Subconscious

What role does the subconscious have in architecture?

Make makes cities great? Could you create a business model that looked at a city, identified businesses/services that were lacking and create them for profit?

ideas

feng shui

light

architecture as advertising

acoustic space

the future of housing

animal architecture - what would a termite mound look like at a human scale?

trends of suburbia

what is the art component of architecture? can it be separated from the practical (tech) or is it only the practical?

the new- what role do new shapes, forms, etc. have in architecture? is it truly wrong to design a victorian house today?

underground- what place do humans have in caves, man made or otherwise

mystery- how do we use mystery to create depth in architecture

time- how does architecture age - can you plan it -as durable as buildings are can you use them to connect with someone in the future or past?

emotion- what would a catalog of shapes, buildings, colors or forms look like that were tied to different emotions.

are humans out of equilibrium with the environments we inhabit? is there a realistic way to coinhabit environments with other species?

are buildings living creatures? how does one define life? they take in energy, expel waste... can you consider humans and buildings one creature? like a mollusk that creates its shell?

Here Goes something

Closed door april 16 at 4 pm

here's what I've got so far... I've got hiiigh hopes... I've got Highhhhh hopes...

forum upgrade

now to the fun stuff- more autocad

forum and montana hall

in progress...

Northern studios. Southern light

still alive and working

naked desks

these are "naked" desks because they are the personal core that can be plugged into numerous outfits depending on the creative needs of the individual. These desks would have a poster board (celotex probably) front that could be lifted up and slid to the back of the desk. In this way information posted to it is always visible to passerby. Even desks not in use would become a source of inspiration for anyone walking by.

SPRING BREAK!

tower may be a bit overwhelming


fold-able classrooms (bottom left of the above drawing) would be another species of customizable environment. I am thinking that two of the sides would be a fabric and the other two acrylic or glass. The idea would be that the classrooms only unfold when a class needs them, otherwise the space can be used for something else. The rooms would also be movable and could be taken outside for teaching on nice days.

Lantern Desk Village

This is a section through the north studios (which would have louver stairs) the adjustable shell around each desk unit would add a certain amount of unity to the random desk composition. The ability to change height based on privacy requirements would create variety.

Grasshopper desks

grasshopper is a parametric modeling program. The battery-like objects to the right of each red enclosure shows the code which created it. The green highlighted is amplitude of the vector that controls the spacing on the ribs of the enclosure. Once the code is built the only thing I have to do is slide the green box up and down to control the spacing of the ribs. I could also adjust the amount of curve or number of ribs.

Grasshopper

central square with a much better resolved entrance. students will be able to walk down the procession either by ramp (or much more likely) by stair. The central square/forum will act as a place for demonstrations/ eating or anything. The square will be the busy hub students can directly access the studios from.

although looking at it right now the entrance platform might have to be a little wider for handicap access.

and also plans...

Following up,

so, following up on resolving the differing axis issue as well as the creative studios here is the state of things. Starting with the top, a drawing looking straight down about a hundred feet in the air, an aerial looking down the montana hall axis, ground level looking at romney, courtyard level looking at montana hall, and finally two images looking at the interior studio spaces.

Tonight:

here is the site with program volumes sited. Somehow whoever designed romney (the lower building) or Montana Hall (upper building) decided that these two buildings along a major axis did not need to "precisely" line up


what I did to transition this strange dual axis was to stretch the south half of program and constrict the north half. The green taller form tapers to allow each end of the building to align... the inherent problem of building in the middle of traffic patterns is that the structure would obstruct movement.

the solution is to push down the building (previous study model)

also to blatantly rip off big.dk and their diagramming technique (which, obviously, I like)

Study Model

a higher quality study model. The better the representation of a space the further my imagination seems to be able to travel.

Constraints + Inspiration

Olympic Park, Seattle Washington, Weiss / Manfredi

Previos scheme, courtyard at bottom that would act as a terminal between different studio areas... low courtyard experience very dull, static...




The most recent edition of Wired magazine had an article about design. Essentially the people at wired boiled design down to one thing: constraints. Without constraints anything is possible but nothing is really, for lack of a better word, correct. When everything is right nothing can really be done.After reading that article I found some constraints, and more importantly engaged with them. The most formative for this last round has been the 1 :20 slope where a sloping plane becomes a ramp. I used this (along with some inspiration from Weiss / Manfredi 's Olympic sculpture park) to create the scheme i have now.


The south slope is much more gentle than the north. This arrangement keeps the building from self shading in the winter and spring months. The cuts in the ground could be windows or doors for the studios and restaurant below...

Architectural Intervention

Recently I have been thinking a lot about architecture as intervention. Without doing any research on the term or the word (which is my inclination) it seems like it is mediation. What I believe architecture should be. A set of materials bound together to create something that solves human problems and advances humanity. Solves a problem, even if that problem is not evident... or especially if that problem is not evident



the goal is to create an intervention that binds people together and provides a space for them to work. Esentially a message from the University to the students that says, "we appreciate hard work, innovative work, and here is a place for you"

Shade and Shadow on a Narrow Site

these sun studies were actually quite hard fought.
Here's what doesn't work:
importing the Rhino files into revit... they are all some bizarre polysurface that very much does not like to interact with anything or anyone


Measuring sun angles in rhino with a spotlight... (this would actually work if I got the spot far enough away and big enough... like however far away and big the sun is...)


What does work: (and this will save someone out there two-four hours of their life)
Just draw the walls at the accurate height around the plan (this is in Revit), use advanced model graphics (a little white curved plane button at the bottom of the screen) and within that dialog you can change latitude and longitude, time, etc.

now here is the important part:

do not do it in plan view


do the advanced graphics in your site plan view...


otherwise you will waste a fair amount of time trying to figure out why the shadows all go the same distance regardless of wall height... i would imagine

Amphitheaters

based on the turn of the century plans by cass gilbert I am trying to create a space in front of Montana Hall that will create the same feel that the original plans would have created. Where I am currently is a scheme that is too fragmenting. I think that the square in front of the mall still needs to allow for, and encourage, interaction. Now it is cutting the space in two (or three)

the two precedents up top are alvar aalto, the double amphitheater is an excellent idea...

and a bridge near the bibliotheque national in paris. I really like how it handles verticle circulation.