talk with karl; what's next?

Below is a study of how different types of verbs occur in the same space. For example, the diagram on the left shows the relationship between art, music and science. Science is predominately a thinking space, art a making and music a performing - yet other activities occur in these areas. The center, Sensory and Discovery is a zone that becomes a dialogue between the three types of labs - collaborations on display for the students to interact and look at.















In taking the Jello-program analogy pretty literally, we cast Jello molds of program distributed throughout our building. Using clear, and flavorless :( gelatin, we added color dies to show how program begins spilling out and mixing throughout a building - most importantly how this random mixing can occur in the spaces between "rooms". The corridor, hallway or circulation becomes a mixing pot of program. The Jello is something we could come back to as we start forming more relationships between the given programs - and show how programs grow and shrink depending on what activity is going on in the building at a specific location and time. There is also the advantage of easily cutting the mold into sections.






















Below is an animation strategy that shows how children may use the art-science-music labs and discovery space (each child is represented by a dot). With Karl, we discussed possibly showing the shrinkage and expanding of a room in the animation, depending on the density of the crowd occupying it at a giving moment (reminds me of the cardiovascular system - the heart expanding and contracting as it pumps cells through the rest of the system).


























Above is a diagram of all the stills of the animation layered on top of each other and given a transparency. It begins to suggest where the student have been and where the most dense activity occurs. The charcoal animation posted on an earlier date seemed to be a better example of this "trace." Below, is Bleecker's videos in Manhattan that begin to show a similar strategy in figuring out how people move, group and disperse throughout a day.

5th & 15th Still Observation from Julian Bleecker on Vimeo.

The naked house allows the flexibilty of program enclosed in a space. The rooms literally move on wheels and have the benefit of being used for multiple types of activity:

http://www.shigerubanarchitects.com/SBA_WORKS/SBA_HOUSES/SBA_HOUSES_24/SBA_Houses_24.html

Sliding screens or fabrics could be a way of thinking about how to allow growth and shrinkage of a space or program.

New methods of modeling program and space;

Ways to think about program as a field condition:

















A class room unit could be thought of as the floating fruit in a blob of other program. If the program is thought of as a field condition, then the gelatin blob would be constantly moving, rearranging and changing - where the classrooms (the fruit) would remain constant physical elements, with the field moving in or around them.























A shift in our project: in creating hypothetical relationships between spaces and programs, we will begin to design our building not around the physical space, but around the chance groupings, separations, and regroupings of the people and things that encompass our building. We will try different methods of producing these field relationships. In drawing, we come up with the problem that it is not a time based medium. We have to use points, lines, gradients, opacities, etc. as methods for representing field conditions.























This is a plan drawing of classrooms and how the k-3 (red), 4-6 (yellow) and 7-8 (blue) might move throughout the day. This diagram shows interactions between grades and conversations/projects that pour out into the hallways.























This is a plan drawing of classrooms and how the administration might move throughout the building during the day. The darker the red dot, the longer a member of administration stayed in that area.



This is a gif file that uses stop motion in order to show how the masses of children might move throughout the building and gather during certain times of the day. It is supposed to represent children coming in during the morning and then leaving at the end of the school day.

Field Conditions

Hilary Sample presented a video of how the MOS house might be used if introducing the element of time.

In traditional architectural drawings, the program is a labeled and static element. The gymnasium is labeled as "gym", instead of showing how it's uses may change over time. The drawing fails to communicate how people and things move through the space. It does not propose how the gym may grow smaller or larger and start encompassing other spaces in the building according to a specific event in time.

If program is thought of as an element that changes according to time of day, year and long-term, then spaces can be arranged according to interactions and possibilities of movement within the school.

Looking at field conditions in nature is a way to think about program. As in the examples below, there are specific elements that remain constant but there is still a living element that is constantly changing and evolving over time according to outside environmental conditions. In a building, permanent elements are the walls, floors, and structural elements (maybe the dead load). Impermanent elements can be thought of as the live load - or the objects and people that encompass it. Weather, light, time, politics and culture could be influences on the building's field condition.


The cuttle fish's skin changes as it moves and interacts with its environment.



