Model Making — The Nodal Shift
Since its conception, the former Conference Racing Building has stood prominently on a busy street corner, flanking the boundaries of the civic heart. Over time, its exposed location and unconventional architecture has resulted in a landmark piece of heritage — an iconic node within the wider urban fabric. While the building remains largely unchanged, the makeup of its surrounds has dramatically shifted, most notably in recent years through a newfound vision for a liveable city.
My work explores the role of a heritage icon in a rapidly changing urban context, and the reinvention required to re-establish its relevance. Beginning with little more than a sketch design, model making became a launching point for further investigation — a tangible object used to discuss, debate, swivel, and interrogate.
Conceived as a melding of two typologies, a slender residential tower floats atop the heritage construction, mimicking its proportion in plan. To the rear, a commercial addition presents a lighter volume, instilling presence and pedestrian activation.
Beginning with the simplest of blocks, each big move was evaluated for its position, scale, and relationship to its surrounds. Through this rapid-fire process of testing and adjusting, a driving idea was extracted — the nodal shift. While heritage elements remain true to the original city grid, contemporary insertions seek out a more rational orientation. The simple skewing of architectural forms establishes a powerful dialogue between past and present, where chronological place making becomes the primary organiser of three-dimensional form and space.
Beginning with little more than a sketch design, model making became a launching point for further investigation — a tangible object used to discuss, debate, swivel, and interrogate.
Occupation is implied but not overdone, included as a portal into a viewer’s emotive sensibilities — what is the volume doing?... is this a space I would like to inhabit?... what does this say about the human condition?
Stepping back from the screen allows the prominent ideas to bubble to the fore. The physical act of assembly unlocks a deeper understanding of what I am working to resolve. Sometimes it is not the act of modelling itself, rather, the freeing of possibilities that the tactical experience brings — a broadening of the mind through the process of doing.