Starting laser cutting workshop

Our 12tram stopsare

1. St. Andrew's First Presbyterian Church

2. The Old Railway Station

3. The Old Railway hotel

4. St Paul's Church

5. School of Architecture and Planning

6. Town Hall

7. The Civic Theatre

8. Ferry Building

9. The Clock Tower

10. Smith & Cougheys

11. Auckland High Court

12. Sky  tower

View from my site - st andrews church

View of site

We have been asked to design a tram route and tram stop which is our gift to the city. My group chose to have a theme of architectural history for international architecture students. So we plotted tram stops by buildings such as st andrews church and the old railway station. I have chosen to design the tram stop for st andrews church. I chose not to place the tram stop right infront of the church but on the opposite side of the road so it is in the triangle boundy but also so my design will not take away and in a way wreck this historical building and it will also give people a view of the architecture from a distance. Since our theme was for architecture students, i was think i wanted to design my tram stop so that it controls peoples view and frames the church in a way which people would usualy not look at the build, giving them an unusal and different experience and perspective of architecture. This could possibly work out to allow people to see parts of the building that might usually been taken for granted/ not really noticed ect. Anouther thing we had to do was incorperate a material from our 1:1 detail fromlast week and how weathering would effect our design or material. My 1:1 was made out of concrete, brick, and metal so i went looking for intresting materials that could represent these materials or weathered forms of theese materials and would be intresting to lasercut. i found/ thought about things like paper mache, cork, rubber cork. The image below is made out of cork and what lead me to thinking about cork. This piece of work is amazing and i know i couldnt do anything near that good but it represents brick, and stone very well and looks weathered too.

im thinking maby i should use brick cause i could create wall type things and pull some bricks out which would be a way of controlling and creating a unique way of viewing st andrews. the design will be hollow underneeath so removing bricks will create the lighting efect. the underneath creates a shelted enclosed environment while the top is open and free.  it will give people the best of both worlds. Weathering doesnt have to be restricted to the material so in a way the weathering i am dealing with could be light


i didnt know if rubber cork could be laser cut but i tested it today and it looks really good. The only problem with the engraving of this material is that the engraving doesnt really stanout because of the black coulor in the materual. I gut a grid because i wanted it to represent brick but im thinking maby cutting the rectangles and applying them to anouther surface might create a beter affect but that is something i will have to experience with

i have to think about how my design is going to work with the site. the site is slopes and is on the edege of the park. the tutors gave m some helpful ideas today that really is going to help me develop this idea into somthing much better. My design might go futher along the sigh to instead of people walking up the foot path they can walk over my design and see the church in a different way as they differently approach it

This is a basic quick sketch/development of my idea. I started of thinking about walls then pulling shapes out of them to frame a paticular view. I decided brick wall then remove certain bricks to create the view. the whta if these walls became apssage way/area things that pepole could walk up on - open, or beneath - for shelter. Putting the design on site which is hilly and peole maby walkingup over my designinstead of footpath to experienceandview church in adifferent way. Easy to step onto at bottom - close to ground,has ramps so you can go over it. The widthds vary. large wide area for groups to wait for tram or narrower areas for one person toexperince design andchruch andwaitfor tram. pullinng bricks out willcreate a lighting effect for the underneath areas