The brain activity of a human shows where concentration of brain usage shifts according to what a person is doing and thinking about. Therefore concentration in certain areas will be more prominent overtime, as the video shows.



Computer generated starlings, Starlings, Starlings, Clouds: In Craig Reynold's computer program that simulates the flocking of birds, he set up three rules: 1. the bird must maintain a min. distance from objects 2. birds must match velocities with other birds in the area 3. birds must move towards the perceived center.




One distinct thing that all these evolving systems have in common, is the inability to reproduce any form. Within each field is an infinite number of possibilities. This is because the evolution of their form depends on unpredictable interactions with their environment.


Gondry's chemical brothers video - how film can represent constant and changing elements in music:


Koolhaas' Parc de la villette - "The program by the city of Paris was too large for the site, leaving no space for a park. The proposed project is not for a definitive park, but for a method that - combining programmatic instability with architectural specificity - will eventually generate a park."

FAIRBANKS: A GENERATIONAL SHIFT IODERNE BECOMES ULTRA MANAGED
The problem with the modern: suppression of change, lack of time, organic life unacknowledged. There is too much emphasis on the physical rather than comprehension of space and time. A map of Manhattan's grid systems, subways, bridges, etc. in no way describes the unpredictabilities, flexibilities, usages and interactions that occur within what is thought as a rigid grid (but as Allen points out in his article, all grids are fields - but not all fields are grids). No map or method of drawing has been able to fully represent such a system. In the architectural field, there has been a shift to time-based works, and the article mentions a few architects who are thinking about this in their work:
http://www.marblefairbanks.com/
http://www.glform.com/
http://www.shoparc.com/
http://www.metaxy.com/

Stan Allen: The Field
Barry Le Va











Allen talks about how the evolution of art has led many post-minimalist artists to produce "field" artworks; or spacial fields implicated by sculptural work. Post-minimalism works involve the choice of materials. The artist does not have precise control over a material, but develops the conditions (or rules) of what will direct the flow of the material. The final art piece becomes the evidence of a time-based process since interactions between the artist and material become the form. Time and outside forces create the field condition of the material.

According to Cannetti, Crowds have four attributes: 1. The Crowd wants to grow. 2. There is equality in a crowd. 3. The crowd loves density. 4. The Crowd needs direction (maybe this is the "physical" architecture (?)).

Iannis Xenakis:

A field represents "change, accident, improvision." It leaves space for uncertainty.

Hea In and I decided that the unit wasn't working for us - resulting in the grouping strategies presenting on the left. Click on the photo for a full scale view of the translations.

Configurations of space using Rhino model

Talk with Karl on Thursday:
-being breaking the ground plane and start using realistic circulations with ramps as a way to divide up spaces

















The first iteration:
Uses a standard element to configure overall circulation and form, resulting in spaces between for integration of additional program or light wells, hanging gardens.


















The second:
Shows circulation between classrooms and holes in circulation representing program below that would push up for light. The red plane represents street level and the orange planes below suggests that the program below begins digging into the ground plane. The sizes of classrooms vary according to the breakup of K-3, 4-6, 7-8. The largest classrooms are the K-3 and are pushed to the north end of the site, farthest from the street.

Chicago: Photos/Notes about the site

The site is in a bustling business area in the south loop. It is adjacent to a huge, red skyscraper as seen in the photos. In addition, the L wraps around the east and south ends of the site.






















In this part of Chicago, even an average height person feels small.


















The buildings around tend to ignore the human scale. In our k-8 school, it is important to offer a less intimating design that doesn't make even the smallest kindergartner feel dwindled in such a loud and adult-oriented environment.









Traffic: there is a lot of train, foot and automobile traffic in this area - it seems to be an area of constant movement and change.

















The current state of the site is a parking lot and an alley (there is also a similar lot across the street on the south side of the site).

