architrave 18
DESCRIPTION
Co-Editor in Chief of the student-run design magazine at the University of FloridaTRANSCRIPT
University of FloridaSpring 2011
Architravean independent student design magazine
18
From the Editors:
In our 18th issue, we present a holistic collection of student work within the College of Design, Construction and Planning. Our main goal this year was to produce an official academic journal that maintains the concerted efforts of our students and faculty.
The theme, Stratification, addresses the notion of a layered system of structures that merge with one another, which was achieved in this issue by showcasing each design studio offered in the School of Architecture as well as representing works from the Department of Landscape Architecture and the Department of Interior Design. Projects such as Design Build and numerous competitions outside of the studio curriculum demonstrate the students’ initiative to propel independent interests through the collaborative creative process.
Through the representation of each level of design, we began to consider how to diagram the creative thought process and methodology of production. The issue therefore divides itself into six parts that incorporate the different levels of design: Perceiving, Speculating, Researching, Inventing, Collaborating and finally, Constructing. Through this layered process, we witness, in unison, the build-up of ideas.
We would like to thank the students and faculty who submitted their work to Architrave. Your submissions continue to support this unparalleled student publication.
Vibha AgarwalaJustine AlaCo-Editors in Chief
Raquel KalilExecutive Editor
Derrick ArcherTreasurer
Cover collaboration by Justine Ala, Jose Luis Gabriel Cruz, Stanley Ng
Photo by David Boynton Photo Manipulation by Raquel Kalil
Architravean independent student design magazine
Architrave is an independent, student-run design magazine. Our mission is to document, distribute, and expand the creative force of the students and faculty at the University of Florida. This magazine serves as an opportunity to showcase the design work being produced by the students of many disciplines. As a design project in itself, the magazine sets in motion a catalyst for discussion and community involvement throughout the school. This momentum begins to unfold a document that combines the efforts of many who support it. The final product is a cohesive blend of work and ideas, distributed free of charge to schools and firms, nationally and internationally.
Architrave welcomes work from all backgrounds. There is no limit to what a person can submit.
Architrave is a nonprofit publication that is funded in part by the Architectural College Council at the University of Florida, as well as various sponsors and donors.
To receive future issues, to submit work for publication, or to make a donation, please contact us via e-mail or standard post.
Architrave was printed by StorterChilds in Gainesville, Florida. All rights reserved. Neither this publication nor any part herein may be reproduced by any means without the expressed written permission of Architrave.
ArchitraveThe University of FloridaCollege of Design, Construction and PlanningSchool of Architecture
331 ARC PO Box 11570Gainesville, FL 32611
http://[email protected]
Architrave 18
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Staff
Co Editors-in-ChiefVibha AgarwalaJustine Ala
Executive EditorRaquel Kalil
Script EditorsDavid BlyDaniel MartinezNicole Semenova
Production TeamKirsten AkermanUrsula AquinoDerrick ArcherElaina BerkowitzHana Leah BittnerReid CaudillJose Luiz Gabriel CruzAntony DarceMiko Raphael MendozaIan Svilokos
AdvertisingElaine Khuu
ISBN: 978-0-615-47631-5
AIASwww.aias.org and [email protected]
The American Institute of Architecture Students has come together since 1956 with the goal of helping to shape our future practice environment by combining current education and the profession. Giving students the opportunity to enhance their architectural education by mingling with other students across North America through conferences and events throughout the country. The AIAS chapters are divided into four different Quadrants within North America: west, south, midwest and northeast.
To organize students and combine their efforts to advance the art and science of architecture, the AIAS represents the sole student voice in the decision making process of such organizations as The American Institute of Architects (AIA), Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture (ACSA), and National Architectural Accrediting Board (NAAB).
ASLAwww.asla.org
The Student Chapter of The American Society of Landscape Architects at the University of Florida is an organization set to unite interested graduate and undergraduate Landscape Architecture students for the purpose of developing an understanding of the importance of designing sustainable, aesthetically-pleasing, and functional exterior environments. UF Student Chapter of ASLA provides students the opportunity to participate in organized activities outside the academic realm that improve skills and knowledge, and complement the curriculum at UF. These activities and opportunities include graphic workshops, professional lectures, displays, competitions, field trips, conferences, community projects, and contact with practicing professionals. The organization also seeks to improve and encourage active communication between other student chapters and state/regional chapters of ASLA in an effort to strengthen the common goals of each as well as to maintain visibility and awareness of the profession and of all national ASLA programs.
Camila Borges, President
ACCacc.dcp.ufl.edu
The Architecture College Council is an organization that works towards enriching the experience of students in architecture, interior design, landscape, and the planning disciplines. Among other things, this is achieved by furnishing inter-organization meeting times to foster communication and collaboration. Students are also informed of opportunities in extracurricular activities, career resources, and educational workshops. In overseeing the other organization, the ACC aims to help student organization put together accurate budgets and consequently distribute funds in an equitable fashion.
Jimmy Peters, President APXapx.dcp.ufl.edu
Alpha Rho Chi is a family with nationwide connections providing support and friendship through lifetime bonds. This brotherhood carries a history that is rich with tradition and whose values allow its members to grow individually and as an organization. Alpha Rho Chi accomplishes this through its activities which promote professionalism and service.
Alpha Rho Chi is a national, professional coed fraternity for the students of architecture and the allied arts. It was founded in 1914 to organize and unite in fellowship the architectural students in the universities and colleges of America so as to promote the artistic, scientific, and practical knowledge of the members of the profession.
Alpha Rho Chi chapters are located at universities with accredited schools of architecture. Chapter namesakes honors skilled ancient Greek, Roman, or Egyptian architects who have contributed to the foundation of architecture. Alpha Rho Chi is proud of its soon-to-be one hundred years of history and is pleased by the contributions made to the profession and to education by its alumni and by its active members.
Katie Zuefle, Worthy Architect
NOMASWe are a group of student stricing to learn about and expose the minority culture in architecture. Our premise is simple: to educate and enlighten the architectural experience of students whicle broadening their understanding of the different minorities who practice it. We participate in an annual design competition to further our understanding of our cultural backgrounds and their role in architecture.
ASID/IIDAwww.asid.org and www.iida.org
The UF ASID/IIDA Student Campus Center is a student organization dedicated to bridging the gap between education and the profession of interior design. The group is a joint student organization of the American Society of Interior Designers (ASID) and the International Interior Design Association (IIDA). Members of UF ASID/IIDA have the opportunity to join either student organization and enjoy their respective benefits. On the national level, both ASID and IIDA offer mentoring opportunities, scholarships, competitions, publications and endless resources for students interested in interior design.
On the campus level, our student organization aims to support its members by cultivating relationships, providing educational opportunities and encouraging diverse experiences in order to allow each student the opportunity to explore their place in the realm of professional design. Each year, UF ASID/IIDA offers a mentoring program, workshops, guest speakers, networking and travel opportunities, social activities and community service opportunities in order to allow interior design students to find their future place in the profession.
Amanda L. Neukamm, President
DCP Eco-RepsEco-Reps is a group of studio representatives from all disciplines in the College of Design, Construction and Planning working to promote sustainability in the studios of the college. Through our representatives, we are able to promote recycling in the college as well as help to limit the toxins and spraying that take place in the studios. Although our organization is made up of one or two representatives from each studio, we are always looking for new ideas and input on how we can improve the sustainability and resource use of our studios.
Daniel Adams, President
The Studio Culture Committee is a student-initiated organization that seeks to promote respect, collaboration, engagement, and innovation among students, faculty, and staff of the School of Architecture at the University of Florida. Since the Spring of 2006, the Studio Culture Committee has worked to identify existing instruments within the School of Architecture that have a positive effect on Studio Culture.
Our goal in identifying these instruments is to ensure the support and extension of their significance, reach, and visibility as opportunities within the school while also discussing critical lacks or problems. Our belief is that the construction of a strong and creative studio culture is primarily our responsibility, our right, and our privilege. Since the beginning, SCC has evinced an unwavering desire to be “integrally involved with” rather than “subject to” the faculty in all aspects of the intellectual life of the school.
Jose Luis Gabriel Cruz, Breanna Rossman, Presidents
Kristin M. Cornwell, President
PERCEIVE SPECULATE
STRATIFICATION: to dig or not to dig
Retrospective Sketching as design communication
Megalopolis: a talk with Florian Idenburg and Jing Liu from SO-IL, New York
New York Hotel
Urban Models of Barcelona
Photographing: Paris
RE-ENCHANTING THE CITY: a talk with visiting professor Manuelle Gautrand
RESEARCH
Dwelling and Drawing in the Florida Landscape at Paynes Prairie: The Interstitial Space
The Essence of the Belvedere: Ambulatio and Representation
SoHo Junction: Hong Kong
Sketching China
Cultural Significance Through Experiential Perception of Place
Wu Han District 824 Factory: Armory:Adaptation:Art
Process, Performance, Perception: The Dance of the Architectural Body
Sculpting a View: An Incision on the Landscape
Mexico | San Martin de Las Cañas: Capilla textural
Mexico | Community Education Center
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Mediatory Landscape
Landscape Architecture: Site Planning and Development
Oasis within the [Gobi] Desert
Door Window Stair
Musicality in Space
Reactivating the Edge
Room and Garden
Campus Analysis
COLLABORATEINVENT CONSTRUCT
Constructing Ethical Questions: Social Stratification in the Void
The Architectural Manual: A Guide to Stratification from Within Practice
re:think HEALTH community center
Roxbury Community Center
Elastic Morphologies
Waterfront of Pantelleria: Sustainable Landscape Stratification in a Mediterrean Island
Design Build 2010
Urn
Human Dignity Health Clinic
Gainesville Theatre
Amalgamate
Interlacing Node
Opera Design Competition
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Dwelling & Drawing in the Florida Landscapeat Paynes Prairie: The Interstitial SpaceEverett E Henderson Jr | PhD
While working in my sketchpad, I recently began expressing thoughts about the landscape at Paynes Prairie, which is located on the southern edge of Gaines¬ville, Florida. The final work is a photo collage triptych that was derived from drawings as well as readings. I have used mixed media to express ideas about dwell¬ing in the landscape and how man dwells within the landscape. Sketchpads remain ongoing tools which I employ to think and express my ideas; they always remain works in progress allowing me to solidify my ideas. Previous ideas have worked themselves into the recent Paynes Prairie drawings.
I often draw with my two girls and we react to each other’s marks on the paper with more marks and conversations; we call it collaborating. My youngest likes for me to draw hearts, so hearts have recently worked their way into my drawings. I have modified the hearts to be at the core of a fruit as well as with the seeds of the fruit, the seeds become hearts as well.
Hearts, being an obvious symbol for love with the combination of the fruit, merge to symbolize spirit. The merger binds the drawings to reveal new thoughts about the common sym¬bols. I have created several renditions of these drawings.
The drawings symbolize the ability, with age and time, for individuals to grow with knowledge as well as bear fruit. The fruit is not conceived of as literal reproduction but rather of thought, growth and bonds.
While Heart and Bean Soup is not a drawing of the landscape it is a drawing done in the landscape. The space between individu¬als is referred to as literal as well as figurative. There are connections
between people that are filled with thoughts and feelings to¬ward others. Edmund Husserl’s transcendental phenomenology speaks to this idea of being with others and the “empathy” of looking through anoth¬er’s eyes. This speaks to the experiences that are shared
between individuals that create bonds and familiar experiences by being in the same space and place.1
My wife and I were drawn to Paynes Prairie when we moved to Florida in 1998. We enjoy the land¬scape through cycling and the slow speed that the bicycle offers through sound, smells and direct exposure. There is a much closer connection to nature with a bicycle than an automobile.
Over the summer of 2010 on July 22nd I was cycling on the Gainesville / Haw¬thorne Rails-To-Trails, which curves along the northeastern edge of Paynes Prai¬rie. My bicycle and I came into an abrupt contact with a deer, we collided and I se¬verely broke my collar bone to
Medicine, pencil and ink, 5”x8”, October 29, 2010
the point it needed a metal plate and ten screws. The injury and subsequent surgery slowed down my bicycling activities, but I was still drawn to the need to be in the landscape. I now have an intimate connection to the place. I have since bicycled back many times to Paynes Prairie taking photographs and drawing with my family.
To experience the prairie, I chose to sit for a few hours to draw, think and experience the place. As I drew Paynes Prairie at Alachua Sink for two hours, I began to notice the light conditions changing as I tried to capture the qualities of the place.
As the time passed I came to realize that the qualities of the place could not be captured
with a quick snapshot; a snapshot does not relay the actual experience of the place. An individual cannot easily be involved with a place without the investment of time. The more time spent the more investment the hand and mind have to in¬teract with the place; drawing allows and requires time for con¬templation. The act of drawing enables thoughts to solidify; a sense of the quality of the place is gained with time.
As time progresses, memory only perceives that which the eyes immediately hold… the mind erases that which has passed. Draw¬ings freeze time and hold it while allowing the mind to perceive the old and the new si¬multaneously. The passing of time can be sensed by the person drawing. While Paynes Prairie at Alachua Sink as a
drawing is an illustration of the space, it did not bring the layer of deeper meaning that I was searching for. I would go back later to draw and to think.
On October 20th, 2010 I thought I was having a heart attack and called 911. My vision went black and my heart felt as if it had collapsed; luckily it was not a heart attack. I began to think differently about being; being itself was something that was called into question. After visiting a cardiologist I continued drawing and thinking; I began to think about my condition which led to my drawing of the triptych Medicine. A triptych is a work of art in three panels that work together as a whole to tell a story. Working in series and mul¬tiples has always been present in my
Paynes Prairie at Alachua Sink, red pencil and red ink, 5.25”x16.5”, October 3, 2010
work as they build upon each other. The triptych provided more oppor¬tunity to develop a story that went beyond creating a snapshot. This method allowed for a thoughtful narrative whereas Paynes Prairie at Alachua Sink does not. The panel on the left depicts a plant, the panel on the right shows bottles of medicine with symbols of hearts and the middle panel shows strange fruit on the table as well as fruit floating in the space between. The strange fruit floats between the manmade medicine bottles and the vegetation; it bends perceived re¬ality and it transforms itself into an idea instead of literal meaning.
