Final Presentation Script
This space is designed for
inhabitation and circulation by a painter and an animator. The painter requires
an open space with ample lighting with room to position their easels and
subjects to be painted. Such open space and exposed lighting allows for the detailed
observation a painter needs. The animator on the other hand requires a quiet
and enclosed space away from distraction to allow them to focus on their
animating programs and think introspectively about their project. Both are
students that will need access to the existing building, which is satisfied by
a public space connecting the individual occupant rooms to the façade.
The formal aspects of the design
focus on approaches of aggregated masses and axial carving voids. Components
come together to form a structure of individual spaces with a heavy, massive
presence. While these spaces work to define the rooms for occupation, they do
not effectively address circulation. The carving voids act to transform the
spaces created by the components into a connected system. Each space becomes
linked to each other by becoming hollowed out and carved through by axial
pathways. This allows the spaces to remain separated in their inhabitation but
easily accessible to the occupants via circulation paths. Simply accommodating the program proved to be
a rudimentary solution to the design, the structure needed something to give it
a formal language and not just a description of occupation.
My design concept was largely dependent
on the conglomeration of mass and the subsequent carving of those masses. This
had been my concept since midterm when we completed the component exercise and I
began to contemplate hybridizing the blocky form of the component model with
the carved spaces of the solid/void exercise. It seemed to be a logical combination,
as surely the mass of the components could be altered by axial voids as the
cube of the solid/void had. The site began to influence the design with the way
the components aggregated, assembling to conform to the façade and corners
created by the site. This created a dynamic of upper and lower space, each with
slight differences in their form and function.
To unite my project, I arranged the
components so their interior spaces aligned to allow for the introduction of
circulation and inhabitation. When I realized the components were still too
separated and not accessible to circulation and later program space, the
carving voids offered the perfect opportunity to link the isolated spaces with
one another and transform the project from an object to an inhabitable space. The
upper and lower division of the project developed into the program of the
occupants, a painter who needed natural lighting in the upper space, and a
computer animator that needed the quiet seclusion of the lower space.
From the critique, suggestions were
made to further explore the use of the film and body position diagrams in my
design, using certain aspects of the forms they produced to influence my arrangement
of components. I admit it was challenging to consider all aspects and
influences posed by the various exercises. Making a design that addressed
program, occupants, film references, formal systems, functionality, and integration
to the site meant often the whole design became disjointed as individual
aspects of the design developed independently. In future designs I must
remember to continuously integrate these design elements so they do not become contradictory
and impossible to explain as a coherent design.
Another focal point of the critique
was the possibility or re-introducing certain design elements evident in the
midterm model but lacking in the final. What interested the critics was the
sheer mass of the midterm model, stating it had a presence and weight that was
lost by the open planar system of the final. I partially agree to this, in that
I should not have been so quick to convert the entire model to plane, perhaps instead
using a slightly more circuitous carving to create interior spaces that didn’t
simply mirror the outside structure. For example, the massive, sloped form at
the base of the structure was turned into a hollow box that looked solid from the
exterior but remained the same shape on the inside. Rather than carve out the
space to the point where it is just a box, smaller spaces could be carved into
the mass, creating unexpected interiors that are entirely different than the
exterior shape.
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