Arch Daily |
- Freemen’s School Swimming Pool / Hawkins\Brown
- Folie Divine / Farshid Moussavi Architecture
- Iberian Museum / J.L. López de Lemus, Harald Schönegger, Ignacio Laguillo & Luis Ybarra
- “The Third Space” / Atelier Li Xinggang
- Jung Clinic / KYWC Architects
- How the Auditorium at Marrakech’s Yves St Laurent Museum is Designed for Maximum Flexibility
- Housing Construction in Argentina Uses Recycled PET Bricks
- Remember House / Edmonds + Lee Architects
- Hotel Transformation of Saarinen's TWA Terminal Tops Out
- A Glimpse Into the Weird World of Architecture Students' First Assignments
- The River Building / Stiff + Trevillion
- Federico Babina's IKONICITY Takes You Around The World In 21 Illustrations
| Freemen’s School Swimming Pool / Hawkins\Brown Posted: 17 Dec 2017 09:00 PM PST  © Jack Hobhouse
 © Jack Hobhouse Text description provided by the architects. The scheme designed by award-winning architects Hawkins\Brown provides a 25m, six lane competition pool, with changing facilities and a multi-purpose teaching and events space.  Site Plan The new pool uses state-0f-the-art timber construction and offsite fabrication methods to create a sustainable building that sits gently within its context. It replaces the school's original pool building, which a fire destroyed in 2014. It also relocates it from the west to the east side of the campus, next to the existing sports facilities.  © Jack Hobhouse The construction of the pool, led by UK construction and fit out contractor Gilbert-Ash, includes glue-laminated timber (glulam) portal frame, braced with cross-laminated timber (CLT) panels. The use of engineered timber provides a fast, efficient, carbon neutral method of construction that provides both structure and internal finish.  © Jack Hobhouse  Lower Ground Floor Plan  © Jack Hobhouse The all-timber construction also has a number of advantages in dealing with the challenges of a pool environment – it is resilient, a thermal insulator and corrosion resistant. On site, the erection of the glulam portal frame and cross-laminated timber walls and roof took just over three weeks. This allowed the detailed design and full construction of the building to be delivered in one year.  Section The natural internal surface of the structural timber roof and walls is left exposed and stained white. This material acts as a complementary feature to the external setting and helps to create a special environment to swim in. Within the pool hall the structurally expressive roof geometry is accentuated by a series of shifting glulam frames creating a visually dynamic space.  © Jack Hobhouse To minimise its impact on the school's Grade II listed landscape, the swimming pool's lower ground floor is partially submerged. This molds the structure into the surrounding scenery and preserves a large number of the existing trees. The highest point of the gently pitched roof identifies the main entrance.  Punched Windows The swimming pool marks the second phase of a 4-stage masterplan by the City of London, which Hawkins\Brown is delivering for Freemen's School in Ashtead, Surrey, with a view to improve the quality of the school's listed campus setting.  © Jack Hobhouse Completed in 2014, the first phase saw the delivery of a new music school and a boarding house for 60 pupils. Future phases include the refurbishment of the Grade II* Listed Main House, a new playground and enhancements to the landscaping of the school grounds.  © Jack Hobhouse  This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Folie Divine / Farshid Moussavi Architecture Posted: 17 Dec 2017 07:00 PM PST  Courtesy of Farshid Moussavi Architecture
 Courtesy of Farshid Moussavi Architecture Text description provided by the architects. Folie Divine is the first of two 'folies' planned by the City of Montpellier on its brownfield sites, as a continuation of a history dating back to the eighteenth century, when local aristocrats and the bourgeoise commissioned architects to build spectacular grand mansions in garden settings, such as the castles of Flaugergues, de la Mogère and de la Mosson. However in French and English gardens, the idea of Folie has a longer history in which a playful structure with no practical purpose would be placed within a garden or landscape to elicit pleasure, luxury and wealth. As an idea, the Folie therefore plays with this leap beyond mere practicality.  Isometric FMA's proposal for Folie Divine is based upon the understanding that the City of Montpellier, by setting the Folie as the brief for a residential building, was asking how the Folie's playful character could be used as a critical tool to generate a new possibility for the architecture of housing.  Courtesy of Farshid Moussavi Architecture Site The site therefore enjoys tranquillity as well as a pleasant Mediterranean climate.  Site Plan Architecture: Luxury as choice  Courtesy of Farshid Moussavi Architecture The initial brief requested five different apartment types. Folie Divine, through its unique assembly of floor plates, balconies and structure, provides its residents with 36 apartment types.  Apartments Diagram Massing: Environmental sustainability  Courtesy of Farshid Moussavi Architecture Balconies: Privacy, Indoor-Outdoor living, Choice, Environmental sustainability  Courtesy of Farshid Moussavi Architecture In addition, four different floor configurations are used, each with differing balcony locations stacked in alternating order to ensure that neighbouring balconies are two levels apart from each other. This minimises downward views from one neighbour to another and creates the choice of two balcony types throughout the building: a single height balcony, shaded by the level above and designed with exterior curtains for additional privacy and wind protection, and, a double height balcony which benefits from maximum sun exposure and provides the possibility of maintaining taller house plants.  