Thesis Defended

Well, it's been about a week now since I defended my thesis. It's a sort of bittersweet feeling to be done with the project.

But of course, nothing is ever really done. I know that as I move forward out of academia and into practice, all of the questions this project raised will continue to find their way into whatever project it is I am working on. The question of old and new in architecture is one that we can never really get away from. There is always a layer of history that is associated with any project, and that history must be thoughtfully dealt with.

The defense was an opportunity for me to share with the faculty and other students what I had discovered while working for the past year of my life on this project, and hopefully I will be able to make many more discoveries as I move forward with the next step of my life.



Images of the final drawings can be found here

DEFENSE

It's been a while since I wrote on this blog, but in no way does that mean that I have not been doing work. There have been many changes to the project since July, and I am happy to say that I have been approved for a defense. Monday, September 26th is the official day, which is just 3 weeks away. So I am busy working, drawing, model making, and sleeping when I get the chance.

Pictures will be posted sometime after the defense.

Until then... 

SUMMER work

The semester ended on May 10 with my finals (not FINAL) presentation. I was very happy with the results and I received a lot of good feedback. With much work still to be done, the plan was to work through the summer and have my FINAL presentation in early September.

It seems as though I am on track at the moment and I am satisfied with my progress at this current point in time.

The first spoils of summer:: a new site grid.

The merging of the macro and the micro have finally given me a result that works (at least for now). A 5'4" square grid was overlayed on the site and placed so that a north/south grid line is aligned with the axis of mirroring (the twin line between the two houses). The east/west lines play a game with the existing walls, aligning with the northern most wall of the bay window and then moving south from there. This gives me a nice relationship at the back of the site, with the column line sitting 3'6" back from south wall, creating a perfect amount of space for a corridor (an inhabitable joint between the old and the new).

The site grid was derived from the modular unit of 16" because of my desired relationship between the new construction and the old construction, with the joist spacing in the old house being 16" on center. This embedded relationship allows the courtyard floor to have a pattern based on the joist spacing, with 2" bars of metal (bronze?) to be placed at 16" on center and infilled with a ceramic tile (exact tile size still to be determined). Because of the modularity between the floor and the column grid, all columns that meet the courtyard floor fall onto a tile and not a 2" bar, allowing the tile to be replaced with a concrete footing to transfer the load of the column to the earth.

The columns themselves do not fall on every crossing of this site grid. In the studio addition (south) they are placed at 5'4" east/west and 10'8" north/south creating a 2:1 proportioned bay. As the building moves west, the grid skips north to accommodate the kiln. In the residence, the columns are not completely worked out, but I am looking at the advantages of a set of 3 columns supporting one beam assembly (10'8" and then 5'4" column spacing) versus one 16' bay with 2 columns on either end.

More summer spoils to follow...

frustration

This project is now at a point where the large scale design moves have been made, and I'm getting into the massaging of the parts.

Laying out the column grid has been giving me a hard time. It seems that there is always a problem with any solution I come up with. I have set up a series of rules throughout the project, and now I need to stick with them. I will be very happy when I can take a grid and move forward with the detailing.

An image of the mess I am working in. A reflection of my current state of mind.

Thick Architecture

I am developing relationships within the design, and quickly moving back and forth between drawing types and program to try and develop the project. All my current drawings are messy and incomplete, but they are helping me move the design forward. The project is evolving organically as I spend more time with it. I am looking forward to what will come out of this process. Here is one drawing that I am happy with now, a front elevation looking at the new house and the old house together. Things have already changed, but I want to put this up as a milestone in the process.

It seems as though the two sides are finally meeting each other.

Mid-semester Review

I had my mid-semester review last week, and with that came plenty of constructive feedback. Here are some drawings/model photos of the current scheme.

This scheme keeps the residence at the front of the site to align with the facade line of the street. Within the residence I have placed a core on the west side to contain the service components, while allowing the stairs to wrap around it. The vertical circulation is integrated into the movement from space to space. I feel that it reveals the spaces as you move up and give each one significance. A comment was made at the review to re-evaluate the placement of this core and look at the impacts of rotating it to hide part of the sunken courtyard from view as one moves by on the street, allowing it to reveal itself as one moves further back into the site.

The studio addition on the back of the house is beam and column construction, with glass block on the south wall and glass curtain walls on the other sides. The placement of the kiln has not yet been determined, but needs to happen soon. The kiln needs to have a relationship with the other sources of fire on the site not just axially but also in its material properties.

The next step is getting into larger scale drawings of 'hot spots' within the project where there is a direct meeting of the old and the new. 1"=1' drawings, and larger models to investigate the details that will take the project to the next level.

 

progress report

Design work is moving fast! midterms are one week away, and I'm hoping to have a final scheme by my presentation. I will update with images frequently to try and keep up with the changes... these images are a week old but are telling of the overall concept of the project.

 The idea is to arrange the project based on the programmatic needs of the various parts. The basement of the existing house and the addition on the back of the site will be part of the pottery/ceramics studio. The residence will occupy the front of the site where the other half was, filling in the "missing tooth" of the facade line of the neighborhood houses. The gallery will occupy the first and second level of the residence, and the vertical circulation of the existing house will be moved to the exterior of the firewall, allowing people to move through that wall as they move up/down the floors of the old house.

All these pieces work together with the sunken courtyard which occupies the footprint of the forgotten twin. That space will belong to the residence and the studio, allowing for small private gatherings or larger outdoor pottery classes.

More images coming soon...