After biking back to the edge of Paynes Prairie on the Rails-To-Trails I stopped at the Sweetwater Overlook. The covered wooden sitting structure shown in Come Sit Stay allows for people to sit and observe the landscape from a man-made control point . In the drawing Come Sit Stay, the left panel shows the covered sitting bench with the paved path wrapping around. The right panel shows a glimpse of the prairie with a separating fence. The middle panel shows sky, fence, path and grass as well as the in-between. It holds tension between man and nature, much like the connection in the drawing Heart and Bean Soup. In Heart and Bean Soup the connection is be¬tween individuals. Interstitial space is the connection between two separate beings, whether or not it is physical or simply an idea. In some cases the connection is be¬tween people and in others it is the con¬nection between man and nature.
Heart and Bean Soup, mixed media drawing, 4.25” x 6.5” (Drawn at Lake Wauberg, Gainesville, Florida), July 4, 2010
In the Art of Memory by the Renaissance writer Jacobus Publicius, he referred to the medieval tradition of marking memorable places with material objects. This act estab¬lishes a framework that secures a meaning¬ful place within the vast space.2
Wherever man opens his eyes and ears, un¬locks his heart, and gives himself over to med¬itating and striving, shaping and working, entreating and thanking, he finds himself everywhere already brought into the uncon¬cealed. The unconcealment of the uncon¬cealed has already come to pass whenever it calls man forth into the modes of revealing allotted to him.
Landscape has meaning because of our interpretation of it.3 There is a pictorial space and a landscape space. The pictorial space is a representation through two-di¬mensional images whereas landscape space is the actual space and the phenomenolog¬ical experience that is gained from being in the space.
Analogies can be made likening: pictorial vs. landscape, to sketch vs. to be in and live in as well as the visible and the invisible.
The series of drawings could not have hap¬pened in any other way other than sequen¬tially. The drawings and photo collage have built upon one another.
Joseph J Kockelmans, A First Introduction to Husserl’s Phenomenol-ogy (Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press, 1967), 232.
Martin Heidegger, The Question Concerning Technology, and Other Essays (New York: Harper & Row, 1977), 19.
This understanding emerged from the discussions in Dr. Hui Zou’s Landscape Approach in Architecture seminar at the University of Florida, Fall 2010.
Photo collage triptych. Panels are 20”x40” @ 300dpi. Man Hermes Nature. Author. 2010-11-20
The photo collage triptych was formed as a thought before it was constructed. It came into being as an idea before it was physically created. By creating Man Hermes Nature, my thoughts have been un-concealed and revealed. While nature can exist without man, man has difficulty existing without nature.
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The Essence of the Belvedere:Ambulatio and RepresentationPhyllis Henderson | PhD
Never before has there been greater emphasis in society to embrace the natural environment and to make as little impact as possible on the ground we walk on. The time to reconsider the relationship between built space and natural space has been rapidly approaching and is now eminently upon us. The discussions that underlie the specific correlation between architecture and nature reveal hope for a fresh approach toward meaningful dwelling. The architectural object that stands poised to pioneer that endeavor is the belvedere.
Originating from and literally meaning “beautiful view” in Italian, the belvedere commands the unique position in the built environment designed and constructed precisely for the enjoyment of a view or intellectual connection to the landscape. In 18th-century French garden theory, the belvedere means “a place where you discover a beautiful view” and “a pavilion erected on a site where you discover a beautiful view.”1 A modern scholar compared the belvedere to “the place where one goes to verify that the landscape really looks like a postcard.”2 He was speaking of a built object situated within the landscape such that the visitor could enjoy the beauty of the natural view. This belvedere was sited with such specificity that, without the intervention, the postcard-like view would have been entirely impossible. The belvedere provided both an access point and perceptual balance; a place between
being in nature and being without nature altogether.
The concept of the constructed belvedere gleans its original richness from early domestic Italian architecture. The ancient atrium house, or domus, was an inward facing city house; a windowless structure derived from Etruscan tomb architecture.3
Hot summers and disease within the cities caused those who could evacuate to take up more “healthy” country residences along the Bay of Naples.4 These country villas and their subsequent Hellenistic transformations5 mingled together the later compact platform-villa with the less restricted seaside villas of the first century B.C.6 These villas, now unencumbered by the lack of space, were allowed to spread out and connect with nature at an unprecedented level that was impossible within the city.
Beginning as a simple farm house, the Villa of the Mysteries stood on a rectangular platform called a basis villae, a term used by Cicero in a letter to his brother.7 The basis villa is essentially a terrace that wraps the building, affording the inhabitants a place to enjoy the view—a belvedere. Each change at the Villa of the Mysteries marked an increased desire for the view within the Roman culture. While original atrium houses stood flat on the ground, this villa was already displaying a developing trend in the late 3rd century B.C. to raise the building off the ground in reverence for the beautiful view that lay in the distance. The subsequent addition of two belvederes towards the middle of the first century A.D. marks a critical transformation in the
history of the atrium house8, and opened outward toward the magnificent view of the bay.9 The very identity of the villa
seventy meters in length.”10 The term ambulatio in Latin means to stroll or walk about. The terrace space built for the enjoyment of the view was undoubtedly
was transformed by the addition of the belvedere and the ability to experience the distant view.
At the Villa of the Mysteries, there is a strong correlation between the constructed belvedere and the active, ambulatory participation of the visitor. Research has specifically described this villa “which stood southeast of modern Castellammare and commanded an extraordinary view of the Bay and of Mt. Vesuvius, the principal portico overlooked an ambulatio nearly
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ample and would have been large enough for walking or strolling.
While the two L-shaped terraces were believed to contain hanging gardens,11 the space around the perimeter clearly encouraged active participation in both the garden view at hand as well as the distant view of the Bay of Naples to the southwest. In addition to the open garden terrace, a porticoed terrace rests along the perimeter of the house on three sides, offering opportunity for a covered stroll and a framed view through the portico.
Subsequent renovations added before the earthquake in 64 A.D. enlarged, increased and covered the newest belvedere. The large exedra, almost 33 feet in both directions, was the grand addition, giving the villa enormous presence while providing the occupants more covered space for viewing the bay in the distance. Interestingly, while the interior renovations reduced the size of most rooms, there was an obvious and intentional effort placed toward increasing the exterior amenities, both in size and in function. This is an excellent example of the prevailing trend to add greater emphasis to the importance of the view.
In addition to the expansive exedra, two diaetae, were added to each side of the semi-circular exedra. Located on the periphery, these day rooms provided a more private enclosed space while maintaining spectacular views to the sea. One scholar described them as “belvedere rooms”; “little viewing pavilions” that
stressed precise views from the perspective of one lounging on a daybed.12
These two rooms with carefully placed windows illustrate an increased desire for the framed view of the natural landscape.
The devotion to the framed view, in addition to the panoramic view, would continue to grow exponentially for the next two centuries, becoming more sought after in architecture as it continued to develop through the literary works of Pliny the Younger and later in Silvae by Statius.
Finally, and perhaps most notably, the new addition of a large double colonnaded portico belvedere enveloping the south side of the building provided an inviting covered promenade looking out to the countryside and the allure of green vistas.
This is significant in terms of understanding certain rituals where the belvedere played a considerable role. The interior lines of passage and view within the home were significant for the reception of visitors. While a visitor may have glimpsed an axial view to the garden upon their arrival, their main objective would have been to be invited into the garden itself to experience both the garden at hand and the panoramic view in the distance. Both space and social structure were embedded in rituals that determined who was allowed to move from the public to the private sphere depending on their current social status.13
The addition of the portico allowed certain invited guests to enjoy a decisively different
ritual of the ambulatio, or walk around the portico belvedere with magnificent views of both the garden and the distant landscape. This correlation of strolling within the belvedere carries through from the basis villa belvedere to the portico belvedere and manifests itself inside the villa where the wall paintings portray a kinetic sense of spatial provocation.
The ambulatory nature of the ancient belvedere is also expressed in the wall paintings of a bedroom at the Villa of the Mysteries called Cubiculum.
Research has revealed that the manner in which angles are drawn encourage viewers to move toward the back of the room to look first at the back wall from the room’s main axis of entry. The directional orthogonal angles seem to originate from the back wall, as if the three walls were conceptually unfolded in the artist’s mind, and then folded back again to enclose the space of the room.14 This form of kinetic engagement is consistent with other perspective constructions that use either
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this technique or multiple viewpoints to achieve a sense of movement in the space.
This type of visual exchange is again evident in the details within the architectural painting on the rear wall of Cubiculum. The perceptual depth of the architecture in the background, viewed through multiple layers of porticoed belvederes, is intentionally intensified through the use of multiple convergence points, as opposed to a single vanishing point.
By using multiple convergence points, the artist intentionally maximized the content of the painting while minimizing perspectival distortion. The repeated use of multiple convergence points in wall paintings is consistent enough to consider them intentional.
Likewise, the frequent use of columned portico belvederes in wall paintings attests to the desire for the simultaneous distant and nearby view. The intricate layering of space in paintings is undoubtedly drawn from actual space.
This style of wall painting, known as the Second Style, makes a clear departure from
the previous interior decoration of the First Style. The First Style was in use from the 2nd century B.C. to around 80 B.C. and characterized by the use of solid color or continuous surface decoration to delineate the boundaries of each space. Conversely, the Second Style, used from approximately 80-30 B.C., took a dramatic advance and opened up the windowless walls.15
By utilizing the geometry of the available wall space, multiple convergence points, and layering conventions, the viewer is asked to choose between focusing on either the illusionistic remote view or the view at hand. This sophisticated system of representation places the most important emphasis on the experience of the spatial image rather than following strict conventions of drawing. The experience of the view represented in painting is consistent with that of the constructed belvedere in actual space.
Artists also used color, composition and multiple layering techniques to encourage movement within the room. For example, a tholos, painted in one of the alcoves is farthest away in terms of layering, but because of its compositional position and color, it can be perceived as being much closer to the viewer. This cylindrical building, commonly considered a temple or shrine, stands centrally poised; allowing for the intentional shifting between the remote view and the immediate. This perceptual shifting is consistent with the manner in which both the early and late belvederes were designed and constructed at the Villa of the Mysteries.
Wall paintings of the Second Style presented a spatial experience. The formal structure and composition denotes that artists during this period valued the role of perception and showed an apparent preference for diversified representations of space. Artists were conveying the subjective and intellectual aspects of sensory experience and this suggests that they sought to actively engage viewers. It is evident that the use of layering and perspective in wall paintings were not simply used to record visual impressions on a two-dimensional surface.16
It is worthwhile here to examine the intentions of representation, to re-present. Why do we need to re-present what is already there to experience? Why do we feel the need to build a physical place that is meant specifically for viewing? Is the landscape itself not enough? Can we not stand on any hill or at any window and view the landscape quite effectively? Can we not appreciate the view and feel the spirit of the land from multiple viewpoints? Why then would designers go to such length to build the belvedere, a place intentionally created for viewing the landscape? The motives behind representation extend to the depths of dialogue.
Representation is an active engagement undertaken by the artist who is interested in the expression of a particular point of view or experience. It is often considered the beginning of a conversation, where the viewer has as much to do with the depth and outcome of the work as the artist. The belvedere builders were quite specific in the planning and construction of these
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spaces for viewing. While the specificity of their individual intentions continues to be examined through careful cultural study, it is not too early to begin to think about the belvedere as a multi-dimensional form of landscape representation, realized within the very particular scale of the human.
Different from traditional two-dimensional representation, the constructed belvedere commands participation through the movement of the human body and mind. The resulting perception comes through immediate physical experience at the scale of the person while the landscape remains somewhat incomprehensible in its monumental and scale-less totality. The belvedere acts as a liaison; assisting in
Villa of the Mysteries, Pompeii. (A) 2nd century AD; (B) just before the earthquake of 62 AD. Drawings from Axel Boëthius and J. B. Ward-Perkins, Etruscan and Roman Architecture (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1970), 320, Figure 123. Color coding and index by Phyllis Henderson.
Villa of the Mysteries, Pompeii. Photo by Phyllis Henderson, 2002.
The fresco of Cubiculum 16, Villa of the Mysteries, Pompeii, from Filippo Coarelli, Alfredo Foglia and Pio Foglia, Pompeii (New York: Riverside Book Co., 2002), 358.
Perspective analysis of the fresco of Cubiculum 16, Villa of the Mysteries, Pompeii, from Philip Todd Stinson, “Light and Space in the Villa of the Mysteries,” a master’s thesis of the University of California, Los Angeles (2001), 75.
Michel Conan, Dictionnair Historique de l’Art des Jardins (France: Hazan, 1997), 38.
James Corner, Recovering Landscape : Essays in Contemporary Landscape Architecture (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1999), 80.
David James Stanley II, “The Origin and Development of the Renaissance Belvedere in Central Italy,” a PhD dissertation of Pennsylvania State University (1978), 10.
Judith Harris, Pompeii Awakened : A Story of Rediscovery (London: I. B. Tauris, 2007), 11.
Stanley II, 12.
Axel Boëthius and J. B. Ward-Perkins, Etruscan and Roman Architecture (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1970), 319.
Marcus Tullius Cicero and W. Glynn Williams, The Letters to His Friends (London: W. Heinemann, 1929), 552-54.
Boëthius, 319.
Wilhelmina Mary Feemster Jashemski, Appendices, The Gardens of Pompeii : Herculaneum and the Villas Destroyed by Vesuvius, vol. I (New Rochelle, NY: Caratzas Bros., 1979), 318.
John H. D’Arms, Romans on the Bay of Naples; a Social and Cultural Study of the Villas and Their Owners from 150 B.C. to A.D. 400 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1970), 128-29.
Jashemski, Appendices, vol. II, 282.