Balconies Privacy Diagram To reinforce privacy in the balconies, the handrails are designed with double points of support, arranged along two parallel lines and offset from one another. The double points of support, compared to a single support at double the width, provides the views out of the balconies with greater transparency and minimizes views in from the exterior, as the double points of support generate a moiré like pattern when viewed at an oblique. The unusual degree of privacy and choice created by the shape and location of balconies, as well as their moiré handrails and exterior curtains, will promote indoor-outdoor living. Since the balconies are almost as private as interior spaces, they can be used as an extension of them. For instance, a resident has requested his balcony structure to be reinforced to install a jacuzzi.  Courtesy of Farshid Moussavi Architecture Structure and Building Materiality: User Empowerment  Section  Courtesy of Farshid Moussavi Architecture  Detail To minimise the need for building maintenance over time and the associated costs that could burden residents, the building envelope is clad in corrugated anodized aluminium metal panelling and glass, whilst hardwood flooring is used for the balconies.  Courtesy of Farshid Moussavi Architecture  This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Iberian Museum / J.L. López de Lemus, Harald Schönegger, Ignacio Laguillo & Luis Ybarra Posted: 17 Dec 2017 06:00 PM PST  © Fernando Alda
 © Fernando Alda Text description provided by the architects. The origins of the new Museum can be located at the end of 2001 when the Ministry of National Finance, the Local and Regional Governments signed an agreement to transform the former Prison into the future Iberian Museum headquarters. With this, they lay the foundations for the city of Jaén to recover for public and cultural use a relevant place within the city, located in the new commercial and services area at the confluence between the Paseo de la Estación and the Avenida de Muñoz Grande.  © Fernando Alda  Ground Floor Plan  © Fernando Alda The Iberian Museum was born with the aim of offering a broad vision of Iberian culture, promoting the conservation, research and diffusing of Iberian Art through archeology and anthropology. On the basis defined in the winning proposal of the International Ideas Competition called in 2003, the Iberian Museum is designed from the traces of the former Provincial Prison of Jaén. The proposal finally implemented is defined proposing a revaluation of its spatiality through a building rich in the relation between its public areas as well as in the organization of its spaces and their materialization, both inside the inner building and in outdoor access areas.  Section In a brief way, the functional program of the Museum can be grouped into the following main areas. Spaces with public access, permanent exhibitions, temporary exhibitions, service areas and public circulations, such as reception and information point area, accesses to the main halls, shop-gift area, cafeteria and conference room. Furthermore, the restricted-access spaces with a reception area of pieces, conservation and restoration area and warehouses, documentation areas and workshops. Finally, all the employees spaces, which include among others the Library and the Direction and Administration Area.  © Fernando Alda  This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| “The Third Space” / Atelier Li Xinggang Posted: 17 Dec 2017 04:00 PM PST  © Guangyuan Zhang
 © Guangyuan Zhang "The Third Space" is located in the prosperous North Jianshe Road, of which the east side is next to north-south parallel rows of workers' house. The direction, layout, the volume and the shape of tower and podium are nearly all determined by the calculation of sunlight in order to fulfill the rigorous sunlight standard. Two parallel 100 meters high slab-type building are rotated by a certain degree along the direction of the incoming southwest sunlight and then face southeast with the roof of the podium cut into a zigzag shape leaving a ribbon shape garden in the east side.  © Xinggang Li "The Third Space" complex tries to convey a kind of image of a three dimensional city settlement extends to the sky with 76 vertical stacked villas in the city. The floor slabs in usually flat in "Standard floor" in this project are stacked with staggered structural arrangement and thus form continuous increase of height level in each unit like geometric artificial terraces containing the transition of functions from the public to the private with the inhabitants climb and cross in the terraces, feeling the quiet atmosphere forming in the continuous spatial transitions.  © Guangyuan Zhang Collection and media space are formed into the shape of houses on the slope. Pavilion houses with different size, shapes and direction are all transferred to the elevation in order to take in the city views and serve as several lively platforms of life open to the city thus becoming a symbol of dense vertical arranged "city settlement". The real verdant courtyard is introduced into the top units with the help of the roof and thus creates a different feeling of height than that in the common villa.  © Xinggang Li  Section  © Xinggang Li All the duplex apartment units are stacked vertically with outdoor pavilions of different sizes and directions cantilevered in the corresponding elevation, taking in the city and nature view below and far away and becoming a new landscape in the city.  © Guangyuan Zhang .jpg?1513525289 "Detail of South Elevation") Detail of South Elevation  © Peng Sun .jpg?1513525249 "Detail of North Elevation") Detail of North Elevation  This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Posted: 17 Dec 2017 12:00 PM PST  © KIM Jaekyung
