UNSW Built Environment Interior Architecture: Griffen Manan

Hello Everyone!!

I am Griffen Manan and as I’ve mentioned in my previous blog post, I am currently in 4th year of the Bachelor of Interior Architecture program at UNSW. Just a quick update on what’s been happening in myfinal year of study: we finished a major design project a couple of weeks ago and we are starting on our last and most important project, the Graduation Project. Along with that, we’ve just submitted our project proposal done in project research, a subject dedicated to the research and the preparation of our final project. We are also finishing off our dissertation, which is a 10,000 word history/theory paper in conjunction with Project Research and Graduation Project.

Anyways, you can find images of my latest design project below. We were given 6 different briefs at the beginning of the year, along with 5 different sites for our project. We then have to choose one brief and a site and 8 weeks to present our final design. I decided to do a communal laundry and my site was located in Chippendale. The client for this project was a cooperative of local people in Newtown. So, basically it’s a non-profit organization, run by the community for the community. My approach to the design was to promote the use of communal laundry that is sustainable and add to the communal social life in Chippendale. So, in order to do so, I designed a laundry that is accessible for everyone: male, female, young, old and of course, the disabled. Hence, the ramp was inserted throughout the entire building, so the elderly and the disabled would have easy access to this laundry. In addition, café and personal waiting spaces was injected into building to create a more vibrant and lively environment. All materials and fittings are environmentally friendly and I’ve also designed drying space balconies to optimize the use of natural light to dry clothes. Another interesting feature of this laundry is the vertical wall that runs through the center of the space. This was done to introduce more natural materials and vegetation to the space. Anyways, please check out the images below to get a better understanding of the interior.

Cafe

Drying Balconies

Laundry

Reception

Rooftop

Longitudinal Section

Personal Waiting Space

Ramp

Final Presentation Panel

So, what’s next for me? Well, we’ve just started on our graduation project and I will be designing an environmentally sustainable fire station. The site is located in Surry Hills and the client is the New South Wales Fire Brigade. Why a fire station? I’ve decided to do a fire station for my Graduation Project because it is a different and challenging project that involves the design of residential, commercial and industrial spaces. It also means that I can design something big, bold and red!!  Although it’s a very architectural project, I believe the interior plays a much more important role, because the circulation space is crucial in order to ensure that internal response time can be met (time for a firefighter to reach to the apparatus and be ready to depart). Anyways, it will be interesting to see how this project turns out at the end of the year and I will keep you posted on the progress in my next blog post!
Thanks for reading!