Found this while busy with the case study for the dolphin and whale research center at Cape recife nature reserve. Glenn Murcutt inspires to design according to climate.

Bowali Visitor Centre _ Case Study

For part of my ‘Technologies’ coursework this year we were split into small groups to a series of case studies looking at the building technologies of a variety of structures. For this case study our group was asked to produce two analytical models of a building called the Bowali Visitor Centre in Northern Territory, Australia, designed by Glenn Murcutt; the first model was a CAD model done to illustrate the overall structure and form of the building and the second was a 1:20 scale physical model demonstrating the building’s finishes and internal structure.  The Bowali Visitor’s Centre, based in the Kakadu National Park, is an exhibition space based around the culture of the Aboriginal People; their relationships with people and with the land. It also houses a library, meeting spaces and administration offices for the park itself.

Murcutt chose to use corrugated iron to clad the sweeping roof, like in many of hisprojects, because of its high strength to weight ratio and because it helps reflect solar radiation.  It has also become part of Australia’s vernacular archetype, corrugated iron being the most prominent form of cladding in the countries first colonies.  The material is lightweight, easily transported and fixed and reflects the intense heat of the sun.

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Internally there are a number of strategies employed to passively cool the environment as well as highlight the surroundings. This is mainly achieved through its open, lightweight envelope that allows for ventilation and shading.

Another major passive cooling strategy is the formalized Billabong that collects rainwater creating a more temperate environment as the water evaporates. The Billabong is also homage to the Australian landscape and its native inhabitants.

Women's opportunity center - Rwanda.

AN EMPOWERING WOMEN'S CENTER IN RWANDA

Architectural designer Sharon Davis helps to create a forward-thinking educational and community center in Kayonza to train and educate local women through farming

Text by Tim McKeough

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A classroom at the Women’s Opportunity Center, created by architectural designer Sharon Davis, in Kayonza, Rwanda. Photo: Elizabeth Felicella

  

When New York City architectural designer Sharon Davis first visited Kayonza, a village in eastern Rwanda, in 2009, she witnessed up close the economic hardship and lack of basic necessities in this region that has seen more than its share of conflict. “We came upon children and women lugging jugs of water from a dirty stream that looked like mud,” she recalls. “That was their drinking water.” There were no treatment facilities for water or for waste, and little firewood for cooking.

Commissioned by the Washington, D.C., nonprofit Women for Women International, Davis crafted a plan for an educational and community center in Kayonza to help female survivors of war start businesses to support themselves and their families. The focus is on training residents to transition from subsistence farming to larger‐scale entrepreneurial farming.

Architectural designer and Women's Opportunity Center creator Sharon Davis.
Photo: Tyler Survant

After four years of planning and construction, the Women’s Opportunity Center opened this summer on a five-acre campus and features a series of rounded brick-walled buildings topped by steel water-catchment roofs. The center, which Davis designed pro bono, is intended as a model of small-scale sustainable architecture. The 450,000 bricks used to create the structures were handmade by local women from clay dug up on the site. (In that project, Davis helped them devise a better brick, and the workers gained another income-generating skill.) Rainwater collected by the leaf-shaped roofs is purified by solar-powered sand- and UV-filtration systems and stored for drinking and cooking. As Davis notes, “How can you run a business if you’re spending four hours a day getting water?” Composting toilets, meanwhile, provide fertilizer for fields. And in addition to classrooms and offices, the center has a working farm for hands-on training, storage for communal tools and processing equipment, and a marketplace where the women can sell their produce.

The campus has a working farm for hands-on training.
Photo: Elizabeth Felicella

“It’s design meeting development,” says Afshan Khan, president of Women for Women International. “The center allows the women of Kayonza to become producers, owners, job creators, and leaders in their community. It’s amazing to see their resilience and progress.”

For her part, Davis is eager to do more. “I ended up helping to found a nonprofit called Big Future Group,” she says. “We’re looking for other projects like this around the world.”sharondavisdesign.com and womenforwomen.org

The center’s sustainable features include roofs that collect rainwater, which is purified for drinking and cooking. Photo: Elizabeth Felicella.

Congratulations to all the wonderful people that were involved!

Sourced from: 

http://www.architecturaldigest.com/architecture/2013-11/sharon-davis-architectural-design-womens-opportunity-center-kayonza-rwanda

Busy analyzing the the Archishmectural qualities of my new site.

The next project entails the design of an dolphin and whale research center.  

And for any of you that visit my blog please remember to feed my fish in corner :)

Lumion images of surf pavilion.

Pollock beach - Port Elizabeth

These are images for my proposed surf pavilion down at Pollock beach. I have decided to stick to the pure form of the surf board as part of my concept, going against earlier plans of extending the existing footpath over the roof structure. 

A weekends worth of CAD.

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Crits on my surf pavilion have been going well, I hope :/

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