 © KIM Jaekyung  Diagram  © KIM Jaekyung Text description provided by the architects. From the Private Sector to Public Space The site of the Jung Clinic is located on the junction between the main roads in Jeju-si. The design was focused on how to transform the intersection of cars into a space for pedestrians, while performing its function as a building specialized as a clinic. Though the space of the Jung Clinic is on private land, it has been presented to the city as a garden open to the public. Marking cardinal points by responding to the characteristics of a junction, its mass is designed for building situated at a corner. A protruding mass of six meters gives an impression of a main gate and helps to display the view to Hallasan (mountain) and the sea in the waiting room on the third floor. A simple mass composed of a concrete wall and a column forms a balcony and a courtyard to make a detailed expression at every corner, and the lower part of wood louver intervenes to give more delicate scale at the pedestrian level. Internal central space is opened through three floors to create three-dimensional circulation of path as another public space indoors. Walking along the junction, the pedestrian is led to their destination, such as that of a dental clinic, a surgical, a hospital, a café, or a pharmacy while they enjoy the outdoor paths and indoor paths, all in the urban space of this building. The clinic and neighborhood facilities provide visitors with calm out door spaces such as the garden and terrace, as well as convenient indoor space. The Jung Clinic suggests joining the private area and public area and how to combine spaces of a special function (a room) and the general urban space (a path and open space).  © KIM Jaekyung  Section  © KIM Jaekyung  Detail  This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| How the Auditorium at Marrakech’s Yves St Laurent Museum is Designed for Maximum Flexibility Posted: 17 Dec 2017 08:00 AM PST  Section Theatre Projects consultants, together with the architectural office Studio KO, have recently designed a multipurpose auditorium of 115 seats, with the aim of hosting conferences, screenings, concerts, theater, and cinema. The auditorium is part of the new Museum Yves Saint Laurent Marrakech –inaugurated on October 2017 in Morocco – and incorporates a series of elements and technologies that allow for high-quality sound and lighting, as well as ensuring total flexibility of the room to adapt to all required uses. From the architects. A museum honoring the legacy of iconic French fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent opened in October 2017 on the grounds of Jardin Majorelle—a 12-acre botanical garden, artist’s landscape, and museum complex in Marrakech, Morocco.  © studio kO The 43,000-square-foot Museum Yves Saint Laurent Marrakech houses a collection of thousands of Laurent’s couture dresses and jewelry and features two exhibition halls and a grand entrance atrium. At the center of the building is a versatile 115-seat multipurpose auditorium for informational screenings, acoustic and amplified music, theatrical events, conferences, film, and live telecasts.  © studio kO To accommodate all those uses, Theatre Projects designed the intimate auditorium, including the theatre equipment and acoustic environment, to allow the room to work as a first-rate cinema and conference room as well as a dynamic recital hall. Working with architect Studio KO, Theatre Projects designed an ergonomically, acoustically, and aesthetically comfortable and inviting room that envelops performers with the audience and creates a shared experience.  © studio kO Theatre Projects also concentrated on public ease-of-access, logical and efficient circulation, and audience comfort. With sensitive and seamless integration of the technical systems, audiences can focus on performances, not on the theatre equipment. The result is a multifaceted technical jewel and a highly versatile, immersive space.  © studio kO Sound-diffusing panels were tailored to enhance the richness of sound and create a sense of spaciousness—critical for classical music. Above the stage, architecturally cohesive reflectors control echoes and direct sound toward the audience. Embedded in the side walls, a variable acoustic system controls reverberation time, reducing it to as little as 0.2 seconds for medium frequencies. Theatre Projects managed the hall’s sound isolation, designing a double-skin room envelope and lobby access through specially designed doors, which block intrusive noise levels up to 20 decibels.  © studio kO Adjustable acoustic walls, highly responsive lighting, and cutting-edge projection and sound systems provide exceptional performance flexibility, allowing the room to effortlessly adapt to each event. The theatre features a portable sound reinforcement system, 48-channel digital mixing console, digital recording and playback equipment, simultaneous translation devices, and wireless transmission for the hearing impaired. A state-of-the-art projection system lets the room meet an array of programming including live performance telecasts, streamed to the theatre through an integrated satellite reception system.  