John R Clarke, The Houses of Roman Italy, 100 B.C.-A.D. 250 : Ritual, Space, and Decoration (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991), 12-20.
Ibid., 19.
Philip Todd Stinson, “Light and space in the Villa of the Mysteries,” a master’s thesis of the University of California, Los Angeles (2001), 22-37.
Clarke, 33.
Stinson, 1
the transport between near and far. But different from that of an arbitrary point in space, the belvedere implies where you stand and what you see; in effect, re-presenting the landscape to the viewer from a specific assemblage of planned viewpoints.
The belvederes constructed at the Villa of the Mysteries were designed with this constant visual exchange at play, a persistent, intentional shuttling between the remote view and the immediate. Each of the belvedere additions, such as the exedra, diaetae and colonnaded portico, made possible a space that was experienced and perceived through the frame of the portico with the beautiful
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view in the distance. This visual drama is played out through extensive layering of physical space, and mutually reflected in the wall paintings inside the villa. The belvedere thus becomes the stage where the perceptual discourse between near and far complements the ambulatory activity within the belvedere; the viewer becomes engaged in his own mind and body through the belvedere.
What the belvedere provides is therefore not an isolated building object, but rather the ambulatory experience of participation within a meaningful spatial sequence. With the projected view towards nature, the belvedere provides a means by which human beings re-present the landscape for poetical dwelling.
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SoHo JunctionHong KongDavid Boynton | Year 4
Sketching ChinaMisagh Abdoliseisan | Year 4Critic: Albertus Wang, Hui Zou
Cultural Signifance Through Experiential Perception of PlaceEduardo Silva | Year 4Critic: Hui Zou
“The purpose of architecture is to move us.”
--Le Corbusier, Vers une Architecture (1923)
“The task of the architect is to create meaningful places, whereby he helps man to dwell.”
--Christian Norberg Schulz, Genius Loci (1979)
In Heidegger’s essay “Building Dwelling Thinking,” he asks a question that challenges the modern understanding of architecture: “What is it to dwell?”1 In response to his question, modern architectural theorists attempt to push this method of questioning further into a realm where architecture is not only “dwelling”, but “place”. Norberg Schulz identifies place “as a space with a distinct character.”2 In addition, the discourse of place would serve no purpose if we did not include the perception of the individuals who experienced the phenomena of place. We must discuss what it means to be in a space and determine the relationship between one’s perception of a space and one’s experience. In addition, the discourse of place would serve no purpose if we did not include the perception of the individuals who experienced the phenomena of place. We must discuss what it means to be in a space and determine the relationship between one’s perception of a space and one’s experience. The relationship between the habitat and the inhabitant is crucial in this discussion of the perception of space; rather than solely utilizing a space, the inhabitant is now experiencing a place, perceiving each characteristic of the space: materiality, texture, acoustics, scale, etc. Architecture now need to address the issues of olfactory, vision, audition, gestation and tactition all at once, in an attempt to formulate an experience particular to the place. Phenomenological theories require a return to the essence of all the elements that relate to architecture. Recent interests in phenomenology in architecture push for a refocusing of design concepts away from mere aesthetic construction driven
by form, technology, and mechanical imitation, rightfully so, into a phenomenological understanding of experience that gives meaning to architecture.
Phenomenology is a hopeful theory developed and discussed by many influential theorists and architects. Alberto Perez-Gomez has written about the necessity of refocusing architectural theory. Since the 19th century there has been a difficulty to make architecture that can be considered poetical and architecture has faced a crisis in meaning. A trend in design focused on a practice and application of technology driven “calculative thinking.” Perez-Gomez urges the need to return to a poetic architecture that “humanity should dwell poetically in order to fulfill its potential.”3
Supporting Piranesi and Boulee, the two European 18th-cetnury architects that influenced progressive concepts of experience, place, and phenomena in their concern for building a poetic architecture, Perez-Gomez writes about the ability that architecture has to orient us in a way that we can experience and participate in its surrounding phenomena. The term poetic architecture refers to architecture significant to culture, society, and the inhabitant. A poetical building fits into its context responding to existing conditions on the site and allowing for the present, and even future, construction to respond to itself.
In another essay, Perez-Gomez writes about architect Steven Holl’s work as an example of a “careful consideration of materiality, light, color, and texture” and as “a means to engage the inhabitant’s imagination.” Holl’s intent is to design an architecture that is both subjective and objective, but lies between the two realms where they intertwine space and time in an attempt to bring “essences back into existence...[and] elevate the experience of daily life through the various phenomena.”4
The underlying concept to his contemporary work has been to build for humanity, focusing on how architecture can give meaning to life. His recent built project, Linked Hybrid, a residential complex located around the northeastern corner of the lost city wall of old Beijing, creates “a city within a city,” where residents can live in a cultural enclave. He attempts to capture the essence of living into a series of experiences that connect residents physically and metaphorically through bridges that join each
tower on the 22nd floor. Each bridge holds within it a feeling that enhances the program it houses. One bridge, acting as a cafe/tea house, orients inhabitants to face directly towards Beijing’s cultural district: the Forbidden City, the National Performing Arts Center, Tian’anmen Square, and even the distant West Mountain. The designer’s careful attention to not only immediate architectural elements that envelope the inhabitant, but even the characteristics of distant visual elements within the context contributes to the overall feeling of the space. Holl successfully creates the experience he desires for his visitors by addressing phenomena that surround them, offering significance to both this architecture and individual experience.
Phenomenological theories require extreme attention to the context of each specific design project in an attempt to create a wholeness of experience. As commented by Perez-Gomez on Holl’s works, “the modes of experience proposed by his architecture...[allow] the inhabitant to recognize a potential wholeness through experience.”5 In a recent joint-studio project, “Factory 824—A Cultural Creation District,” in Wuhan, China, my design team focused on how to apply a phenomenological approach to the design of three different but interactive building programs. It is through manipulations of perceptual experience that my team designed the connection between a market, museum, and gallery and created the desired wholeness of experience.
In my design part, I was interested in exploring the human being’s perception of a single place. The market is a phenomenon of multiplicities: structure, sense of time, trading, observing, etc., a place where one can feel meditative as one contemplates his feelings towards a piece of artwork, and his feelings will interact with others’ and communicate about art. In an art market, there is a cultural exchange between artist and society, reciprocally benefitting both sides. It is through architecture that such artistic and cultural experience is possible. The design is to transform an abandoned artillery factory, with a military code of 824 during the 1960-70s, into a vivid urban cultural district including the artists’ colony, art market, and galleries and theaters. The repetition of columns and trusses in a regular grid from the existing old factory buildings allows for a multitude of paths to develop and change as necessary. The scale of space proportional to the human body affects the sense of hearing and speaking. The materiality of the
1 Martin Heidegger, Building Dwelling Thinking (Stuttgart: Neske, 1951), 1.2 Christian Norberg-Schulz, Genius Loci: Towards a Phenomenology of Architecture (New York: Rizzoli, 1980), 5.
3 Alberto Perez-Gomez, “Dwelling on Heidegger: Architecture as Mimetic Techno-Poiesis,” Subject, vol. 3, no. 2 (1998): 1.4 Alberto Perez-Gomez, Introduction, in Steven Holl, Intertwining (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1996), 9, 11.
5 Ibid., 9.
structure, made of brick and concrete, contribute to the tactile and visual sense of a historical place that has gone through the sense of time. The temporal shifts of spatial organization free spaces to rearrange according to purpose, be it public exhibition or private reflection of art.
To experience all of these phenomena elicits the feelings that allow individuals the possibility of experiencing the space as intended. For each design part, there is always a larger context to address. Conceptually, the joint-studio design dealt with the transition from old to new and from heavy to light; both comparisons were meant to relate to the progression from past to future, because the project was an urban renewal of the old factory compound. The site held some cultural significance that was necessary to preserve. To achieve this character in a broader sense than just one place, careful consideration went into the implications of the architectural elements that related each building. The market characterized the past: a tough, dark, weighty construction of purely utilitarian factory buildings. The gallery characterized the future: a soft, bright, light assembly that imbeds itself into its surroundings.
It was through the museum that I decided to transition from the past, the market, to the future, the gallery. The museum design as a whole emphasized this transition. In the design of the museum, the initial vision is obstructed by the heavy concrete bearing walls that wrap around three sides of the interior; but as you move towards the entrance, the building begins to stimulate different senses and acts as a transition from the experience of the market to the experience of the gallery. The structural system changes from concrete bearing walls to columns and girders; vision is unobstructed and light is reflected in various ways allowing a glimpse of the gallery. The materiality transitions from brick veneer, to concrete structure, to concrete facade, to glass and column; the textures begin to fade away from rough to soft. The perception of the weight of the building begins to lighten up and the concrete structure floats above the ground. The visitor can stroll through the museum towards the gallery, the destination.
Chinese traditional gardens have desired to deal with the issue of experience and perception through the use of framing and creating views. A garden desires to elevate a meditative contemplation of various issues
6 Hui Zou, “Jing: A Phenomenological Reflection on Chinese Landscape and Qing,” Journal of Chinese Philosophy (2008)
Raquel Kalil, “Meandering” Indian Ink on white board, China , 2010
ranging from religious devotion to private mediation. Reach reveals that the Song emperor Huizong (11th century) built up a pavilion atop a mountain and poeticized that when being viewed from this pavilion, “the mountains seem to be on my hand.”6 The view is appreciated as serene through the merging on what is seen and what is felt. The uninterrupted view of a distant mountain framed by the pavilion elicited a feeling that would not have been possible without the architecture. The phenomenon of holding a mountain is an experience that gives meaning to that dwelling atop a mountain. In a similar attempt by Steven Holl, he merges his Linked Hybrid residential complex to the culture and life of Beijing by framing the view from the cafe bridge between two towers to the Forbidden City and the distant West Mountain range. If the view had not been established from the pavilion on the mountain, the architecture would lack a significance that addressed its purpose of sitting on a mountain. Without the view from the
cafe bridge to the Forbidden City, the experience would be limited to the surrounding elements, which though were still interesting enough for creating a place; it would be a big missing for creating a deep meaning for a walkway in the air.
An architect must be precise with his intentions. The Factory 824 design began with the strategic redevelopment of an urban fabric, and then focused on a small portion carved out of the re-planned site, and pushed into the detailed design stage exploring how the overall urban design concept would translate into architectural materiality. The interactive contiguity between site and building is critical in strengthening the character of a place. Architectural design is a cultural creation and preserving process that can be utilized for innate necessities of human dwelling that other arts do not satisfy. It is in this fact that we must strive to create meanings in architecture and ultimately build to benefit humanity.
Given the practical--a defunct armory located in Wuhan’s Hanyang distrcit--the project seeks the potential--reconciling programs resistant to institutionalization-and the poetics--the place-making essence--of China’s urban landscape. Diagrammatic and planometric speculations initiated architectural suggestions regarding the adaptation of an historic urban network. Further concept development informed a proposal for an intervention within the established urban spatial structure; its explicit intention being simply to exist as a responsive urban gesture meant to serve as an architectural catalyst, thereby allowing the daily occupational rhythms of the post-adaptive site to define the further growth and regeneration of the historic center.
Wu Han District 824 FactoryArmory:Adaptation:ArtMisagh Abidoli, Andrew Brown, Nick Steshyn | Year 4 Zhou Xianyin, Kongliang, Jian Zheyao | HUSTHuazhong University of Science and TechnologyCritic: Albertus Wang, Hui Zou
The geology of rock formations is similar to a layered cake. In both, different substances, materials, and textures alternate form various strata: metamorphic or sedimentary rocks in one, cream or chocolate or apricot jelly in the other. Apart from the temporal and spatial scales, it is clearly more difficult to decipher the geology of a place than to see, feel, and eat your cake. Buildings are more like cakes in the sense that they are baked, while rocks, which are the purview of tectonic forces, act through millennia and can be transformed very slowly, judiciously or irresponsibly, and sometimes not at all. Now let us read the following statement: “The tactile and the tectonic jointly have the capacity to transcend the mere appearance of the technical in much the same way as the place-form has the potential to withstand the relentless onslaught of global modernization.” (Kenneth Frampton). Let me re-phrase this and summarize the main ideas in order to uncover its hidden geology: “The tactile and the tectonic jointly (T+T) have the capacity to transcend the mere appearance of the technical (t) in much the same way as the place-form (PF) has the potential to withstand the relentless onslaught of global modernization(gm).”
Frampton posits an equation:(T+T)>t=PF>gm
On the left, TT transcends the appearance of the technical; this is equivalent (“in much the same way”) that PF can withstand global modernization.
STRATIFICATIONTO DIG OR NOT TO DIGIgnacio Porzecanski, Ph. D School of Natural Resources and Environment
Let us analyze this many-layered statement by digging some questions and exercising some tentative answers:
1. Why do T+T have the capacity to transcend the appearance of the technical, and in what way? What is the appearance of the technical? Is it the way we perceive glass, wood, brick, or stone? Does the technical appear in one way, but is in another? We do perceive them differently, of course, depending upon which sense we are employing (touching, seeing, or listening, smelling), but this is too obvious. Start again: the technical has some kind of mere appearance. Which is what? Is it the way a brick wall looks as compared to a glass one? How it feels? Is it the sound when we walk on a wooden floor, as opposed to the sound we make on a cobblestone plaza? Is it the way that the Bold Look of KOHLER™ for the bath appears to attack or smooth our senses? So what is being transcended here? Not clear.
2. There is an onslaught (relentless) of global modernization (gm). What does this entail? An abandonment of the past? Maybe. An embrace of technical? A pursuit of the ephemeral? Maybe. Let us assume, since the author deems it an onslaught, that it refers to some of these: global modernization attempts to do away with the past and to usher in the technical. This phenomenon, except for those with a melancholic disposition, appears to be inevitable: the modern supersedes the old –this is the way it was, and the way it will most probably be in the future. Which does not mean that we discard the past, we usually learn from it. It can be an onslaught, but it does not constitute a threat.
