landscape, I wanted to use the site to the fullest. Another big important factor was that learning from the C House design I wanted to pay more attention to the natural typography of the land, having my cabin on different levels would help to break the site up and define rooms and entrances.What Needed To Change Summary:
In short the preliminary design above helped me to realises what was needed in the longer run of the final design. The following is a list of things I need to achieve in the final design:
1. Follow the five Donovan Hill Design guidelines
2. Be sensitive to the natural typography of the site.
3. Use typography to level off sections of the home and define rooms
4. Be small in size
5. Use a majority of the site available
6. use different textures and tectonics to define areas of the cabin. (give each section its own voice)
7. Tie all the different themes together neatly.
Final Design:
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| Rough Ideas |
The following design are the final plans for my Kelvin Grove Cabin. I believe it sensitively climbs the natural typography of the land and has been tectonically textured to define separate areas of the cabin. It highlights views and uses macro environment to its advantage by harnessing the natural wind flows and sun paths. the house is majority raised improving the chances of privacy for the inhabitants of the home.
This image shows me planning for the improved cabin design. In the above writing I have explained what I needed out of this cabin. I came to this conclusion by drafting a rough cabin idea while sorting through various analysis and deconstructing of plans. This is the beginning of putting that information together.
The next drawings are more formal I have finalised my designs and the following plans express the cabin from different perspectives section and elevations;
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| Site Plan - 1:100 |
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| Level One Floor Plan - 1:50 |
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| Level Two Floor Plan - 1:50 |
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| Southern Elevation - 1:50 |
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| Section A-A - 1:50 |
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| Perspectives |
You will find to the right of this text another floor plan highlighting the different levels in the design of the house. I wanted to integrated this into the design for several reasons. First of all it was to more naturally build the house into the site matching the natural typography of the land. Second I understood I needed a way of creating a private open plan view space on the northern elevation of the cabin. This was accomplished by creating one raised level on the courtyard making the inhibiters of the house higher than the general public having a private view of the park. The different levels through the design help to creating separate private and public spaces through the cabin defining a hierarchy of open space and a balanced design.
On the 'Donovan Hill' page it talks about a correlation found in the book 'A Pattern Language' , where there are guidelines to the design process taken in each project. The picture to the bottom right shows how I have implemented these five steps into my own cabin design. I feel I have successfully address each point separately while tying the whole design together with the overhanging roof;
1. = Green
2. = Grey
3. = Blue
4. = Red
5. = Orange
Refer to the 'Donovan Hill' page for a lengthier description version of the five step design guideline.
Ref:
- Book: 'A Pattern Language', Christopher Alexander, Oxford University Press, 1977
