fresh start

New semester, new blog:

http://proceedtobuild.wordpress.com

Final Project: "The Ceremony"

Gallery of Images

This project is about creating a space for a ceremony. The ceremony itself emerges from mundane, everyday events. I chose to examine cooking.
These shots show the exterior and interior spaces.

Front elevation




Front elevation with cladding unit removed



Street view of entrance



Preparation space





Plan views




The 'firepit' and elevated cooking space. Door to storage area on the left.



The cooking apparatus



Looking back across the 'firebox'




The catwalk and platform; a space for consuming the meal.





Final design drawings

Change

Architects want to protect their designs from changes made by others, who they think do not understand them. They are right—the others do not understand and that is exactly their virtue. That is exactly the virtue of the changes they want to make.

Architects strive for a moment of perfection—when their building is finished. But as soon as that moment passes, their building begins to decay. A finished building is really unfinished, the first frame of a descent to destruction.

Architects must embrace the decay of their buildings, at least mentally. They should forget about perfection, the complete realization of their design, and understand that the only truly finished building is a heap of rubble.”

Bathasar Holz (via Lebbeus Woods)

CAD 3D Final Project

(click to enlarge)
This project intends to use Saarinen's MIT Chapel as a way to explore additive and subtractive concept modeling in CAD. I began by reviewing my notes from my two visits to the MIT Chapel:

http://proceedtobuild.blogspot.com/2009/10/mit-chapel-visit.html
http://proceedtobuild.blogspot.com/2009/11/cambridge-architecture.html

Some generative ideas synthesized from my analysis:
-Cylinder intersected by a rectilinear volume
-Light from above focused onto a specific form in the center of the volume
-Reflecting pools used to transmit light
-A sense of "turning inward"
-Exploration is required to find the entrance
-An island; isolation in an urban environment

With these ideas as a guidepost, geometry is created.


The geometric forms are extruded and subtracted to find space within.


A cubic volume is subtracted from both shapes to form an entrance and interior.



Different qualities of light are studied.




For a second iteration, masses are added to a field to simulate an urban environment. A wall, garden, pathway, and reflecting pool is added to the field.




The main cylinder is opened by subtracting an array of solid rectangles from the sides. A cylinder subtracted from the top provides an aperture for sunlight to illuminate the interior.




Subtracting the cubic volumes from the interior and exterior of the cylinder creates openings to the garden area. The interior geometry and aperture can be seen.





Various viewpoints and lighting conditions are explored to reveal how the building might be seen by neighbors and passers by.







Going forward, I'd like to clarify the relationship between the walls and the cylinder. The interior volume is still a bit small; venturing inside and looking around still feels a bit strange and claustrophobic because the scale is wrong. The garden also needs some resolutions.

Final Project Model

The interior is finished, next step is to attach the cladding. Might be up all night if I make the cladding removable.