3. Now, the PF. What is this? Why not just place, or locus, or area, or dwelling? Because, I suspect, a distinction is being advanced: any place is defined by a form; a place has form in it (especially when we build on it), and we should be aware of them both the place and the form imposed on it, separately and jointly. We build upon a certain terrain, topography, landscape. Once built, tinkered with, it has become a PF. Quite simple.
4. The PF has the potential to withstand the onslaught of gm. A battle is fought, sometimes PF wins, and sometimes gm wins, and this is where architecture comes in. But, why should we not welcome gm? Why should we not use PF in order to give gm meaning, value, strength, authenticity? Inexplicable.
5. So, finally: how is T+T>t equal to PF>gm? (T+T) and PF are the “good guys”: they transcend t and withstand gm, respectively. Technology and global modernization are sort of bad -a whiff of nostalgia pervades the equation. Do we go back to carriages, steam locomotives and thatched roofs? No, we must look ahead, with care.
One phrase, initially somewhat obscure, can possibly become clearer by digging into its layers, just like a geologist uses probes and soil core samplers in order to investigate the various strata. The simple message then becomes understandable, but not always comprehensible. In this case, it turned out to be an appeal to use all our senses when confronting a place--otherwise we shall not appreciate its intricacies and possibilities. So dig we must; in the first instance, in order to try to wrest meaning from unnecessary complex statements, and, in the final analysis, in order to become closer to what is required from us by the surrounding space. Otherwise, anything goes.
Retrospective Sketching as design communication5x5x5: Architectural History 3Charlie Hailey
and a historical context. Revisiting a project’s core ideas interrogates not only an architectural work’s foundation but also its possible directions. In a sense, these five diagrams “rewrite” (or more precisely, “redraw”) possible historical trajectories, bringing this course’s content into contact with a broader field of practice and design process.
The architect’s napkin sketch is both iconic and romantic. It is not surprising that Rem Koolhaas includes such sketches in his official archives and publications (e.g. SMLXL); and one of the most famous is Alvar Aalto’s dinner napkin sketch for the Church of the Holy Spirit in Wolfsburg (Aalto wrote famously, “God made paper to draw architecture
on it.”) In the context of this course, it is also a mode for rethinking design communication and analysis. Paralleling and emerging from the subject matter of the group presentations, this exercise asks students to delve retrospectively into a recent architectural project – in a sense, to simulate the earliest stages of schematic design and architect-client interaction. The
napkin will serve as a fixed, but also serialized, medium to document a process of excavating ideas and concepts associated with a particular project. Ultimately, through a historical lens of precedent, it asks us to review how we draw, why we sketch, where inspiration resides, and what constitutes design communication. This exercise
complements the group work of the presentations with an intensive, individual rumination on a contemporary architectural design project. The sketches and writing serve to visualize, make immediate, and even personalize the “historical” understanding of a particular architect’s (or architectural firm’s) place within contemporary practice
Megalopolis
A talk with Florian Idenburg and Jing Liu from SO-IL, New York
ARCHITRAVE: Since one of your objectives is to create a global dialogue between architecture and the city, what inspired your fascinations with places such as Japan?
FI: From my side I will say that I was educated in the Netherlands, which has a very clear rationale and a clear way of thinking. During my studies I understood the way that method worked, and I could easily operate within that method. When Sejuma (principal of SANAA whom Florian worked for) came to lecture at our University in Delft, I was surprised by the complete opposite of the logic that was manifested in their work. There, I realized there is a completely different way of organizing the world, which is basically the opposite way you would do it in the Netherlands. It threw me completely off balance, but it allowed me to see things from a very different perspective.
JL: For me, the Japanese idea, at least in the architectural realm and probably true in other areas as well, is that in the foreground there are always the ideas and the projects, and the creator (the architect) is more at the background of the story. You know, despite the attention, how much attention Japanese architecture has gotten in the recent years, there is more present the continuation of exploring the ideas throughout the different generations rather than each architect establishing his or her signature and his or her characteristic “star architect projects”. It’s more about one generation exploring one set of ideas and it carries you through to the next generation. You see the historical lineage much clearer in the history of Japanese architecture and how it has developed. For me, that’s quite interesting, to put the ideas and the building in the foreground and make it less about the architect (the person).
FI: What’s also really interesting about Japan is the way that people live in the city, basically the relationship between personal space and the space of the city. There’s a very small incremental increase in scale from the super personal space to the space of the metropolis in Japan. There are many different layers of spatial experience, which I think is very different from the cities in the west. I think the way people live in the city in Japan is very different than the way they live in the city here. There’s a much more fluid connection between, say, your super personal intimate space and the space of the entire city. I think we can learn something from that.
ARCHITRAVE: What are some ideologies of megalopolis cities and what role do you think they play in the global society?
FI: As Jing just said, the world will be a world of cities, not a world of countries. So they play gigantic roles as places of exchange and places of production and destination.
JL: Historically, innovation always pushed the culture forward. The development of culture, the cycle of culture development, has become faster and faster, which means we need more and more innovation. Innovation typically happens when you have different people and different ideas that come together in the cities, the one place to make that happen. I think the metropolitan areas will play a big role in the mere fact that the culture will be dependent upon them to generate these new ideas and innovations that push our culture forward, which we need, because at this speed, if we all stall then all the crises will cave in on us.
FI: What is indeed interesting is that a city can take on many different scales that will have more pockets for innovation. If there is a single scale in a city then there is no way that certain types of things will happen. But if you see a city as an infrastructure with different spaces and places, you can imagine that more can happen.
ARCHITRAVE: Each project on the website has a playful quirky aesthetic. How do you address ecological sustainable elements? What are some of your green concepts that help drive your design?
JL: Most of the ‘green’ approach is very technocratic. People are trying to solve this problem with technology. We’re not engineers or scientists so for us, we’re interested more in urban cultures and the culture of building. We want to push more the approach and understand the complexity of what sustainability is all
about. So, we want in our building to express how the sustainability and the green issue is not going to be solved with singular solutions, but rather with a more collective and constantly shifting balance that we have to understand and all be a part of and participate in. To do that, each one of us must have a positive attitude - very important. That’s where the playful part comes in. At the end of the day, we have to have hope for the future.
FL: Our architecture is more about social sustainability rather than environmental sustainability. It has much more to do with creating awareness for the space that we’re living in and, through that, generate care. I don’t think we can engineer; I mean, what is sustainability? It’s not about solar panels - it’s the way we inhabit this earth.
New York HotelAdam Luong and Duncan Martel | Year 4Critic: Mark McGlothlin
The hotel project introduces the designer to the metropolis. The density of the city, the size of the context and the history of the immediate location provided many opportunities to develop upon. The site is a small block located at the Eastern edge of Hell’s Kitchen in New York City.
Much of the surrounding context is historically rooted. There is a sharp contrast between where the skyline of towers and the low standing residential district meet. With the onset of modernity, the District of Hell’s Kitchen must integrate with the intruding skyline. With this challenge, we decided to introduce the tower as an historical reflection of the community. The tower holds two main programs - hotel and apartment complex. A hotel encourages outside use and an apartment complex grounds the community feel. Utilizing these two programs we developed a formal vocabulary.
The most important expression of the project comes from the materiality. Solid and transparent forms imply programmatic use. A Cor-Ten skin wraps the tower and reflects the history of the context. Emulating the stone and brick construction of Hell’s Kitchen, the skin is an inversion of the tenuous nature of grout and the opacity of stone.
Urban Models of BarcelonaMary Frisbee and Carolina Llano | Year 4Critic: Alfonso Perez-Mendez
By understanding the public spaces of the different urban models of Barcelona, we understand how to weave the different types of public space, such as the walkway,the beach, the plaza, the square, the park, and the courtyard, into the hotel.
The old and the new are constantly being juxtaposed in the Parisian cityscape. Weathered stone and wrought-iron structures complement modern creations of glass and concrete. At times these modern structures stand alone, as in the case of Villa Savoye in Poissy, a suburb just outside of Paris. Other times, the old and the new are more intimately related, such as with the Musee de L’Orangerie.
Here, the historical orangery has been stripped down to its shell. The interior holds volumes of modern interventions- a concrete box is suspended above the lobby, exhibition spaces are in excavated rooms below ground, and Monet’s Nympheas are displayed in oval-shaped rooms filled with natural light.
Traditional French gardens, with their perfectly manicured trees, can be compared with more recent explorations of the garden. Parc la Villette embraces the traditional French use of follies, but gives them a modern vernacular of bright red painted steel. New ways of moving throughout the park are experienced with the Serpentine path, which encourages a winding, nonchalant way of movement. This way of exploring Parc la Villette is metaphorical to how one can explore the entire city. Walking through the streets of Paris, there is always the chance that you’ll find an unexpected garden, museum, or intriguing space that speaks of the city’s history while exploring the invention of the new.
Photographing: ParisElaina Berkowitz Critic: Nancy Clark
ARCHITRAVE: When you evaluate a site, what do you look for initially? Is there a specific set of things you are looking for?
MG: I’m very open-minded when I’m discovering a site. I think the worst case would be a site with nothing, no context, no history, no characteristics. I like when the site is very difficult and full of constraints. When I did the Tour Ava project in La Defense, the site was really awful in the beginning. But I was very excited about that because for me it was an opportunity not only to do an architectural project, but also to do an urban project which would change the face of the district. In this case I wanted to transform the site before doing my own project. Like a bird building its nest. When I don’t like the context, I cannot do a project on it – I have to modify the context before conceiving the project.
ARCHITRAVE: When you have to do a large urban scale, what do you look to as reference or inspiration outside of the immediate site constraints? Like in the Tour Ava, where do you look to begin constructing the site for the project?
MG: It’s very difficult. I think the inspiration is partly very instinctive. When you are doing a project as an architect, of course you have a lot of different inspirations. It’s difficult to
completely explain scientifically how you are making architecture. Your instinct is something which is very present. For example, when I am beginning a project I start with models at a very small scale because I like to do a model in just five or ten minutes. In an afternoon, I can make something like ten models in a very instinctive way. The beginning is instinct but once you have developed many different types of models the scientific part of your way of thinking comes into the project. In the beginning you let your hand lead the way and after you can make some choices. When I am doing the project I use models and a lot of drawings but also writing. It is important to write when the ideas are coming. It helps you to explain and communicate your ideas. During this moment of explanation you can organize your ideas yourself.
ARCHITRAVE: A lot of your projects have a sense of play and whimsy in them. You mentioned this in your lecture when referencing the Citroen showroom. You talked about the idea of a child’s building blocks. How does this concept of play work in your design process and the studio you are teaching?
MG: Well, the difference between an artist and an architect is that the architect has to give functionality to a work. People have to live inside your architecture .... sleeping, working, living playing and so on. Sometimes you have programs that are very simple and not that exciting because the person in charge of the project has just listed how many square meters is dedicated to this, and that and so on.
But it’s really important to anticipate the fact that people will live inside of your architecture and have pleasure, not only in having a good amount of space, but with something more than the program and the square meters. So when I have a program, I try to find another dimension in it. For example, with Citroen it was a museum that was supposed to show cars but I also wanted to evoke memories from when you were a child. I wanted people to have an emotional and poetic encounter with the building. And that is given by sometimes increasing parts of the program.
Re-enchanting the CityA Talk with 2011 Ivan Smith Eminent Visiting Professor Manuelle Gautrand
In Citroen there is an important atrium that is 30 meters high and, in fact, most of the place is dedicated to a void. This gives an emotional sense of bracing space. You have the feeling of floating in the space. That is more than the program. If I just needed to provide eight places to show cars and they were all closed to one another it
could be really boring. I wanted to build a huge void instead with clouds in the middle of the building. In each project, we go further than the simple program to create very innovative connections. We have to think in volume and not just square meters. In this way architecture is a kind of scenographie. I like to play with program in order to translate scenes in an original and innovative way.
ARCHITRAVE: Scenographie is an intriguing word to use in architecture. How would you describe this word and its effect on your work?
MG: I use it often because when you are designing a building you have to think of the sequence. First, you will enter the building and then you have to go through the rest of the functionalities. It is like when someone is making a movie. In fact, they have to prepare a kind of storyboard and I do the same with architecture. I have to analyze the way people move through a building and connect with the different functions. That is a question of scenographie. If you want to give the public some emotion when they enter your building you have to think of it like scenographie because it’s a question of creating moments of surprise within the architecture.
ARCHITRAVE: Is this like an architectural promenade?
MG: Yes, exactly. The promenade between outside and inside and once you are inside it is another huge promenade.
ARCHITRAVE: This could be applicable to your work in terms of re-enchanting the city, which was the title of your lecture. Could you talk a bit more about this idea and how it works on a larger scale?
MG: We were speaking a minute ago about re-enchantment through the use of the building but of course there is also the scale of the city. I am used to working in the city most of the time and in most cases on a very urban project. It is very important to think about the interaction between the building that you will create and the city. This means that you have to recycle the city because it is not just a museum like, for example, Paris. It has to move and have the capacity to always incorporate new architecture and functionalities, new ways of living and new landscapes. A city must always be capable of regenerating itself and able to offer its inhabitants the possibility of happiness. Coming back to Paris (and of course I like my town) but it’s a museum town. It’s beautiful but it’s boring and I’m never surprised by it. Sometimes a town is not beautiful but we don’t care. I think it’s more important to feel good there and feel in phase with a city. We like to feel that it is full of life and can always offer you exactly what you need. We need not only beauty but to be surprised, even if you feel disappointed sometimes. A city has to change.
ARCHITRAVE: Many cities, especially in Europe, face this constant dilemma given their historical context between preservation and being completely remodeled.
MG: Paris had this conflict but, in fact, it is no longer a conflict because we are not really allowed to change something anymore.
ARCHTRAVE: Has this remained the same throughout recent decades? Are restrictions getting tighter?
