Green Streets Project

You may remember I made a post a few months back talking about a project I was working on called the Green Streets Project. This was a project that was only suppose to be in the office for 2 week. We don't always go though projects this fast, but I worked with another girl in the office on this project and I was able make the site visit as well and work on the plans and doing the montages for the project. The reason the project went thought the office so fast was the city acquired a large among of trees to be planed in the governmental housing part of Sydney. We were hired to plan the placement of the trees properly, as well as to raise awareness to the community the benefit of planting these tree. A local college in Sydney did series of heat test in the community that showed due to the lack of trees it is warming the area up so much that it couldn't cool off fast enough in the evening. So hopefully by planting these trees it will shade the pavement enough to bring down the temperature over the whole community.... After doing our research on the site and figuring out that it wouldn't be possible due to the power, telephone, and water lines that run though the area. But we were told to just continued so hopefully if we could get the raise enough awareness that one day the community would be willing to raise money to complete the project.

So after all this the client continually pushed the project to the point where we found our selves walking every street in all these subdivisions marking the exact location of each tree along with a surveyor (this was very unusual job for us).

(Sexy illustration, showing site potential)

The project moved very fast and they wasted no time to break ground and plant some trees.

Unfortunately, the community wasn't as excited about the project as everyone else. After just one of the subdivision were planted and 2.4 million dollars of Australian tax payers money spent. Some one went though the entire neighbor hood and chopper on every single tree.

Quote from Michael Wright (Principal) :: "Letting the community see the damage may encourage the tree huggers to beat up the tree buggers ??!!"

Sydney Olympic Park

This is a project that comes from one of our very own professors, Glenn Allen. The Sydney Olympic Park was done through the Hargraves office. As most of us already know the Hargraves office has done several Olympic Parks now. As I am sure the highly developed park lands that are built for any olympic games, the site must be built to become self sustaining long after the games are over. I feel in the case of Sydney's Olympic Park ten years after the 2000 Olympic games the landscape has only just begun to grow into its space. The site is quite large and I feel the best way to truly explore the entire site is by using the well developed bike route that runs throughout the entire site. The site is full of iconic land works that spread throughout the parklands. When viewed from the tops you are given views over the entire parkland. With these largely engineered landscapes you are guided through the site by kilometers of gaben walls that line most landscape embankments, while complimenting the large earthworks giving you the feel that the site was only created for such a large event as an Olympic game. Some of the interesting features I found when passing through the site is how I could find my self passing through large open public space but still feeling completely alone as if I was the first person to ever discover this space, with the path only leading me to a enclosed private space. I also enjoyed that even with the large earthworks there was a great amount of detail that was also put into these landscape features.

One Alfred Street

One Alfred Street is a very historical corner right in the heart of Sydney CBD. Currently there is a building there mostly made one offices and a few retail stores. But there are plans for a new residential/retail development to take place. The 2 or 3 million dollar apartment will provide its residence with a front row seat to some of the best views of Sydney's Harbor including the Sydney Opera House and the Sydney Harbor Bridge.

I have been very excited about this project because I have been able to work on it from the very beginning, where most of my time here I have been thrown into the middle of a lot of projects. We were ask by the client after our first meeting to build a model of the site to really begin to understand the spaces with in the site, especially between the buildings. So I had the opportunity to build both the physical and virtual models for the site as well as the existing and proposed plans. All I was given was the architectural plans, so I had a good time looking over and studying the plans figuring all the different roof and ground elevation, to eventually building and rendering all my models and plans. We were also asked to study and propose the idea of a roof garden of the lower building which residents will look down on to, as well as some private gardens for the residents with the big buck, so I have also been studying roof gardens around the world.

This projects is still in its "very" earlier stages, after our last meeting we were asked to not add any trees to the new site ... so who know where things will go next but I am looks forward to watching it development.

Existing Plan

Our First Proposed Plan

(The physical model was built to be used as a working model, I was not asked to make it perfect, but to make things editable for future changes. Also note: one building is about 93 meters heigh and the other and 45 meters, in the model I build up about 25 meters just to show all the spaces and over hangs)

Australian Wildlife

This has nothing to do with landscape but it is too funny not to share (Kelly don't watch this video). So this bird naturally does this too its prey in the wild, but the funny part is that this bird was born with a bit of brain damage and he doesn't when to stop now. He kept doing this for about ten min, until and the insides of the little mouse had completely come out.