MLS (Maximum Length Sequence), used in the auditorium's dropped ceiling  MLS (Maximum Length Sequence), used in the auditorium's dropped ceiling With a system of motorized battens in the ceiling, lighting can be loaded and adjusted with minimal disturbance. Performance lighting in the auditorium is made up entirely of LEDs, controlled by a digital lighting table through an Ethernet network. Architectural lighting in the auditorium is integrated artfully into the room’s architecture and operates with a Paradigm system of automated lighting control. The lighting control allows users to save and recall different illumination settings and to activate or deactivate different zones of the pre-set states.  Plan In addition to the versatile auditorium, Theatre Projects was responsible for the acoustic environment throughout the entire museum. Their work ensured that exhibit space was free from intrusive exterior and mechanical noise and could function as intended—fostering thought and reflection into the work of Yves Saint Laurent and the culture he helped shape.  This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Housing Construction in Argentina Uses Recycled PET Bricks Posted: 17 Dec 2017 06:00 AM PST  Cortesía de Fundación Ecoinclusión The Fundación EcoInclusión - winner of the first prize in the regional competition Google.org Challenge - is an Argentine non-profit organization that was born in 2015, from the hands of a group of young people that promote the construction of a fairer, equitable and sustainable society. Located in the Alta Gracia city, province of Córdoba, Ecoinclusión works in the reduction of PET bottles waste with the production of bricks made of plastic residues destined to the construction in vulnerable sectors, with the aim of generating environmental and social impact and cultural participation in the communities.  Cortesía de Fundación Ecoinclusión The bricks have the technical certification granted by the UN-Habitat Secretariat. They were developed and patented by Ceve-Conicet. Twenty bottles of recycled plastic are needed to produce a brick, which has characteristics like those of a clay brick, but with better performance as a thermal insulation.  Cortesía de Fundación Ecoinclusión Since 2014, EcoInclusión has been authorized to produce them. To achieve their main objective, "to contribute to the reduction of PET waste, transforming them into ecological bricks" which work in two ways:  Cortesía de Fundación Ecoinclusión  Cortesía de Fundación Ecoinclusión
Learn more about the initiative by clicking here. * Text and images courtesy of Fundación EcoInclusión.  This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Remember House / Edmonds + Lee Architects Posted: 17 Dec 2017 05:00 AM PST  © Joe Fletcher Photography
.jpg?1513301615 "© Joe Fletcher Photography") © Joe Fletcher Photography Text description provided by the architects. On a down-sloping hillside parcel of land in San Francisco's Noe Valley sits the Remember House, a four-story project that embraces vertical stacking and crisp materiality and was designed by Edmonds + Lee Architects for a tightly-knit family unit of three.  © Joe Fletcher Photography Four-story massing usually leads to a space that feels tight or repetitive, so the architects worked to make the vertical circulation both evocative and valuable, forgoing the pancake-style San Francisco house where everything is maximized in terms of square footage, and instead opening the house in section, maximizing a feeling of spaciousness and a sense of architectural adventure. That meant a small sacrifice in terms of physically usable space, but a huge gain in terms of enjoyable architecture. Double-height spaces and a staircase centered within the central spine of the house encourage the clients and their visitors to engage with each level.  © Joe Fletcher Photography On the interior, the architects started with the materiality first, working within the inherited geometry of the project, and from an all-white palette that began with the very first design choice, white Douglas fir floors from Dinesen, something the architects knew they were going to build the house around.  © Joe Fletcher Photography They started with white-on-white because of the clients' general aesthetic focus—on white, spare, minimalism—and their enthusiasm for treating interiors the same way Edmonds + Lee do: like galleries or museums where the main visual interest pops from the decor, the art, and the furniture. "We were designing a neutral canvas onto which they project their own artifacts," says architect Robert Edmonds. That neutral canvas became seamless, with spaces that flow from end to end, and with a continuity of materials that favor fluid transitions over the sharp disconnects so often found in modernist projects.  © Joe Fletcher Photography The sharpest moment is in the choice of exterior palette. Because the project was a renovation that required working within existing bones and an existing ground parcel, the street-side massing needed to remain consistent; there wasn't much the architects could do with it. Offering a counterpoint to the interior's spreading whiteness, and to the two neighboring houses, both of which are white, the architects chose to wrap the front in a dark cladding, differentiating the house from its neighbors and also from what it contains.  © Joe Fletcher Photography Edmonds + Lee also designed the interior furnishings, working with an ongoing notion of seamlessness all the way though the project. Working on a schematic level, the architects thought about materiality and space, (the big ideas of capital-A Architecture), but also furniture and interior design. Their aesthetic focus explored everything from the greatest mass to the smallest detail - which allowed for a precise and vibrant spatial, material, and architectural choreography, like the sliding doors, for which the architects introduced a large window frame to bring a sense of solidity, history, and heft, or those Douglas fir floorboards, two-inch thick pieces of wood that create what Edmonds sees as an incredibly haptic experience.  © Joe Fletcher Photography The Remember house was named by the clients to help them remember where they'd come from, and what they'd done to get here. To never forget that architecture, space, and design create the ultimate foundation from which to build a compelling and memorable life.  © Joe Fletcher Photography  This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Hotel Transformation of Saarinen's TWA Terminal Tops Out Posted: 17 Dec 2017 04:00 AM PST .jpg?1513377460 "TWA Hotel flag and American Flag raised to the top of the north hotel structure. Image © Max Touhey") TWA Hotel flag and American Flag raised to the top of the north hotel structure. Image © Max Touhey Construction on the transformation of Eero Saarinen's iconic TWA Flight Center into the new TWA Hotel has hit major milestone, as the project has now topped out. .jpg?1513377471 "MCR CEO Tyler Morse and Turner Construction's Rick Faustini and Gary McAssey standing next to the north hotel tower crane with ceremonial flags. Image © Max Touhey") MCR CEO Tyler Morse and Turner Construction's Rick Faustini and Gary McAssey standing next to the north hotel tower crane with ceremonial flags. Image © Max Touhey The plans will see two low-rise hotel wings spreading out from the existing terminal structure, which will serve as the lobby and lounge. At 200,000 square feet, the space is believed to be the largest hotel lobby in the world. Once complete, the TWA Hotel will contain 505 guest rooms, 50,000 square feet of meeting and event spaces and a series of dining and retail options. Paying homage to the structure's history, the new TWA Hotel will also contain a Jet Age and mid-century modern museum showcasing furniture, uniforms, posters and memorabilia from the TWA's hayday. .jpg?1513377408 "Future TWA Hotel Grand Ballroom. Image © Max Touhey") Future TWA Hotel Grand Ballroom. Image © Max Touhey .jpg?1513377347 "Workers and partners fill the Saarinen terminal building at the topping out event. Image © Max Touhey") Workers and partners fill the Saarinen terminal building at the topping out event. Image © Max Touhey .jpg?1513377418 "Workers pour concrete on top floor of north hotel structure. Image © Max Touhey") Workers pour concrete on top floor of north hotel structure. Image © Max Touhey "Since the TWA Hotel groundbreaking with Governor Cuomo less than one year ago, our team has been hard at work breathing new life into Eero Saarinen's TWA Flight Center terminal and developing one of the most iconic hotels in the world," said Tyler Morse, CEO of MCR and Morse Development. "This topping out brings us one step closer to reviving this treasured landmark and reopening it to the public for generations to come. Thank you to all our partners in government, labor, and construction for their support over this past year—we look forward to welcoming everyone to the TWA Hotel in 2019." Learn more about the plans below:
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| A Glimpse Into the Weird World of Architecture Students' First Assignments Posted: 17 Dec 2017 01:30 AM PST  via Aric Gitomer Do you think architecture is your calling? Do you have the passion and drive to explore this creative field and learn from the best? Every year, many young people decide to take on the challenge of an architecture education, but how many have any idea what is in store for them on that first day in the design studio? In truth, the exercises given to new students by their professors reveal a lot about the architecture world. I reached out to hundreds of professors, assistant professors, and adjunct and visiting professors to find out their favorite first-year studio design prompt. The responses varied from the abstract to the concrete, as well as from simple drawing exercises to complex steps to end at a completed work. Most projects were designed for individuals, however some required a team effort. The following is a peek into that world from a variety of educators from schools around the globe. The Concrete ExerciseThese exercises are very straightforward and allow the student to take something they know and expand upon it. Coming into a foreign environment and being thrown into the study of architecture can be very intimidating; these prompts seem to ease a student into the process of thinking through a problem by starting with the familiar: "I typically give a real design problem, something that was designed by a professional team. The studio class would develop their own design solutions. After they had completed the project, I would show them what it was actually built. The purpose is not to say what's right or what's wrong. We can address the same problem from different angles. That's the beauty of design." "I asked each student to select an ordinary shape, like a peanut or something similar. They were required to study its lines, curvatures, and