MG: In the last five years, with a new Mayor, there have been very small changes. While I critique Paris a lot because it doesn’t really change and can be very boring, at the same time I understand that Paris is a very wonderful, historical city. It’s difficult to think of a way to remodel Paris without destroying this atmosphere but we have to find a solution. I think there is a way to recycle the city more, retaining its powerful history while at the same time having new architecture and functionalities in the city. The new Mayor is trying to change the zoning and trying to put towers in Paris but it’s very hard. We don’t have a simple context. Re-enchanting the city is really connected with this and not being content with a city that has just stopped. We cannot accept that.
ARCHITRAVE: Some of our biggest allies in this effort are visual artists and graphic designers that work in the realm of the beautiful without having to deal with functionality. Can you talk a little bit about your involvement with graphic design and the arts?
MG: I think the architect is partly an artist. We have to assume that and it means that architecture has links with
another layer of information. What is your interpretation of this idea of stratification?
MG: This word could be interesting because normally I’m thinking that for a building to be really pure and successful in the end it is really important to integrate and to be really sure that each discipline, like engineering, the artistic ones, architecture and the functionality of the building are completely integrated together. They are really thought of as a unified idea which are developed in one unified project. I’m convinced most of the time that all of those disciplines have to fit together at the beginning stages of conception to eventually be integrated and create a link which is full of harmony. But when you speak about stratification it means perhaps that it can not be integrated at the same time but one after another. And I think this can also be a source of inspiration in a project. I mean, most of the time the pureness and beauty of the project is when everything is integrated at the same moment and this process shares the same life, at the same pace. But stratification could be interesting for one project because in one context you can think of a project that is filled with stratifications and would explore the dialogue between disciplines which could come one after another. And that could be another way to conceive of one project in a particular context.
ARCHITRAVE: In your lecture last night you talked about having three moments within a high-rise building: a connection with the sky, the middle
a lot of other disciplines. It’s important to include those dimensions inside of architecture. Often, people ask me about the graphic design that is very present in my work and they ask with a bit of masked criticism. I think it’s important for architecture not only to be made with volumes in a black and white way, but to develop it with other dimensions: texture, matte or glossy, the deepness of materials, and the way we touch them for instance. Materials are very important. The way we filter light and give it color or no color or design a luminous space or a dark one ... and after, there is always the question of graphic design. Sometimes the graphic design really becomes part of the project. In Citroen, I didn’t want the project to be built and then afterwards have marketing people attach signage with logos to the building. I wanted for the architecture to be deeply encrusted with the brand. I wanted for the architecture to express all these dimensions including the logo. When you are confronted with this question of graphic design, you have to design in a way that it can become a deep part of your façade and the volumes of your project. I assume this point. It’s not a good idea for the architect to say, “No, I’m just doing architecture.” In fact, the real beauty of the project can come from this. It was really playful for me to do this at Citroen and I think it’s more interesting for the public as well.
ARCHITRAVE: For this issue we have a theme which is stratification. There are many definitions for this word and one of them could be this idea of one layer of information being integrated with
and the ground. Are you defining those moments as stratified? Can you expand on that a little bit and the idealization of architecture within those moments?
MG: Yes but I spoke about these connections that you have to think about deeply; the connection with the ground, the connection with the sky, and the core of the building. It doesn’t mean that you have to express that into a building.
For example in the Tour Phare building, the expression is really a continuity between the basement of the building and the ground floor. There is a difference between the lower part of the building and the center part but on the top there is no difference. I have worked a lot on the connection with the sky but without writing it in a different type of architecture. So you can want to separate and to do a legible stratification of objects but you can also decide to go with a very fluid project
that treats the three connections without writing a different type of architecture. The answer can be fluid or disconnected. It depends on the site.
ARCHITRAVE: Would you say that when you describe re-enchanting the city that you are, in a way, adding a new layer of information, a new idea or a new stratification?
MG: In the city?
ARCHITRAVE: Yes.
MG: No, I don’t think so. I think that the city is like the human body. It is full of little pieces. From my point of view, it’s not a good idea to see the city really in terms of stratification. I think it’s very important to make a fluid connection between the different historical periods of the city. But perhaps I’m thinking too much about the European cities which are very dense, very organic, and very homogenous too. So, for them I think the best solution is to integrate and not to add in different layers. It’s important for them to integrate deeply.
ARCHITRAVE: That’s interesting, that European cities are very controlled yet organic and in a way become very museum-like versus the Asian cities. At least most of them, like Shanghai or Beijing, are very progressive. They are willing to destroy so many aspects of it that they often destroy the memories and just build anew. Would you say that this is also re-enchanting the city?
MG: No. (Everyone laughs) No, I think it’s a pity how Shanghai has destroyed so much of its historical part. It’s the same with Beijing. I went there six years ago and I came back again two years ago. In those four years they had demolished so many things. I mean it’s very important in a city to, of course demolish and recycle, but it’s also important to make sure that everything is managing to be kept in a way; every type of period. It’s very interesting for example if I speak about Tokyo. You cannot see a city which is more modern than Tokyo. Even there you have very modern districts and you can just walk for three minutes and find that you are now
in a very low scale, historical district. The two are really communicating in a very good way together. It’s a pleasure when you are walking through a city to discover suddenly something which is surprising you and to have the memory of old centuries. It’s very important in a city. Shanghai is erasing that past too much. I think you can manage both in each town in the world. You have to keep some past and erase some to put in new modernity. You have to do both ... even if I like Shanghai a lot. I was there in July but it’s difficult because so much building into the future with new constructions sometimes can make it difficult to feel like you’re in a city. It’s too artificial ... too big and so there is no human scale.
ARCHITRAVE: Perhaps we can wrap this up and you can comment for a bit on the American landscape which is where we are studying and working.
MG: For me New York is an extraordinary example of urbanity. You feel very comfortable in New York and you feel very good with the density and towers. You are not afraid and the human scale is there. When you see people in New York they are very happy. It’s a town which is one of the best in the world because there is a sort of alchemy that exists between the density and a sentiment for the human scale. The density is huge but you have this extraordinary feeling of being in a domestic city; in a humanly scaled city. It’s a very comfortable atmosphere. So it is not only in European cities where you find good public space. 1
Muscle-Skeleton Model
This project investigates the dialogue between physiology, modern dance and architecture. While these fields may at first appear to have little in common, all three share one important common denominator- the physical human body. By taking into account the intricacies of the human body (its systems, senses, abilities) to the degree utilized in dance choreography, it is believed that a truly moving architectural experience will result.
Setting the Stage
In dance choreography, the body is clearly involved from the very beginning stages of the process until the final production. While, it is true that a choreographer typically pays a considerable amount of attention to the visual display, the intention typically delves much deeper than formal arrangements of patterns, shapes, lighting and costumes.
Dancers, no matter how experienced and how skilled, must test movements on their bodies in order to bring their ideas to the physical realm. This beginning is rarely, if ever, a smooth process, and typically results in a lot of bumps, bruises, sighs and “do-over’s.” These physical brain-storming sessions take the architectural idea of “versioning” into a three-dimensional, dynamic form, where timing, trust and full commitment is critical.
Architecture, in its quintessence, involves the shaping of space for the human body, and yet, it often seems that the human body misses out on the opportunity to become involved in the development process of the architectural work.
The body remains relatively still as sketching, painting and modeling seldom reach beyond the physical involvement of the fingers, hands and forearms. Pens, pencils and brushes become prosthetics or
numb extensions of the hand, removing the tactile involvement with materials. Rarely do the designing fingers feel the grain of the wood or tap against glass before the elements are placed within the proposed design.
How strange it is to feel alienated by our very own designs. If architecture caters to its occupants, why are we so often unable to identify with the buildings that envelope us? Furthermore, if dance is the movement
Process, Performance, Perception:The Dance of the Architectural BodyRebecca Walker | Grad ThesisChair: John MazeCo-Chair: Levent Kara
Improvisitional Landscape
art of the body, why do most dance-like buildings only dazzle us visually? It is the author’s intention to use dance as a catalyst for strengthening the body to building relationship through design that ignites the full senses of any and every body.
Dancing necessitates a 1:1 investigation between the body and its environment, where choreography requires a further removed stance, in order to grasp the work in its entirety. I decided that I must accommodate the respective positions of both dancer and choreographer, by dividing my investigation into two parts; Design with the Body and Design for the Body.
Design with the Body:
The Curtain LampBy first designing with the Body, I would have an opportunity to become physically engaged in full-scale design before considering the experience of multiple bodies within a much larger context. Up until this point, the inclusion of my body in the design process had been limited to the motions of my right hand, wrist and elbow. Not knowing where to start and on a non-existent budget, I took Frances Bronet’s idea of creating architecture using found objects. The stipulations were that, I could only use objects found in my garage and I had to use my physiological intuition (my body) to create the design, setting all sketches aside until I was firm in my concept.
Among the items collected was a tree stump, a light kit, two wooden hoops, brown wrapping paper, a metal coat
hanger, some rope, a pair of pulleys, a piece of metal conduit and a bicycle tire.
After a full day of tinkering with these objects- rolling the rope through the pulleys, wrapping the hoops with strips of brown paper- the idea emerged to build a lamp with a pulley system that raised and lowered the shade. The body became involved by turning the bike tire that, then, pulled the rope through the pulleys, raising the bottom hoop vertically towards the top hoop as if the curtain was being raised for a special performance. The spectacle of the billowing shade and directional changes in light were complimented by the dance of the operator as he or she turned the wheel. Nothing was revealed by lifting the curtain as the performance was in act itself.
Design for the Body:
An Improvisational LandscapeWith the completion of the Curtain Lamp, it was time to move into the second phase of the investigation. By jumping scales and allowing for a bit of distance to come between me and my work, I was beginning to assume the role of the choreographer. Grabbing one 14”x17” sheet of watercolor paper, I allowed my slightly strengthened intuition to take over. Remembering two gestural sketches I had done early on, I allowed the lines from one to react to and upon the other.
I imagined this interaction in three dimensional space, and used ink wash to add an emotional quality. Pulling the sketches into the third dimension, lines were cut, folded, layered and torn before taking flight from the paper’s surface in the
body set into the music of the site, telling the story through an architectural dance.
Movement Phrase 5: Cellon Stretch
In the body, the spine connects one region to another, supporting each while allowing for communication between. In modern dance, the spine is considered both the source of all movement and the theoretical bridge between ideas and gestures. Over a flood-prone swamp, the spine extends, linking one body of dry land with another. Beneath the smooth thin sheath of sun-weathered skin, bony prominences jet outwards, while muscle fibers reach, desperate to keep hold. Sharp joint angles are subdued under layers of fleshy-tissue, yielding a single fluid form over which other bodies travel and with which they can identify.
Movement Phrase 6: Turning Tower
After playfully sprinting up the hill, there is one last look back. As the body turns slowly, the ribs are pulled by oblique fibers about the axis of the spine. Shifting away from the pelvis, the rib cage rotates further and the eyes find their point of focus.
Toying with perception, the tower is viewed from many distances, speeds and angles. First appearing as rusted blade slicing through the dense pine brush, the tower soon evolves into a series of pronated planes that seem strangely familiar. With peaked curiosity, the visitor abandons the usual route in order to join the mysterious dance. After a string of dead-ends and detours, the tower finally appears, barely recognizable at close proximity. As the
visiting body approaches, the tower seems to dissolve into the surrounding pine.
Movement Phrase 7: Fluid Grid
Finally, making it up to the top of the peak, the exhausted visitor turns around to take in the well-deserved view. Caught off-guard with the sight of a highway and a landscape littered with industrial warehouses, confusion sets in.
Trapped between the imposed rhythm of power lines and the agile sways of the straddling pines, there is a temptation to run and leap from the hill top. Adrenaline
takes over; agility overcomes strength and the rigid grid is nudged leaving a permanent indention.
As the act takes place, the body’s lines are recorded in a series of animated stills. Connective tissues link one bony landmark to another, creating a translucent skin that both flexes and supports. Knuckles burn white and each step is carefully planned as the occupant moves through the suspended tunnel. With each subsequent trip, the grip becomes more relaxed and the ease of movement through increases.
form of tectonic elements. Scale and point of view were arbitrary as the reactions and interactions quickly spread beyond the outer limits of the page. Stepping away from the drawing, new opportunities emerged and the dance continued. One sheet became two; two became four; and the choreographic process continued until the drawing stretched six feet in length.
One Choreographer, One Dancer, One Site: San Felasco Hammock
Preserve State Park
For the final investigation, seven sites were chosen within Gainesville’s San Felasco Hammock Park Preserve. Some were chosen for their intrinsic qualities, while others for their use as areas of congregation, pause or isolation. Because of the distance between the sites, I settled on the notion of seven individual dances scattered about a landscape. In place of constructed infrastructural connections, the connections between sites would be made through their use of materiality, tectonics (inspired by those of the body), and the physical experiences of the occupants. I named myself as the choreographer for each of the sites. The challenge was to let the natural qualities of each site elicit a response in the form of one architectural dancer.
Dancing through Architecture
Each site had its own rhythms, textures, light qualities and vegetation, and the intention was to let those qualities sink into my body before responding with movement. I imagined my physiological
Movement 6 Turning Tower
(Re) Collection Drawing
(Re) Collection Drawing
Recalling a visit to the site, fragmented images flash through the mind of the visitor. Details without scale or order become strung together in a steady stream of consciousness. The memory of a wooden handrail on the Cellon Stretch bridge may lead one to remember the sound while ascending the wooden stairs of Turning Tower. As the weight shifts along Cellon Slip are brought to mind; the muscles recall the undulating approach to Restless Shift. Before long, any distance between movement phrases is negated, and one continuous work of choreography remains.
Designed, both, with the body and for the body, visitors to San Felasco Hammock Park Preserve have the opportunity to experience dance evoked moments from within their bodies and without. The physiological body once again is able to identify with the architectural counterpart, and the body to building relationship is strengthened, once again.
John D. Rockefeller Memorial Parkway is an interstitial zone between Grand Teton National Park and Yellowstone National Park. The site was chosen because it offers the opportunity for those seeking exploration to find a useful incision in the landscape. This incision is a connection between the natural environment and the subconscious comfort felt by the human hand. Progression down the Glade Creek trail develops a person’s awareness of the effect of time on the landscape and its ensuing spatial changes.
