92_Jonathan Forbes: Dramatic Structure
Jonathan Forbes
I believe that Architecture grows on you and becomes a part of you influencing the way you think about yourself and the people around you. To me I see architecture as the physical manifestation of human activity. It’s a progressive learning experience that can never be fully comprehended. What is present though is my passion for it and the process of turning thoughts into things is something I would love to pursue as a career. I'm currently an undergraduate student taking part in a Bachelor of Applied Architectural Science degree at Curtin University.
Dramatic Structure
My proposal is conceptualised around the notion of storytelling as a methodology of design practice and reconciliation with the first people. Through the telling’s of the “dreamtime” the first people could craft stories through verbal communication. Therefore how can we craft a story through a physical sense? The SoBE attempts to embrace this ideology to create a physical and meta-physical narrative for the students and staff who occupy it, creating a more personalised and intimate experience. Following the model of Gustav Freytag’s dramatic pyramid, being that every story has a beginning, a middle and end. Regardless of it being a verbal structure or a physical structure, it is my intention to show how this ideology can be put into a physical practice.
Learning Pedagogy
The expression and sharing of knowledge is constantly changing with time, and therefore does not remain as a linear procedure but instead as a cyclical practice, one that is subject to change and evolution. The perception that things are linear is an illusion that leads to aberrations; we are cyclical beings, never remaining static but constantly evolving with time and space. This philosophy can be applied to the learning process within the educational realm. Treating this building as a practice of design, as we progress through a project, we should consider that what we did “before” is always subject to change. A building that is flexible in its design, a place where things are neither right nor wrong, but can adapt. It is this cyclical philosophy that is the driving force of this educational environment, incorporating my three analysed stages of learning those of which being... 1. Attaining information 2. Retaining knowledge 3. Sustaining through practice
Crafting A Narrative
Using Freytag’s dramatic structure derived from plays and filmic studies as the driving concept in crafting a physical and metaphorical narrative. The SoBE is displayed into five stages, emulating five different experiences for students and staff as they progress through the intense fluctuations involved within the learning and design process.
Aesthetic Intentions
The building aims at reflecting a grounded industrial aesthetic that compels students into the mindset of it being a place of making, designing and testing. The façade creates an impression on the public as being a structure of continuous volume, providing a bold statement to the urban environment that this is a place of design and creation. The building aims to present the tectonics of architecture. It brings alive the relationship between barebones materials such as steel, timber and concrete. Exposure to these elements requires us to question how to make and how we can improve.
Site Strategy
The site strategy aims to channel the energy from the future proposed “innovation street” into a micro centric urban plaza that links all three of the learning stages together into a state of cohesion. An environment in which a unique synthesis occurs as it invites communal gathering from multiple discourses across the greater Curtin urban environment. This is the core of the site in which students and faculty can rest, interact and create. All of which is open to the public upon a ground level entry where they can view the climatic outcome of the student design process.