so on until they were very familiar with it and then use the information they gathered to design anything useful to humans, such as a handle, a seat, a space, etc. The students could present in drawing or model form. This helped mold their vision of everyday shapes by abstracting them into utilitarian objects. I loved exposing them to shapes in nature." "In the design studio, I actually use a number of techniques that facilitate creative thinking and help students to think outside the box such as brainstorming, analogy, morphological matrix and reversal thinking. However, analogy is the most repetitively used technique, where students choose a design prompt that is analogous to the design problem at hand. In some projects, especially commercial ones, some students tend to use the logo of the company as a prompt. One of the funniest ideas that I remember was a student's concept to create a showroom for Mercedes Benz inside their tri-star logo, which was far too slim to adequately accommodate the required spaces!" "My favorite exercise for the first year studio is what I call establishing spectrum. This was actually one of my early assignments as a student and I find it relevant to teaching still. The basics of the assignment would be to assign the students to design a building (say a museum for example). First, the students are asked to develop a conceptual massing of the building on site working on the scale of the building in its context. The deliverable is very conceptual and often a material-less model. At the same time, the students have to draw, in detail, a window or door for the same building. In this exercise, they align a large scale idea with a small, tactile idea and make sure they are trying to tell the same story. Ideally, after this exercise, the students have established both ends of a spectrum that they can qualify their future ideas against." "Every week I make my 1st-year intro to architecture students create visual responses to the lectures--they only have a few days to respond (they do 4 per week). Lectures cover where many of the terms architects use come from - what is tectonic, form, style, ornament, typology, etc. Assignments are often tongue-in-cheek. One week they had to "ornament" a "functionalist" building in response to Loos. Another week they had to make diagrammatic "models" of buildings with food or household objects. Below is an example!"  via Aric Gitomer The Group ExercisePower in numbers! As you delve into the unknown world of design it is comforting to have a peer to bounce your ideas off of, or to learn from each other as you tiptoe into this special world. The following design problems give the student comfort as they work together in creating the end result: "This exercise consisted of making a group map of the city concentrating on the city that each student lived, with no reference to Google or any other global positioning system. Each student needed to create a map showing the route they took to get to school from home. The only thing they had was their collective navigational memories and the way they negotiate between them to locate different sides of the city. The students were instructed to mix plan and aerial perspective and play with hatches and line types. Once each individual map was completed the next task was to create one map with all the units. The photo below is the final result."  via Aric Gitomer  via Aric Gitomer "The first project that I usually introduce is a group project. Students get into small groups of 5-6, and on a large piece of paper (6 feet square) draw a series of concentric, freehand circles. One student begins by drawing a circle in graphite, about the size of a fist. The next student attempts to correct the imperfections in that circle by drawing one around it, also in graphite (using a 1-inch bar of soft graphite). They continue on this way for a few days until the circle is about 4-5 feet in diameter. We discuss the idea of circle, of what makes a circle, and the tension between the relative and absolute, between the idea of a thing and the forces acting on something coming into the physical world. The project is simple in that everyone knows a circle, but most haven't spent much time thinking about them. In just a few days, large questions about the role of media, tools, drawing, ideas, geometry, history, and context have been introduced, and these are returned to throughout the year." "Ice House was described as a full-scale installation on the grounds of the University of Minnesota's west bank campus to be on public display for two weeks. Students in groups of three were asked to design a temporal shelter programmatically similar to ice-fishing shelters that occupy the surface of Minnesota's lakes every winter. These temporary villages are colorful and varied but they all have one purpose: to shelter the fishermen from the bitter cold winter winds in the area. Our architectural bent to this was that they had to be both portable and temporary! Furthermore, they had to be made of a widely available regional material, ice. That is to say, the main component of these shelters had to be ice but not in the traditional sense of ice blocks used as masonry. Another limitation they had was the building method which we had defined as a textile/tensile method of construction. As you can imagine, they produced their work mainly by spray-freezing a fabric structure to a point that they could remove all supports and let the ice structure stand under its own weight. These structures became luminous light structures that glow like lanterns at night and