The first segment of trail is a testament to the recent history of the area and the fire that came through, as well as the fire’s destructive yet regenerative qualities. Most of the older pines now lie on the ground or stand as monuments to a time before the fire in this unusual landscape. Re-growth is met with old growth further down the trail which descends towards the river, leaving a fleeting memory of that which has passed by. This diversity and other visual scars on the land generated our ideas of how our design can originally stand out as an obtrusion in the landscape. Then, over time, just as a damaged forest merges back into the untouched environment, so can our shelter.
Sculpting a View:An Incision on the LandscapeReid Caudill and Kirsten Akerman | Year 3Critic: John Maze
Fractures in a granite boulder caused by the extreme heat of the Glade Creek fire in 2000. These fragmented pieces can be removed and replaced, revealing a series of connected voids. Regeneration of the environment is embodied in this boulder and the way in which scars on the land are healed over time. Similarly, the widowmakers will soon be overshadowed by the new growth. A connection between destruction and regeneration.
Our goal with this project was to design a continuous materialization of our gathered ideas of site and their relationship to a broader landscape. In order for this to happen, the design responds to a program rather than dictating one, allowing it to become something less limiting in both idea and function. A gravitational pull towards the site is bolstered by an occupiable, meandering wall. This wall, made of granite, shadows a dirt path which leads to a connection between the main livable space and a linear projection which captures a very specific view of the Tetons.
The movement of fire and its impacts upon the land are pulled into the design by focusing on the phenomenon of entrenchment and underground occupation, the memory of material, and the situation of view.
The chapel is a vessel of light and texture through the articulation of joints between tectonic systems. The chapel is didactic through the textural assemblage of stone, glass, and concrete. Ground treatments and textures form the territory as wide gradual stairs lead up to a platform upon entry into the chapel. As the site remains embraced by building edges, the gesture of the chapel envelopes and gathers the public space as a vessel of light, worship, and communal gathering. As the form wraps around the plaza, it faces two entries into the site as well as framing a view to the mountainside towards the orchards.
The sacred place of worship is elevated as the highest space within the town. Part of the ground slab pulls down into the baptismal space below creating a volumetric relationship between the ceremony of beginning faith and the practice of faith. The manipulation of ground translates into gardens that operate as spaces that physically and visually connect to the natural through the architectural. The dialogue between man and nature is illustrated through gardens, which Barragan argues directs occupants towards a pursuit of beauty within the natural world. The gardens are represented as shifting ground plates with two pools of water: one pool completely exterior of the chapel and one pool that flows into and under the worship space to form the baptismal surface.
Mexico San Martin de Las Cañas: Capilla texturalJoelle Szerdi | Grad 2 Critics: Alfonso Perez-Mendez and William Tillson
MexicoCommunity Education CenterSteven Albert | Year 4Critics: Alfonso Perez-Mendez and William Tilson
The proposed program of the intervention is a Community Education Center. Using the central location and large public space the site offers, the two new buildings will open the site to the street and encourage commingling and learning. The program consist of two buildings; one serving as an adult education center with a series of classrooms and larger workspaces, a small café, and public restrooms, the other as a daycare that will also incorporate cultural and craft activities. Negotiating the elevation changes between the bullring and the street (which borders the opposite edge of the site) called for intense carving into the landscape. Compressing and indenting gestures found on the site serve as a generator for the formation of platforms and channels within the context. These series of stepped platforms nest the interventions within the site as well as control movement through the site both horizontally and vertically. The boundaries formed by the platforms act as the edges of the context, as they become a vessel to hold the program and its occupants, drawing them into the intervention, and encouraging public interaction.
A motionless, reflective plane of glassy water lies on shore, reinterpreting and redefining the lake’s boundary. Its surface, punctured by a thousand green pins, mirrors the sky, the sun, and the clouds—recording their encounters with one another. Acting as the mediator between land and lake, a shade of grey between black and white, the rice paddy extends the territory of the water into the land and that of the land into the lake. It becomes a mediatory landscape—an extensive armature inserting itself on the edge of land and water, black and white, and leaking in all directions. Along these newly constructed edges rise a series of inventions, moments where water and man collide.The placement of the first intervention does not occur along one of the newly constructed edges, yet its placement indicates the memory of a prior edge. A reinterpretation of the horizontal datum of the tree-line and the moss-line is inserted against the horizon of the opposite shore, interrupting the boundary between the earth and the sky. The roof slopes down towards the center, the slight decline allowing for the collected rain to be gathered and dispersed. The gathered rain unites into one mass, slipping through
Mediatory LandscapeNaomi Maki | Year 3Critic: Nina Hofer
the roof ’s thin openings, creating a wall of condensed rain. The wall, this vertical movement of water, light and sound, connects the sky to the earth, creating an interactive moment of the experience of rain collection—where the transformative joint of free and contained water can be experienced. The roof is levitated by an alternation between these rain walls and another series of walls extruded from the ground, vertically striated to indicate their movement and that of the rain.Beneath the roof lies a reservoir—a monolithic storage of rain existing partly underneath its covering yet also peeking past its overhead border, breaching the territories of the rice fields. The reservoir transports water from sky to earth, exposing its interstitial destinations. It is the facilitator of the movement of water, from the vertical to the horizontal. The reservoir collects falling water, stores static water, and disperses it into the fields. It is a temporal action—the release of water, the pressure and the weight of a liquid body pushing the most static and preserved water out, making room for the newly collected rain to complete the cycle. The released water gushes, flows and dissipates into a static, continuous plane
of water, slowly seeping into the earth at each planted pinpoint that punctures the ground and the mirrored surface of water.Between the rice paddy and the earth a path emerges—a series of white illuminated masses, the voids between them leaving a walkway. As the view of the masses transforms from a distant observation into an occupational experience, the once stereotomic masses become a vertically linear experience of hanging papers. The masses of paper hold light in their substance and allow it to pass through thin voids, through which the landscape of the rice paddy, the place of the papers’ fibrous origin, can be seen momentarily as the voids expand and contract, the breeze briefly disturbing the rigid orthogonality of the papers and their holding device. The masses of hanging paper are inserted along a channel of lake water, further staggering the boundary of the land and lake, emphasizing the exact point of puncture—where lake punctures land, land punctures lake, and the human path of exploration punctures the shoreline. The path continues out into the lake, the vertical linear experience of the hanging paper gradually dissolving as a reinterpreted linear experience comes into view.
At the very edge of the rice paddy and the exploration turns vertical, as the paper performance tower is inserted. The act of papermaking is the additive process of bringing a variety of pulped papers up in a filter, a single sheet of paper is formed over time by the subtractive process of the percolation of pulp and water and becomes a ritual, a performance to be viewed. The linear beams of the tower rise from beneath the lake’s surface, the exact moment of puncture remaining exposed. As the beams continue their vertical exploration towards the sky, they cast their shadows downward, allowing the filtered light from the sky to pause at the lake’s surface, leaving a snapshot of that moment’s overhead experience. The performers climb up a stair, alternating between the private and being exposed to the sight of spectators and sunlight. Inside the tower, the performers are housed by a scrim ofvertical beams that are ever so slightly united by a screen—a redefinition of the Florida vernacular. Although it is porous, it is simultaneously impermeable—not even a drop of rain can penetrate the tower and maintain the same intensity. Instead the drop is sheared into a million droplets,
transforming into a mist, falling and taking with it particles of light until they finally reunites themselves with the surface of the lake water. Once the performers reach the filter, they lift the sheet of paper out of the frame, two performers are needed to transport the human-sized sheet of paper. The performers descend the tower and revisit the paper hangers, gradually adding to the mass of paper, sheet by sheet.The last intervention occurs at a very slight edge—the boundary that is barely there. Within the constructed landscape a series of temporary interventions—camping tents are constructed at individual scale.
Each tent sits on a flat boat and is enclosed by a sheet of screen that is woven into a structured framework. Sheets of paper lessen the morning sun’s intensity while leaving a screened in gap at the top allowing for ventilation in the hot Florida weather. The temporary living structures exist for the street youth to sleep in the rice fields, flooded or dry, and can be dissembled into boats that can be navigated through the rice fields to collect rice straw and out into the lake to view the paper mill. The interventions exist at the edge of performance and spectacle, the edge of ground and air, andthe edge of manipulated and untouched. The tents’ nomadic nature embraces the tendencies of the street youth, giving them a place to momentarily learn and dwell.
My task was to design a cemetery dealing with the issues of existing site conditions in mind. I chose to reject the conventional east facing graves as the site was extremely small and the constraints disagreed with a grid-like rectilinear system. After graphically documenting the opportunities and constraints, I created a concept piece that speaks of the paths we take in life and how ultimately they all end in the same place. I utilized contour manipulation, paving materials, patterns, and color to make a cemetery that would not transmit the contemporary outlook of death in society.
Landscape Architecture Site Planning and DevelopmentMax GoodingCritic: Kevin Thompson
The sun presses upon them like a hot iron. Skin singed, clothes sweaty - cries for relief erupt silently into the still air. Only labored breathing and dragging feet can be heard for miles around.They press on - suddenly haunted by the sound of water quietly lapping against a shore.
Looking about wildly, they notice the ground forming into a wall. Sand seemingly held back by bones of a mammoth creature. Curious, and with few alternatives, they follow-encouraged by the distant, but distinct sound of water.
They continue exploring. There is another level above the entry hall, brighter. Some sunlight has been allowed into these spaces. The travelers are more social, exchanging stories, regaining strength. Still, this is not the sound of water they had heard, or continue to hear.
They find a remote stair-the air floating up feels fresh and cool. They descend. Again it is dim, but not unpleasant. stone floor-meditating. A single pool of clear water occupies the room. The sound of it lapping against the stone steps echoes throughout the space. This is the sound they had heard.
There is but a single source of light slightly above their heads: the exit.
Another long wall guides the traveler back into the desert. The sands beckon to them: When you are ready, come, continue your journey. It is not over yet.
Eventually they reach the heart of their skeletal guide. A huge overhang reaches out to greet them, bringing shade and instant relief. Inside they find other travelers basking in the cool of the darkness around a clear pool of water. They take a long drink. However, this is not the sound of water they heard on their journey.
Oasis within the [Gobi] DesertElaine Khuu | Year 2Critic: Albertus Wang
Door Window StairHana Leah Bittner | Year 2Critic: Bradley Walters
Something as menial as blinking can affect and change an entire sequence of events; without one experience, others cannot occur. Public and private space and their interactions with one another do not exist separately, but depend on each other for existence. Private areas are nestled within small-scaled areas but imply a larger dimension and connection to the public that surrounds them.
Placing a series of vertical elements and spaces before a horizontal field allowing only some to pass through, some to slightly touch and others to remain separate from the intricately woven intersection, creates tension. By placing smaller scaled, compressed areas along this threshold, it allows for a stark contrast to the expanded, filtered space.
Musicality in Space Tim Beecken | Year 2Critic: Kara Levent
Exploring spaces vertically through music radiating from within was the foundation of this concept. Using music as the driving idea generator, a rhythm and measure began to take hold of the armature, and scores of both music and registration occurred. Each pod was based on a different song, some with multiple songs depicting the different spaces within. When integrated with each other they became a sort of concert allowing music to flow throughout the very heart of the structure. Beginning in the private spaces the music gradually built and grew through the studio areas and ultimately erupted within the large stage space. The program revolved around the idea of musicians, both recording and performing, to occupy two large amphitheatre spaces, along with studios, public gathering areas, and private resting quarters.
The project is based on a systemic research into a performative field synthesizing frame, surface, and volumetric systems into the unity of an architectural object that interprets a given program in a given context. The analysis in the context of this project is a notational study that explores the spatial and tectonic possibilities for activating the edge of the parking garage; Parking Garage 8 (Norman Hall, building 0442), University of Florida. The objective of the project was to interpret the field condition and its possibilities for housing a grafted program that discusses the basic experiential conditions such as movement, vision, light, scale, and directionality of experience.
The skin negotiates between the horizontality of Norman Field and the verticality of the adjacent parking garage. Nested within the sculpture garden at critical locations are various sculptures that share a visual connection with occupants in the skin. The contextual structure creates on its west edge a continuous condition of expansion, folding the football field into its own volumetric profile.
Reactivating the EdgeYadira Jerez | Year 2Critic: Levent Kara
Room and GardenAdam Mahardy | Year 1Critic: Bradley Walters
Campus Analysis Joseph Young | Year 1Critic: Martin Gundersen
Through a process of nested space, boundary, and circulation analysis in UF’s campus, the woven qualities of path, structure and courtyard are discovered. These influence an articulated ground, translucent overhead light filter, and three interventions. Shadows cast by the light filter weave into the ground as well as generate the placement and form of interventions in space.
Constructing Ethical Questions:Social Stratification in the VoidDaniel Luis Martinez | Grad I
My apologies for not having brought up social stratifica-tion thus far which, for architecture in a time of crisis (our primary residue of that slippery, central theme from avant-garde architectural theory in the sixties), is unavoidable and could, more than anything else, articulate the void that you aptly addressed in terms of historical genealogies. Let me first note that the focus has shifted away from a crisis of structuralism and language, the end of absolutes, questions of architectural autonomy, the implication of critical Marx-ist theory in terms of social space, technology, enlighten-ment dichotomies of all sorts, language games, the notions of event and spectacle, psychoanalytic realms of the uncanny and other twentieth century phobias, junk spaces, networks, praxis, plastics and parallaxes. These have all opened up ex-citing possibilities in terms of architectural making but fall by the wayside under the weight of ethical questions in the twenty-first century. Second, these ethical questions do not operate in terms applied to architectural practice as a field (narrow do’s and don’ts are not the aim) but in a potentially more abstract spectrum that allows for spatially charged, specifically architectural catalysts in the design process. For if architecture’s autonomy is no longer at stake as a field of knowledge but legitimatized by it’s unending pursuit of everything spatial and in terms of it’s ability to mediate between what is culturally relevant and consistently new, these ethical questions must address something internal to architecture. It is in terms of method that one can most fundamentally shift architecture and consequently society.
occupy. So, will we inhabit the voids of our terrorized icons as Michael Arad has proposed in the World Trade Center Memorial? Will water permeate space in a blur, as Diller Scofidio + Renfro proposed in Switzerland? Will the skin of buildings contain the seed banks for the future of our planets endangered flora as Heatherwick Studio proposed in Shanghai? Or will the eyes of women heroes cover the walls of Brazil’s favela neighborhoods raising questions on social stratification, domesticity, and gender inequality as street artist JR envisioned recently? All cases pose new methods for the invention of meaning through architecture in a culture of ethical crisis.