CHICAGO TRIP:

Montessorri School:
1. hallway as a space for working, hangout spaces in hallway carved between classrooms
2. human scale of objects changes depending on the size of the child (i.e. the grade of the child) - we could possibly use this idea with ceiling heights of classrooms and openings in walls (windows, doors)
3. the theories of teaching - the woman who gave us a tour emphasized the importance of listening and conversing with the client; in this situation, since we are designing a hypothetical school with no actual client, Heain and I need to outline what we believe are important social issues within the school (i.e. how are the children being taught? what is interaction between classrooms and grades going to be like? what are the schools main principals of thought, learning, etc.). Some of the things we thought were really awesome about the Montessorri school was the emphasis on letting the children learn what they are passionate about. In addition, there was a concentration on having the children teach each other and working in group projects. The school thrived on interaction, conversation and working with each other.
4. large program spaces don't necessarily need to be shared between the entire school - an example would be the gym for the younger kids and a gym for older kids (it wasn't actually built yet at the near north school)
5. intersection of classrooms and other program - in Heain and I's latest iteration, there is a separation between classrooms, labs, cafe, library, etc. There needs to be more weaving of these spaces and visual contact between them.


OMA:
1. hangout spaces in odd shaped, carved out spaces between public circulation and private computer area
2. ramps as separators between public circulation areas and more private programs.
3. the play with using the section (floor heights, ceiling heights) and materials as a way of separating or defining different spaces, but maintaining a visual connection between them.

ramps, student center, iit, oma

Because Heain and I will be using ramps throughout our building, I was interested in documenting how OMA used ramps and sections in the IIT student center.

The first example is using a ramped space that lowers a computer area below a high traffic area. The flooring is orange to create an even clearer separation of programs. Privacy is further created through having the ramp as a separation between the computers and traffic area - but views are still allowed between the areas even though there is that distinct separation.
















Above, is a ramp used as a separation between two areas: the visitor center and welcome center of the building. The ramp is used as a poche space, but an accessible and functional one. Greater separation between spaces is used through material choices.













































This is where a ramp and stair is combined. Again the ramp/stair is used to separated two types of spaces, in addition to putting program on different levels. OMA solves the problem of what generally would be an extensive ramp, by creating a dual purpose detail in the building. While in the building, I saw a student in a wheelchair use the ramp with ease, walkers use the stairs and ramp, and a few students hung out at the top of the stairs.

The Review, next steps

Classrooms: Because we were thinking about the classrooms first and foremost throughout the project so far, other "darker" program has just been shoved in later and not thought about. Same with the circulation. Since students are spending the maximum amount of time in the classroom, we are going to continue with the idea that this space needs the most light, and to succeed in this, it will continue to occupy our buildings topmost layer. Though we have succeeded in the placement of the classrooms, and somewhat their circulation between grades (as shown in diagram below from presentation),

















the resulting form is unfavorable due to it's extreme geometric qualities, uniformity and disconnection from the city - (it could be placed in Detroit or the desert and still be disconnected). Essentially, the model we created for the presentation was less about form in the sense that we diagrammed to such an extend that the form became an extruded diagram, and therefore too extreme.

Cliff dwellings that connect with their surroundings and that appear to have naturally formed with their environment overtime:

In the above cases in Turkery, Bolivia and Greece, each unit (in this case a dwelling), maximizes sunlight and appears connected across, while still achieving variation according to it's distinct location, it's neighbors directly by it and its overall environment.

What needs to be discussed/designed further:

We haven't defined circulations, public area and height of the school.
We do know: our building is too tall, we are going to use ramps, and that we want to integrate our public spaces into our rhythm of classrooms.


circulations: We believe that the ramps should have more use than just circulation. We were thinking that our core circulation could also be a gallery that displays projects and work that
public area: We want our public space orientation to alter the surface that the steps of classrooms have created - two types of forms (the public, shared space and the private classroom) working with each other and with the fabric of the city.
height: our current model is about 9 stories and comparably taller than the other models students in our studio presented. We want to aim for a building that is about 5 stories.

Preparing for our next review:
For For our last review, we concentrated heavily on diagrammatic drawings and experimenting with form through the construction of the model. From now on we want to have a constant working model in rhino, this way we can easily laser cut and glue instead of spending valuable time with constructing forty classrooms through measuring and drawing by hand. Also, I think it is important not only to maintain a constant dialogue between partners so we are both on the same page, but to have a dialogue with other people in the studio to see how they are approaching the project.

What's next for Thursday meeting:
-rhino model
-diagrammatic drawings, models of circulation
-site study