allow the natural light in during the day. At the end of the season, the ice would melt and the owners would have a box of wet fabric to take home. I like the project because it gives them the sense of collaboration and teamwork that dominates the profession. I also want them to know that architectural projects can be of all scales and duration. For them, I think the hands-on design and construction of a real scale project that would sit in a public space was a source of great frustration and ultimately value." The Drawing ExerciseThese drawing exercises are clear and easy to understand. Holding that pencil creates a connection between your eyes, mind, and hand as you create the final product. It is an exercise you cannot compare to drawing on the computer where many will cut, copy, and paste. To actually hold a pencil in your hand offers a freedom that should not be neglected: "The first assignment I give to my first-year design students in architecture is a nature drawing exercise, and specifically drawing a tree and a detail of a leaf from that tree. I do this for two reasons: It's a way to disarm anxious students and alleviate any immediate nerves about getting in to architecture as trees and leaves can be less intimidating (and I pick the tree) than buildings in some respect; and Nature has often served as inspiration for architecture so this exercise helps establish a foundational appreciation for the innate structure and architecture in nature."  via Aric Gitomer "My personal favorite was a simple positive/negative drawing exercise. We stacked chairs in the school lobby, maybe 50 of them, then asked students not to draw the chairs, but everything that isn't the chairs, through the chairs. Blur your eyes; maybe go cross-eyed to see just the light and dark, just contrast, just the shapes, just the edges and boundaries of a figure-ground. You learn to draw what you actually see, not what you "think" you see; no symbols, only contours and form." "We always begin an assignment with a short provocation as a preamble to the notions being introduced. This year, halfway through the semester, after the students had explored geometry, composition basics and fundamentals of systems thinking, we wanted to present the importance of diagramming as a simple way of explaining something graphically. As Roger Ebert, the renowned film critic once said, "It's not what a movie is about, its how it is about it." We tasked the students with drawing how their designs were "about their ideas." A series of timed prompts guided the workshop. A one-minute drawing, a series of five-minute drawings (diagram where you live, how to prepare your favorite recipe, how to play your favorite team sport or game) and a final twenty-minute drawing explaining the components, relationships, and operations that explained their designs. The one-afternoon charrette resulted in a memorable, dynamic series of pencils-up, pencils-down exercises and show-and-tell sessions, where we surprisingly learned not only about diagramming but about each other." The Abstract ExerciseThese chimerical exercises are a favorite that combine all of your senses and turn them upside down! They make you think in a totally different way that creates a completely new way of looking at your surroundings. They require the student to leave their comfort zone and jump into the unknown: "My first project, "balloon animals," consists of two bodies, one human and the other inanimate (a balloon). This inanimate object is still able to be anthropomorphic or possibly even zoomorphic. These two objects will be the generator of a proto-architecture. The first is a simulation of a human body, perhaps one similar to our own, which is examined in motion and in terms of dimension, proportion, and expressive gesture. This first body is a proxy for architectural occupation in our first project, and the accommodation of the particular gesture being studied is a proxy for architectural program. The second is an inanimate body which, while lifeless, possesses its own anatomy nonetheless, and is able to receive the imprint of the expressive forces that give it form. This second body shows us that material, too, is capable of gesture. After examining each of these bodies on their own, we subject them to an operation designed to bring them together to form a third. Their integration offers the first moment of this project at which we are, from one point of view, free to express ourselves as designers, as the negotiation of the dimensional and gestural requirements of these forms, one the embodiment of interior forces and the other shaped by environmental ones, may be seen to fulfill the very definition of architecture." (Read more about this project here).  via Aric Gitomer "My favorite design prompt is when I asked students to bring in an ordinary deck of playing cards and develop a module which could adjust to create an aggregate form. The student is asked to choose an arrangement (linear, planar, or volumetric) and an operation (bend, overlap, pinch, weave, nest, flock, or warp) and design a composition from their personal exploration of the arrangement and operation. The playing cards are manipulated into models without using any adhesive materials and become a composition foreign from their original state. I often referred to this as "analog parametric" where students identify the range of parameters which they could adjust, and work from that constraint. You can see that in the algorithmic drawing process where it becomes an instruction set." (See some results of this process here).  