The early twenty-first century has been marked by disasters on all fronts, a list of which has now become ubiquitous but one can think of everything from 9/11 to the British Petroleum Gulf oil spill. These events provoke questions on the organization of space in our world’s cities and, in some sense, what new ways of life its architecture will pro-mote for its inhabitants. They reveal the gaps of a stratified society that the future of architectural in(ter)vention will
The Architectural ManualA Guide to Stratification from Within Practice
Charlie Hailey, Associate Professor
From within practice and out of method, the manual emerges as one alternative. Manual in terms of (1) manus as hand and con-notations of making, tactility, hand-made, and ultimately an ethics of materiality and (2) manual as hand-book, something held in the hand that inspires, elicits, and directs action. Both combine to suggest a reworking of how things are made. Researching camps, I found alternative models such as the campaign, the poetic act, the installation, the play, or the festival. Each model has its own version of the manual, taking the form of pamphlets, billets, storyboards, poems, speeches, kits, and diagrams. Blogs resonate with these modes of activity. Method of communication becomes place—Burning Man’s fifty-one week web presence is a viable extension of its one-week desert experiments—not just as a tool of production but as an apparatus for communicating process. Perhaps the architectural drawing can be adapted as a similar tool, particularly the constructed—not merely “construction”—draw-ing as it facilitates exchange (I’m reminded of the way that Scarpa’s drawings address “hypothetical found conditions”). Think of the Japanese carpenter as daiku, working from a scrolled set of details to make a situated architecture. That’s the manual I have in mind. Post-disaster, the manuals that are deployed by UNHCR and other agencies are erudite, efficient, and well-intentioned. But on-the-ground and in-the-making, these documents fall short of addressing exigencies of circumstance and situation. Rethinking how things are made in these desperate conditions, can we also rethink the internal logic and knowledge base that might be con-veyed to those affected by disastrous change?
In the 1970s, such manuals presented appropriate technology as the solution to dislocations and necessities. Forty years on, can this ap-propriate technology now be translated into the “architectural catalyst” you noted? Shifting responsibility from technology to an active making and not predicting an a priori context—appropriate for whom?—but immersing ourselves in context and discovering how to make? Such manuals must work between what is known and what is possible and require the constant involvement of the hand, physical presence, and a link between place and knowledge. In its fundamental meaning, the manual acknowledges this temporality. We take it with us from place, and as it moves so shifts its ethical, political, and social contexts. Can the manual suggest how to deploy the catalyst that might then yield placeful architecture? In Mexico, Johan Van Lengen wrote the Man-ual del Arquitecto Descalzo (now in print for almost thirty years); the Center for Land Use Interpretation frames interactions of landscape, tourism, and documentation; urban artists have become “Intervention-ists” providing numerous guiding principles for New York City; and protestor camps on Parisian canals for those sans domicile fixé ask us to rethink housing guidelines. Does the manual limit social stratifica-tion by dissolving (back to cata-lyst) each potential strata (back to the mobile unit)? Or, put another way, does ethical practice address social stratification through manual, as both hand and guiding process?
re:think HEALTH community centerCristian Camargo, Brenda Nunn, Brian Kim
Interior | Design 4
Play on Perception:
The unperceived factors that influence our daily lives can greatly affect our mental, physical, and emotional states. The notion of stress is a major catalyst to these issues.
Five Design Goals:
Design each space not only for the sake of the program, but also focusing on the quality of space
Provide flexible spaces that can be converted into multiple functions within the program
Develop volumes of hierarchy that entice the users of the space
Create moments of hide and reveal that alter one’s perception
Activate each space by introducing elements that imply movement and create visual cues
Volume
x 2!
Compress
Translate
Reveal
Shift
Pollinate
Tr a n s e c t i n g Orientation
Greenhouse
Retail Space
Classroom
Kitchen/ Secondary Greenhouse and Classroom
Rain water collection
Plaza
Community is the core from which culture is grown. Roxbury, one that is deeply influenced by jazz, literature, dance and food. This culture is vital in maintaining its unique identity. By encouraging communal activity and interaction with ones neighbors, the community center retains the balance between urban and rural conditions and in preserves the historic identity of the area. By pulling the green house away from the existing structure, the interstitial space shapes the landscape and creates an urban scale streetscape that serves as an open market and gathering space. Drawing from the existing structure allows for the registration of spatial conditions as well as the opportunity to develop a contrasting materiality and form that celebrates the historic quality yet still embraces the introduction of the new. The open public space acts as a gathering area, harvesting culture. The constantly changing qualities of spaces reflect the temporality of the environment where the building becomes a backdrop for activity.
Roxbury Community CenterNOMAS 1st Place 2011 Conference Sabrina Boykin, Justin Fong, Anastasia Hiller, Jourdona LaFate Davie Mojica, Ingrid Molliner, Mu Mudenda, Stanley Ng, Jessica Pace, Daniel Sliter, Peter SprowlsCritic: Mark McGlothlin and Martin Gundersen
Elastic MorphologieseVolo Competition 2011 Justine Ala,Steven Albert, Ali Atabey
Sustainability has become a predominant design element in contemporary architec-ture as the consequnces of our invasive an destructive methods of occupation impose unprecedented stress on our planet and its resources. Finding new ways to inhabit the earth is necessary to sustain our existence as our population levels skyrocket. Even in an idealistic future, in which carbon footprint ap-proaches zero, the demand of hyper-density will continue to rise. Sustainable living is not enough to avoid our impact on nature.Ex-tending the limits of vertical occupation is in-evitable and key to our survival. Since man has started building toward the sky, we have limited our reach to restrictions presented by structures dependent on compression, always building from the ground up, technol-ogy has now introduced a new concept: a tower in tension, suspended from space.
Our proposed tower uses the advancements associated with space elevations to free ourselves vertically, beyond the sky, build-ing into space, as threads structure reach down from the heavens towards Earth. The realization of space elevators would not only greatly reduce the cost travel beyond earth in all respects, but it would also rees-tablish how we can inhabit the earth verti-cally. This concept along with the discovery of carbon nano tube structures enables a new vision of architecture, and our suspended tower delves into this new horizon as it intro-duces flexible programmatic modules, tem-porary and mobile, suspended from space. This coupled with the freedom gained from building modules in space, unrestrained by conventional construction sequences set by gravitional needs, leaves us with unimagi-nable possibilities. Possibilities to explore.
Sustainable landscape stratificationin the Mediterranean island of PantelleriaCesare Corfone | PhD candidateArchitecture and Planning University “G. d’Annunzio” Pescara, Italy
“…No creo que exista en el mundo un lugar más adapto para pensar en la Luna...” 1
Gabriel Garcia Marquez, writing about Pantelleria, identified with Ogygia, the mythical island of Calypso where Odysseus was bewitched.
Time, space and perception of stratified landscape The European Landscape Convention2, which defines the notion of landscape, expresses indirectly the importance of the spatial, temporal and perceptual stratification: “Landscape means an area, as perceived by people, whose character is the result of the action and interaction of natural and human factors”. The European and Mediterranean landscape is the evolutionary result of subsequent stratifications in the space, a territory whose forms, uses and meanings need to evolve.
“Landscape is living natural and cultural heritage, be it ordinary or outstanding, urban or rural, on land or in water”. Urban areas of
Master Plan
WATERFRONT PANTESCO TEAM project won the Italian Architectural Award “Camerino 2010: L’ARCHITETTURA DEI LUOGHI. Contesto e Modernità
URBAN STRATEGIES | Chiara Rizzi
URBAN DESIGN | Cesare Corfone
PROJECT MANAGING | Augusto Umberto Marasco
ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN | TACOLECTIVA - Taller de Arquitectura Colectiva, Guadalajara, Jalisco, México
Saul Cruz Dávila, Alberto Villar Watty, Gerardo Villar Watty
ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN | ARKFATTORIALE - Laboratorio di Architettura, Pescara, Italia
Claudio Angelucci, Cesare Corfone, Luciana De Girolamo, Marianna Di Lauro
RENDERING | PLUG-IN-STUDIO.COM, Zaponan, Jalisco, México
GEOGRAPHIC INFORMATION SYSTEM | Roberto Di Sipio
ancient origins are today complex landscapes because they express great interaction events created by stratified actions over time. The Convention defines Landscape Planning as “the strong forward-looking action to enhance, restore or create landscapes,” addressing architects and planners to a project which is able to create new landscapes. The stratification theme is a reading key of upright and deep landscape reality, the result of overlapped diversities; it should be a design tool that conducts the transformation of the territory. The stratification theme is central compared with “the research of new design forms able to convey the spirit of the time”, as noted by Guendalina Salimei, and it gives us “the opportunity to create high complexity public spaces and to reify a city within a city”.3
Pantelleria Waterfront introduces the theme of stratification of time and meaning through an urban project in a frontier zone consisting of border areas between cities and water, infrastructure and nature, agriculture and architecture. The case study shows the trans-frontier identity of a small historic seaport in the Mediterranean.
The International Competition 4 for the redevelopment of the Pantelleria seafront was a chance to define a global urban strategy to improve the relationship between the city and the sea by superimposing contemporary needs to ancient seaport functions. The urban context is a reality highly stratified that needs to be reprogrammed according to new anthropic criteria. The current landscape of Pantelleria seafront assumes irregular spatial characteristics because of its mutually superimposing uses such as rural, residential, administrative, recreational, commercial and touristic. These different landscapes, “which are mainly social and cultural phenomena”5, expand along the coast of Pantelleria giving the shared idea of “the end of the land”; the old seaport which was the primitive medium to communicate with the rest of the world overlaps the idea of the end with the sensation of a crossing. Pantelleria is a small multilayer island between Sicily and Tunisia, a mix between Arab and Italian-Spanish culture.
It is an Italian island still mindful of the landings and conquests by the hands of Sesiots, Phoenicians, Carthaginians, Romans,
Promenade
interpretation of urban fabric provides the opportunity to create a complex, innovative, transcultural and reflexive project, the project desired by the French landscape architect Pierre Donadieu.10
WATERFRONT PANTESCO. The overall objective of transformation is to convert an area full of energy and flows, into a “territorial commutator” able to transfer this energy to the urban context and turn it into a resource for the landscape. The commutator, overlapping meanings and focusing objectives, uses renewable energy derived from historical memory linked to the territory and from the atavistic abundance of sun, water and wind. The design team has interpreted the public will to enhance the heritage of the old seaport through guiding principles: potentiality, integration and interaction. The critical interpretation of the initial state of the sites was made using “principle of potentiality”. The most important part of the project are those areas in which you can reveal the great potential. The “principle of interaction”: the seafront as a system capable of accommodating the diversity and variety in an island where contamination and stratification have always been a leitmotiv. The formal genesis of the project is the implementation of the
Byzantines, Vandals, Arabs, Normans, Turkish, Swabians, Aragons, Spanish, Austrians, Bourbons, Italians, Anglo-Americans Allies and Sicilians. The stratification of the physical and cultural transformations that took place on the island for millennia are now concentrated in the “Porto Vecchio di Pantelleria”6 which becomes the sign of the flow of time and memory.
Principles of potentiality, integration and stratificationThe modern trend to typify small seaports through recreational and hedonistic activities seems to trigger “a function of social cohesion in a process of collective appropriation” 7 of the spaces between land and water, spaces that mystically focus the sense of memory and community. Recent actions and policies 8 must be directed by landscaping visions able to share, communicate, read and correct the stratified sense of the context. Any action of contemporary transformation of “multilayer territories”- explains Alberto Clementi- must pass through the recognition of “coexistent relations at different scales”9 . This project attempts to operate on three different strata, combining them together: the social competitiveness, the constructive identity and the environmental sustainability. A good morphological
Market of Pantelleria
stratification of networks aims to generate synapses between the different architectural and landscaping elements. The project is expressed through a Network of Networks, which enforces the sustainability to enhance the historical, cultural, social and economic resources of Pantelleria. The networks stratifies the vital functions on the territory: new and old elements are part of an evolving system where the space and time vary with functions and uses.
Network of Sustainable Mobility. The main elements of this network are: cycle and pedestrian paths designed for all users, spaces to support mobility at low impact, bike center service to rent bikes and electric scooters, landing place for the public mobility on the sea, taxi boat service that links the multiple landing spaces on the island. The junction of the net is the Pole of Mobility, an interface between water and land. New and old activities in the service of mobility by sea and by land are contained in the Kursaal Pantesco conceived referring to the Dammuso. The connection between the levels of the building and the Promenade is obtained with a series of terraces inspired by the Kuddìas.
“principle of stratification”: the formal and functional overlay of the dictates of contemporary environmental sustainability with traditional building identity of the island. The project seeks to build quality through the reinterpretation of the shapes and the use of materials of that vernacular, archetypal architecture which produced a rare culture in the Mediterrean: the pantesco architecture that created structures such as the Jardino and the Dammuso. The “Jardino Pantesco”11 is the archetype of all the gardens, attestation of a wise use of the resources and of human capacity to establish a symbiotic relationship with the nature. The “Dammuso”12 is an important test of cultural heritage where construction technology, simplicity and synthesis combine well with a deep respect for the territory. Modeling of the squares and the waterfront, through a system of terraces overlooking the sea, makes reference to another distinctive component of the Pantelleria landscape: The “Kuddìe”13 and theme terraced slopes.
