Obstruction Five: Architectural Autonomy

3-Dimensional Deliverables:

Perspective Drawings:

Reflection on the Crit:

• The intersection between the orthogonal house plan and the organically shaped site is interesting - why was that choice made?
• The house layout is fairly standard - could be interpreted as either a good or bad thing
• How does the house interact with the site? Being dug so far down creates a level of seperation from interacting with the environment

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Reflection on the Project:

It was by far my favorite project. While obviously the previous projects were necessary in order to teach us how to design creatively, the strides that the students all made really shone through in obstruction five because it showed that we had all become able to design creatively on our own with not much advisement at all. The projects in which people came up with their own design methods were in my opinion the most impressive. In a way, my project did this. While I used collage and 3D drawings to progress my design, I also flipped solid and void spaces to create something new, and this idea was not previously suggested during past studio projects. 

Plans and Sections

The design has been finalized with plans and sections, as well as a site plan. 

The next step to prepare for the final critique is to create three-dimensional drawings, models and diagrams. Perspective drawings should also be made. 

Interior Thinking

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Once I created a shell for my building, I began considering interior spaces. The interior spaces were designed using parts of drawings to collage floor plans. The drawings used to collage were original sections and elevations of Maison Errazuriz. The abstract "plans" were translated into drawn plans and sections.

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The next step will be to further develop the site, which currently is a dried-up riverbed, and to consider access. After that I can develop the interiors more.

3-D Drawings in Design

Goals of My Project:

• Use 3D drawings to design as well as to present
• Flip-flop 
• Experiment with solid/void relationships

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Idea One: Vertical House

Flip-Flops:

• Put partly underground
• Horizontal to vertical building orientation

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Idea Two: Solid/Void Flip-Flop, Courtyard Version

Flip-Flops:

• Solid/void flip-flop

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Idea Three: Solid/Void Flip-Flop, Split Version

Flip-Flops:

• Solid/void flip/flop
• One building to two buildings

Reflection on Crit Number 4

Reflection on the Crit:

• Building is too large 
• Didn't stick to perspectives
• Building is boring/commercial
• Why an aquarium?
• If the windows were important, why were they not on the exterior?

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Reflection on the Project:

I greatly enjoyed this method of design with cutting out pieces of the pictures and perspectives and creating something from them. I found it interesting seeing how you could use rotation to make something really different. However, during the crit I realized that there were challenges to this method of design.

For one thing, perspectives are a difficult thing to measure, so there was a lot of variation from design to design with final building sizes, and some people's perspectives didn't seem to match with the size of their buildings. I had the problem that one out of three of my original created perspectives showed a huge space, so that part of my building became ginormous since I was staying true to my perspectives.

Also some people struggled with interpreting the directions about how our building was supposed to be inspired by the created perspectives. Some people had to change their 3 views drastically due to the abstract qualities of the originals. Others such as myself seemed to have made design changes for practical reasons. In the end it all came down to variation in the interpretation of the project directions.

It was very interesting seeing how many different programs were selected, and some of the selected programs were extremely creative. I felt like the fact that we were allowed to choose a program allowed us to enjoy the project more, but at the same time it created problems. While someone may look at a created perspective and see a restaurant, an aquarium, or a boat house, other people might see something entirely different and therefore not understand the choice. Especially because a lot of the original created perspectives were either vague or abstract, they really could have been a lot of different things.

Obstruction Four: This and That

A Museum for Fish

The program of the building is now an aquarium. It is a fairly small aquarium, which floors of changing heights, varying aquarium sizes, and a guest area including a cafe. The single height floors are all ten feet tall, so double height spaces are twenty feet tall. The site will be in a city. Four different views were utilized. 

The following views are used:

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Structurally, is it currently unsound and the program may actually have to be rearranged in order to support all of the tanks sufficiently.