Paddington Reservoir

Paddington Reservoir is a new “Pocket Park” in Sydney that is located right down the street from where our office is at, we often go here to eat lunch. It just recently won all the AILA awards. It has a large history in that is use to supply water the all the eastern suburbs in Sydney. After it was no longer needed it was abandoned, and eventually turned in to this beautiful little park. Very simple but loads of interesting details.

Paddington Reservoir

Blue Mountains

These are some images from a weekend trip to the Blue Mountains, about a two-hour trip by train from Sydney. I was able to do two great hikes in the two days I was there. Aussie’s call it the Grand Canyon of Australia mainly cause it was formed the same way as the Grand Canyon, but it is in no comparison to it. I’m just going to let the pictures speak for them selves. Good thing is that it is close enough to Sydney, I hope to make several more trips on here for more hiking, as well as some rock climbing and maybe even some camping trips.

Photoshop CS5

Coming soon to a computer near you ... Photoshop CS5!

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PHOTOSHOP CS5 Preview!

Inside the office of :: SMM

This is a little of what I have been up to in the office. This first project is project that was only in the office for 2 week. We don't always go though projects this fast, but I worked with another girl in the office on this project and I was able make the site visit as well and work on the plans and doing the montages for the project. The reason the project went thought the office so fast was the city acquired a large among of trees to be planed in the governmental housing part of Sydney. So to plan the placement of the trees properly, as well as to raise awareness to the community the benefit of planting these tree. A local college in Sydney did series of heat test in the community that showed due to the lack of trees it is warming the area up so much that it can't cool off fast enough in the evening. So hopefully by planting these trees it will shade the pavement enough to bring down the temperature over the whole community.... After doing our research on the site and figuring out that it will never be possible due to the power, telephone and water lines that run though the area. But we were told to just continued so hopefully if we could get the raise enough awareness that one day the community would be willing to raise money to complete the project.

This next project is in Sydney's Chinatown. This project is still in the early stages of the design so I am constantly revising these montages as the design changes. But more or less we are make the street in Chinatown more pedestrian friendly, by closing streets and widening footpaths, and of course adding trees. (I know the red tree looks fake ... but it is a real tree, that really gets that red.)

These are just a few of the task I have completed while I have been here and some of these are more interesting images to look at. I jump around on a lot of the projects in the office to I have been doing a wide range of jobs. One being some cool sections on a road where we are installing large pole allowing these flying squirrels to cross the highway, so we had to calculate the distance they can fly and place poles high and far enough apart so they can safely cross, the poles will one day be taken down once the trees reach the proper heigh (very interesting). Sections to come later

Transportation and Infrastructure :: Sydney

So I began noticing some things about Sydney's transpiration and movement thought the city very early in my time here. I have drawn sections and plan and taken picture of things a liked about it. Starting with first section, in many city there is always the problem of large roads dividing neighborhoods, suburbs, and at time families friends and animal communities. What Sydney has done thought with the use of their radical topography they taken the main arteries in and of the city and they have sunk them allowing people leaving the city to get out quickly and back to their own suburb while still allowing to changes on and off in various suburbs. I feel this is very successful in not diving up the city.

This next plan and section show how Sydney has wisely used their topography. By stacking all of these different modes in transportation it allowing a lot to go on but in a little space whiles still moving you quickly or slowly though the city.

Pictures of what has been drawn above.

Chinatown

Spackman+Mossop+Michaels does a lot of governmental public works projects. This is a before and after photo montage of Sydney's Chinatown. This was given to me on my first day of work. The city of Sydney has asked us to produce to series of these types of images to show the public in a meeting on Monday. The 8 before and after montages are all due on Friday! I can show you all more as I finish them.

Coogee Beach

Well now for a change in climate from Will and John, this is Coogee Beach over looking Pacific Ocean its quite beautiful, and as Will and John last post hundreds of people come here everyday to drink and swim ... yeah some thing like that! I had my first day of work today also, its a great office everyones very nice and helpful. I am looking forward to working there for the next several months, on my first day they already had me working on some photoshop perspectives, they love us LSU kids and our computer skills.