Sustainable urban stratificationWATERFRONT PANTESCO proposes a planning solution that overlaps new functional levels in the urban context: the vertical
Jardino Pantesco
Network of Renewable Energy. The Waterfront becomes a great generator using solar and wind, characteristics of an often hostile environment which turn into a resource. Coverings of the multifunctional boxes that border the promenade provide a surface suitable for the installation of photovoltaic panels. The Adragna dock was designed as a true Energy Mole due to the installation of an aeolian plant; the blades would represent an economic advantage and also a real plan for the future of Pantelleria, which has always called “the Wind Island”, “the daughter of Wind” or “the Smile of the Wind”.
Urban Green Network.14 A network built with elements of urban ecology which become infrastructure if configured as a network. An extensive use of native vegetation, a high permeability coefficient of urban surfaces, the sustainable management of rainwater are some of the planning devices used. The coore of the network is the Urban Park a single project that connects the two main squares of the city center where impressive buildings rise: il Castello (The Castle), la Chiesa Matrice (the Cathedral) and il Municipio (the City Hall).
Archaeological Network. The enhancement of the historical stratification of Pantelleria goes through the discovery of rare monuments. The Castle becomes the social and cultural hearth of the city and it functions as the set for the theater in the sea named “Nuova Piazza Castello”. The construction of the Archeological Dock is something more than the musealization of the Carthaginian port: a floating platform combines the historical heritage and the memory of the place with the leisure to stay in/on the water. The floating dock allows the warning of the submerged remains dangerous for tourist boats.
Network of Equipments. The project aims to link the existing equipment, as the Church, the Castle and the City Hall with new buildings planned like Kursaal and the Market. The architecture for the Market emerges from the interpretation of the Garden: it is an elliptical building, fully integrated in the cycle and pedestrian paths. At its centre there is a courtyard which hosting “il jardino” as it is called the citrus plantation. The garden is not just an ornament but also an essential element of microclimate adjustment. Through the networks between equipment, the seafront of Pantelleria wants to become a “territorial device in alternating phases”: a complex urban device where the circuits are activated by different uses and functions.
Archaeological dock
Gabriel José de la Concordia García Márquez: “...I don’t think there is a place in the world more ideal than Pantelleria to think of the moon. And Pantelleria is much more beautiful. The endless plains of volcanic rock, the calm sea, the houses with its windows where you can see in the windless nights the lights of the African lighthouses... bottom of the seas asleep..an ancient amphora with stoned garlands and the remains of some wine corroded over the years... baths in a smokey conch in waters so thick you can walk on them...”
The European Landscape Convention - also known as the Florence Convention, - promotes the protection, management and planning of European landscapes and organises European co-operation on landscape issues. The convention was adopted on 20 October 2000 in Florence (Italy) and came into force on 1 March 2004.
G. Salimei, Stratificazioni eco-logiche, in Natura/Architettura – Ecologia dell’ambiente costruito, 2010, Di Baio Editore, Camerino. “The international Design Competition for the reorganization and retraining of public spaces of Pantelleria Seafront” published in 2010 by the city of Pantelleria, in the
occasion of ministerial initiative “Sensi Contemporanei, Qualità Italia – Progetti per la qualità dell’architettura”. CID: 0271861AC8.M. Gariépy, P. Poillaouec-Godinec, B. Lassus, Le paysage, territoire d’intentions, Editions L’Harmattan, Montréal, 1999.Pantelleria Old Marina. The Phoenicians who made a stopover on the island of Pantelleria built an emergency shelter in the seaport of the island. The Cossyrs greatly
improved the seaport making it a masterpiece of maritime engineering. The seaport was later reinforces by Carthaginians and its remains still emerge in old dock.F. Tremblay, Les Paysages de riviére in P. Poillaouec-Godinec, Paysage en perspective, Editions L’Harmattan, Montréal, 2009.In the case of Pantelleria, the actions and processes in progress are: the construction of the new Cathedral, the disposal of pollutant seaport activities, the progressive
pedestrianisation of the area, the construction of new restaurants, play areas, tourist facilities; public desire to build a new food market.A. Clementi, Nuove visioni per l’eurocittà adriatica, in Progettare le nuove centralità, Sala Editori, Pescara, 2010.P. Donadieu, Dal paesaggismo giardinista al paesaggismo di mediazione, in XXII Conferenza Società Italiana Urbanisti, Bari, 2009. “Il jardino pantesco” is a wall buailt with stone blocks laid without binders, of variable height and built on a circular plan. The Jardino is a native building of ancient
origin and it was used to protect plants of fruit from the violence of strong marine winds.“Il Dammuso” is a primary rural building of Pantelleria. The most typical model are made with local molten rock. The origins of dammuso date back to the Phoenician
period, and its typological structure has been transformed by the Romans.“La Kuddìa” is a rocky hill, a geological formation typical of Pantelleria due to volcanic eruptions that generated the island. Many kuddìas are cultivable todayM. Angrilli, Reti verdi urbane, Palombi & Partner Editori, Roma, 2002.
Kursaal of Pantelleria
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Design BuildBreanna Rossman, Kyle Altman, Jeff Glad, Nicole Paul, Dylan RindaSummer 2010Critic: Charlie Hailey
What exactly did the project entail?Five students designed and built a kiosk for the local nonprofit Studio Percussion, which provides music education to the community. As a room within a room, the purpose of the kiosk was to provide organized storage and display for the nonprofit’s store and a central node for the studio’s daily operations. Conceptually, the kiosk was works as a musical instrument itself – a construction that has acoustic resonances and can in effect be “played.” We were fortunate to be able to use the wood from recently decommissioned studio desks -- an incredible resource of oak and pine that makes up much of the kiosk.
How long did it take?Preparation for the project began in April, meetings with the clients and design work occurred in May, and the acquisition of materials and construction work proceeded through June and July.
How have students been involved? What specifically were their tasks?The students worked together to organize and carry out all facets of the project, from selection of the project to meetings with clients and design collaboration, from preparation of the materials to finalizing details of construction.
How did the project come about? Where did the idea come from?The idea came from an auspicious confluence of sources. Kyle, Jeff, and Nicole’s sustained interest in design-build as an educational outlet combined with Breanna’s research as a McNair Scholar and my own previous experiences with design-build projects. We considered four possible projects and as a group picked the Studio Percussion work.
What do you feel is the benefit of the project? To students? To others?Design-build projects like this engage multiple educational experiences for students. In terms of process, thinking and making are brought into direct contact; and conceptually, eye, hand, and mind work simultaneously to revisit the design process and its immediate consequences. The pace of the project also asks a lot of students. I don’t think it’s so much the “real world” experience, which many proponents of design-build cite, as the immersion in a reflective practice that may mirror some of their future “reflection-in-action” professional work and goes more deeply into considerations of why and how they are doing this. Related to this is the added engagement with the local context – a unique dialogue between university and community that transcends simple volunteerism and goes to the heart of service learning.
How have you personally been involved?As in many projects like this, I feel like I’ve learned as much as the students. I’ve worked with them from the uncooked idea of a design-build project to the final installation at the Plaza and the Studio.
UrnKimberly Blythe | Grad 3Critic: Juhani Pallasmaa and Nancy Clark
Robert Rauschenberg was a man who worked with his hands to construct his art. He stressed the power of the “everyday object.” Items he found throughout life served as the catalyst for his art, some of those objects even becoming apart of the art itself (the blanket in Bed 1955, was found in the laundry room of his apartment complex). Keeping with this idea of working with the hands, and working with found materials, a biodegradable urn was constructed.
Blood wood found in a grandfather’s workshop, bee’s wax acquired through other students remnants, and oak (poplar in the mock construction) found in my own collection of materials, served as the material palette for the urn. A pure form was used to symbolize the organized chaos of Rauschenberg’s work. Held within the urn is a smaller capsule to hold the ashes, along with a locking mechanism and wax seal.
The focus of the urn was not on the form but rather the construction, and details of the joints and connections within the urn. The craftsmanship and the trace of the hand in the construction were the main focus of the composition, as Rauschenberg’s trace of the hand within his art, was so important.
The goal in this project was to design a mobile health care center that would act as a helping hand to a less fortunate community. We worked to develop a structure that would most efficiently meet the needs of the required program while still being able to make a positive impact on the lives of those in the surrounding communities. We believe that our proposal could become an affordable solution to the homeless problem we are facing in these difficult economic times both state and nationwide, allowing labor programs and seminars to be offered onsite so that patients can utilize their time more efficiently while waiting. The design is site specific to the program given; however due to its modular construction it could be adaptable to other locations as well. In order to develop a design, which could be mobile and affordable we adopted the shipping container as the standard module for construction. This allows keeping construction cost to a minimum while at the same time reducing the impact to the surrounding environment.
Shipping containers are designed to resist severe weather and natural conditions. Which makes them one of the strongest mobile or stationary units of construction. The containers can hold up to forty eight thousand pounds and withstand winds exceeding ninety miles an hour. They can be stacked seven containers high fully loaded relying only on the twist lock mechanism. They are easily transported by truck, ship, plane, or rail. The cost is drastically lower than concrete or block construction due to the readily available quantity of shipping containers nationwide. The reuse of the containers promotes the continuation of environmentally cautious projects. The containers allow for a more efficient construction timeline, less time from start to finish, lessens weather delays, and less time to bridge in terms of financing. The design process behind using shipping containers has to be highly planned but the pre-set process of a prefab project allows for much greater transparency for all the trades involved, as well as for the client.
Human Dignity Health ClinicGretel Castillo and Lance Moore | Year 4Critic: Albertus Wang
Gainesville TheatreJose Cruz | Year 3Critic: Martin Gundersen
This Independent Film Theater explores and rethinks the cinema, formulating spatial organization and sequence as cinematic in nature as a film itself. The power of a film to instill memorable imagery and experience was the conceptual motive when taking apart the predictable program of a modern theater and crafting spaces that would both enhance the viewers experience as well as provide an urban gift to the city of Gainesville.
The theater responds to existing urban conditions within Gainesville’s downtown, an area known as a destination for social interaction and for its awareness of the arts. Like many downtowns within the US, the activity that happens within the restaurants, bars, and dance clubs of Gainesville never translates on the exterior of the buildings because, tectonically, their walls are opaque and the windows too small. The theater counteracts this condition by exhibiting its activity. Large translucent curtain walls encourage transparency between the interior and exterior spaces as well as activate a lively scene within the building. Furthermore, to liberate the harsh interior to exterior relationship of the surrounding site, the theater frees the edge by lifting the space to echo the openness of a park. In turn, creating a different, yet needed dynamic to the downtown area.
AmalgamateDavie Mojica I Year 3Critic: William Tilson
The Savannah Bookstore and Cafe intervenes a small scale commercial structure within a residential street creating a point of amalgamation fronting Monterey Square. Its large occupiable partition both unites and divides the programs and the vertical circulation. The partitions semi-permeable skin contrast to the monolithic folding planes creating an architecture which invites the local community within yet promotes the use of the public square by providing a vessel to observe and contemplate ones place within the small scale urban landscape .contrast to the monolithic folding planes creating an architecture which invites the local community within yet promotes the use of the public square by providing a vessel to observe and contemplate ones place within the small scale urban landscape.
2nd Level Bookstore
Vertical Circulation
1st Level Cafe
Entry from Monterey Square
Interlacing NodeAndresa Maia | Year 3Critic: Tom Smith
In the early 18th century, Charleston thrived in the culture of rice exportation. To celebrate the history of Charleston, a weaving motion determines and generates the center of circulation within the composition. An idea that derived from a time when baskets were in great demand for agricultural purposes and is now a memory retained in the art of basket making, a traditional art form that has been passed down from generation to generation.
At the intersection where the garden space meets Cumberland Street, a node is formed that is a key moment. Here, the urban fabric interacts with public garden space, and a permeable skin allows for the visual connection between the exterior and interior vicinities, which are organized around the main programmatic space, the theatre. As the principal means of vertical circulation existing within the structure, the stairway of the Charleston Theater becomes a vertical datum. Within the space in which it dwells, reflecting on the characteristics of basket weaving, the stairway organizes a pattern of elements through its regularity, continuity, and constant presence. This piece becomes vital to the structure as volume of reference to which other elements in the composition can relate.
Back: Rooftop Soffit Fountain
Front: Rooftop Soffit Cinema
Iconic opera buildings around the world form connections with their cities in two ways: by developing the city fabric and forming an iconic silhouette in the foreground, and by weaving a social hub in to the city fabric. In Izmir Mavikent, neither is the case. This part of the city loosens up from its density and employs more of a suburban character than one of an urban region. Our strategy is to engage the building, allowing it to serve as a connecting agent between the shore and the distant city, becoming a shift in the itinerary of social interaction. The layout emerges as a typical town center and folds out to embed the opera house within.
Opera Design Competition1st PrizeMehmet Kütükçüoğlu, ArchitectErtuğ Uçar, ArchitectMert Üçer, ArchitectOnur Akın, ArchitectEmiliano Bugatti, ArchitectCaner Bilgin, ArchitectAli Can Atabey, studentİrem Güçlü, student
Inside the foyer
Exterior View
She who has been instructed thus far in the things of love, and who has learned to see the beautiful in due order and succession, when she comes toward the end will suddenly perceive a nature of wonderous beauty ... absolute, separate, simple, and everlasting, which without diminution and without increase, or any change, is imparted to the ever-growing and perishing beauties of all other things.
Plato’s Symposium
SUBMITNext Issue: Fabricate
[ˈfabrəˌkāt ]
DEFINITIONS1. To invent or concoct 2. To construct or manufacture from prepared components
DERIVATIVESfabrication [fabrəˈkā sh ən]fabricator [-ˌkātər]
ORIGINlate Middle English : from Latin fabricat- ‘manufactured,’ from the verb fabricare, from fabrica ‘something skillfully produced’
SYNONYMSmake, fashion, form, manufacture, produce, assemble, construct
ANTONYMSdisassemble, dismember, dismantle
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