Further Office Development 1

Different lighting conditions - Sunset, Midday, Sunrise, Midnight

Progress on the Office

Initially i made two elevator pads oscillating between the levels. After using it a couple of times, i felt was too inconvenient for masses of avatars to travel from level to level. therefore i decided to make a staircase between levels 2 and 3. i have also put the website of my journals onto the previously planned tubular walls. the picture below shows the columns containing information on Environment and Planning A,B,C and D. These websites are interactive and are approximately 4 metres in height.

the column to the left of the picture below is the Arch+ website and the elevator lift is directly in front of it so when an avatar comes up the lift, they would be confronted by the Arch+ website as i felt that journal gave me the most influence in the design.

below is a diagram showing the rectilinear and curved lines in my initial office. as you can see the rectilinear lines are only present along the length of the columns and the cut in the 3rd floor. The rest are of curves which, i felt reinforced the element of water on the sea/ground level.

Initial Vision for the Office

This is my office for the Architectural Media Course at Auckland University My vision for the office is to create an inhabitable space that was not confined to 4 flat rectangular walls (as with conventional buildings). I also wanted my office to be fururistic given the possibilities of building on a virtual game like second life. Throughout the designing process i was interested in the idea of transcience as well as the unpredictability of irregular forms.
I was influenced by issue 196/197 of the ARCH+ Journal and its impression of the shape of architecture in the future with its irregular forms/shapes.
The futuristic designs in the Arch+ issue had very distinct tube-like shapes and
the walls of my office are influenced by this shape. The half tube columns link together to form a meandering wall around the square floor. I also thought of the entrance to the office space to be tubular in form
however, this shape and texture proved to be very visually distracting for the office
I thought of having the light for the office radiate out into the environment for the effect of transciency
the effect turned out to be visually appealing
the meandering walls were discoordinated and needed to be angled correctly.
the office is split into 3 levels: the top level
the middle level
the sea/ground level
Therefore i thought of the entrance to be from the sea/ground level through an elevator in the centre of the office floor

the transparent columns holding up the office above

the office is very bright during the day so the textures need to be changed
the floor texture is of a clean low-reflection tile texture
the meandering walls look rectilinear from the side and in effect appear to be strong. a different texture would be good for emphasizing the strength of the columns however the theme of transcience would be lost.
An interesting view of my office above the water
An interesting view of my office under the water
an interesting view of my office under the water

Platform Experiment

After wasting time flying around in second life, i decided to make a platform for my three journals just to familiarize myself with the building options.

The diagonal wooden struts can be viewed from one angle (on platform) as a solid and from the opposite direction (looking at the front of the platform) as an array of skinny beams creating an illusion.

The larger elliptical holes are areas where your avatar can drop into and receive the link to the specified Journal Arcticle.

The Bright elliptical rings provide the lighting during the night.