Domus - Inspiration

Sangath Group 6.

Our site is on the edge of the Kakadu national Park in the Northern Territory, so we had to design for tropical conditions, remote access, local traditions, sustainability and self sufficiency. Also, special consideration needs to be taken with the design to be consistent with the theme of the semester, that being minima.

After much research on tropical architecture the major points of consideration are,
1. Environmental conditions, large rainfall, high temperatures and humidity during the wet season and high temperature and no rain during the dry. Considerable chance of extreme weather from tropical storms
2. Reduced available construction materials, either from environment factors or availability or practicality.
3. A large body of work that inspiration could be taken from, not just from Northern Australia, but PNG, Indonesia, Malaysia and a number of other SE Asian nations. Both from tried and true construction to more contemporary techniques and materials.

Traditional Malayasian and Indonesian housing

Marika-Alderton House, Yirrakala, East Arnhem Land. Photos Glenn Murcutt.

Other inspirations for the project included the raised platform design of the Farnsworth House by Mies van der Rohe. Not nessesarily

Plan - transformation

the first plan showed the basic room outline of the rooms, but in order to make more room, for comfort

we extended the entire building. to suit the requirment.

On the final plan, the bed rooms where oriented differenly to allow them to be more spacious, the wet area was organised to keep the water tank seperate from everything else.

Domus Model

Domus plan FINAL

site plan

Domus - Context Model construction

Domus - CAD Model

This Model was used in order to show the materiality of the building with contrast to the habitat(roughly) of Kakadu.

Domus ---- Research

This site was picked based on one main resource... water.
We decided to use the water in order to create power through hydroelectricity.

A micro hydro system usually consists of several elements including:

• A water intake (usually as part of a weir), which diverts the flow of the water source.
• Trash screens and fish screens (to remove rubbish and to ensure that fish cannot swim into the system)
• A penstock pipe (this allows the water to move from the intake to the turbine)
• A powerhouse (where the turbine generates the electricity)
• An outflow system (which allows the water to flow back into the water source)
• Electricity cables (usually beneath the ground or overhead cables).

this was an original idea for the building method but we then
thought it would be more practical to use standard building methods.