via Aric Gitomer  via Aric Gitomer "The prompt was: "define space." Twenty-four hours later, presentations were made. I have struggled with questions like that every day since. From the educator's side, these challenges are critical to "upending" the mindset of high school graduates, who often lack in critical thinking skills. The challenges of any designer are to create anew by asking the challenging questions. Once learned, these skills last a lifetime." "The one we do and one that astonishes us and them is what I called "Empty Your Pockets." We give a paper page and asked them to do a self-portrait just using the objects in their pockets, purses, and bags. In addition, you only have three minutes to do so. It freaks them out but the results are amazing." Architecture education does not follow a set of rules and guidelines in terms of how to create the future architect. However, there are organizations that explore and delve into the idea of teaching architecture such as the Association of Architectural Educators (AAE) and the National Conference of the Beginning Design Student. It is a journey that each individual takes and the road varies depending upon many factors such as your previous experiences, your future experiences and the initial year of design studio. The varied assignments above are a small sampling of the foundation of what students build upon to become their future selves. Aric Gitomer Architect, LLC is a small, boutique architectural practice giving one on one attention to each individual client. Aric Gitomer, AIA principal has been creating solutions for over 30 years. He specializes in home renovation, new construction, additions and alterations.  This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| The River Building / Stiff + Trevillion Posted: 17 Dec 2017 01:00 AM PST .jpg?1513436169 "© Andy Stagg") © Andy Stagg
.jpg?1513436115 "© Andy Stagg") © Andy Stagg Text description provided by the architects. The River Building is a two-storey structure bridging the landmark towers of Cannon Street Station. Originally constructed as part of Cannon Bridge House the vast floor plates were designed to house the London International Financial Futures and Options Exchange (LIFFE). This presented challenges for the design team, deep floor plates created dark offices and the bridge structure over a busy railway station set limitations on what was possible. .jpg?1513435833 "© Andy Stagg") © Andy Stagg Stiff+Trevillion were commissioned to lead the design to re-imagine these floors as new Grade A workspace, independent of Cannon Bridge house with its own distinct identity. Embracing the unique character and constraints of the original structure the design repositioned the building to fit a newly emerging tenant profile, ensuring wellness, economic, legislative and technological priorities were met whilst ensuring high standards for sustainability. .jpg?1513436206 "© Andy Stagg") © Andy Stagg Upgrading the on-floor MEP systems and reconfiguring services distribution within the space meant the architects design team achieved bright, fresh and unusual office accommodation with improved floor to ceiling heights, levels of natural light and increased occupational densities. The engineering teams worked hard to retain rather than replace MEP systems where they could, reducing waste, cost and time whilst contributing to much improved comfort, energy efficiency and commercial return. .jpg?1513435955 "© Andy Stagg") © Andy Stagg  Section  © Andy Stagg Adhering strictly to the London View Management Framework, new south façade glazing and atrium roof lights were installed to improve energy performance, natural lighting levels, interior ambience and the building's appearance.  Section Efficient planning of the cores, reconfiguration of the atria and a new approach to a comprehensive rationalization of MEP services allowed expansion of the net office space to a total of 92,000sq ft across two expansive floor-plates with panoramic views of the River Thames. Office users also have access to a spectacular one acre roof garden, enjoying stunning 360° skyline views in the middle of the City. That 50 % of the building was let prior to Practical Completion with the remainder let very soon afterwards - a 100 % let to a nontraditional City tenant - is testament to the vision of the design team. .jpg?1513435969 "© Andy Stagg") © Andy Stagg  This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Federico Babina's IKONICITY Takes You Around The World In 21 Illustrations Posted: 17 Dec 2017 12:00 AM PST The clever Italian artist, Federico Babina is at it again, and this time he's taking us around the world in 21 animated illustrations. Hear the ringing of Big Ben, sirens in New York, seagulls of Amsterdam, and Havana drums as you find yourself adding to your travel bucket list. You'll have to watch this animation more than once to catch all of the details Babina captures about an entire city culture in one illustration. Or view each illustration individually below.  via Federico Babina  via Federico Babina  via Federico Babina  via Federico Babina  via Federico Babina  via Federico Babina  via Federico Babina  via Federico Babina  via Federico Babina  via Federico Babina  via Federico Babina  via Federico Babina  via Federico Babina  via Federico Babina  via Federico Babina  via Federico Babina  via Federico Babina  via Federico Babina  via Federico Babina  via Federico Babina  via Federico Babina  via Federico Babina  This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
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