A Playful Relief by Alison Freund

a PLAYFUL RELIEF

activating the everyday

Allie Freund Bachelor of Architecture Design Thesis 2013-2014 Advisor: Doug Jackson College of Architecture and Environmental Design California Polytechnic State University San Luis Obispo, California All rights reserved. All images and content created by the author is believed to be either in the public domain or used appropriately according to the standards of â&#x20AC;&#x153;fair useâ&#x20AC;? and attribution. Inaccuracies may be directed to the attention of the author and will be corrected in subsequent editions. Published By: Blurb Press

â&#x20AC;&#x153;Play is a uniquely adaptive act, not subordinate to some other adaptive act, but with a special function of its own in human experience.â&#x20AC;? Johan Huizinga

MANIFESTO The Disengaged 11 Unremarkable Everyday Overpresciption and Rigidity Nonplace Play 19 Playspace Playscape

EXPLORATION Design Studies 43 Vellum 49

SITE 57

A PLAYFUL RELIEF 69 Models 111

EVERYTHING 123

ABSTRACT Society today is one of routine, constant and continuous in pace. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a society dependent on predictability and reliant on legibility. Everyday design continually desires to prescribe and segregate program, rigidly defining use, and we now accept and desire this banality. This over prescription of space has led to the creation of non-space, spaces of transition, devoid of activity and occupation. Likewise the objectification of buildings appeals to visual stimulation rather than provide for intimate and habitable spaces, creating more non-space. The overabundance of non-place, and absorption in daily routine and predictability has created a society disengaged with their context. Architecture has the potential to design for a creative and ludic environment, one that can begin to engage the everyday user, challenging the inhabitants understanding of what a building is and how to use it. Through a pliable and playful framework, it can allow spaces to be redefined by needs and desires, inspiring new states of mind and detaching the user from their everyday reality. Space can inspire a new relationship with the built environment, one of participation and ambiguity, open to be manipulated and creatively experienced. We can look to the act and qualities of play, the desires it fulfills and the opportunities it creates. The act of world making, movement, and freedom can inspire and create new spaces, spaces that have been reappropriated, spaces that are responsive and public. Studying play and its relationship to society, its conflict, and the opportunities that arise from its implementation, spaces can become more empathetic to a ludic environment that can re imagine how one considers, responds, and experiences a space, allowing social interactions to thrive, routine to be interrupted, users to become spontaneously engaged. Architecture has an inherent ability to monumentalize in order to amplify effects, and can thus amplify the qualities of play within the public sphere, inviting in public participants, and engaging its surroundings.

one. MANIFESTO The Disengaged Unremarkable Everyday Overprescription and Rigidity Nonplace Play Playspace Playscape

the DISENGAGED The public has become disengaged from immediate surroundings and the built environment, stuck in a continual pace and time. Routine nature and comfort in predictability has generated a society of disconnect. A similar disconnection in design and alienation of space only magnifies this condition. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Is life not a thousand times too short for us to bore ourselves?â&#x20AC;? Friedrich Nietzche Most buildings have a passive presence in society, legible as buildings and occupied by the predictable. However, architecture has the potential to challenge its everyday presence, establishing a new and ever-changing relationship with its users, and re-engaging them into the built environment.

THE UNREMARKABLE EVERYDAY Our movement in cities is directed by and sacrificial to the everyday routine. The constant and continuous pace sustains and restrains a mentality that is predictable and dormant. In this environment of constant structure, interruptions tend to be annoyances and change is inconvenient. Society has come to accept and desire this banality, disengaging themselves from their physical contexts, focused on the task at hand. The everyday environment requires little involvement and inspires little participation.

NON PLACE < Routine nature in commute,

predictability and preoccupation

NON PLACE Several concepts can be applied to non-place, however the most architecturally relevant concerns non-place as being the space of the in-between, implying that the space is ambiguous and a space of transition. There is an inhabitability about non-place, often encompassing senses of detachment and realness. The rise these spaces that are programless and unoccupiable create an excess of space that is devoid of activity and realness.

Marc Augé, a French anthropologist, believes “if a place can be defined as relational, historical and concerned with identity, then a space which cannot be defined as relational, historical, or concerned with identity will be a non-place,”1 providing examples as motorways, hotel rooms, airports or supermarkets. His concept of “nonplace” refers to spaces of transition that hold little significance and are thus devoid of being a place. Assuming that supermodernity produces non-places, he characterizes overmodernity as an excess of time, space and individualization, with these traits also characterizing daily urban life. He contrasts anthropological space, which he defines to be social, to non-places, which tend to create solitary environments.2 A type of non-space, Rob Evans studies the introduction and implication of the passage, or corridor defining it as “a device for removing traffic”.3 He identifies the implementation of the passage and segregation of space as a response to the desire to limit exposure to company and enhance the efficiency of service. Instead of its original intent of separating for convenience and containment, the passage began to stand as a dividing commodity, becoming recognizable for its allowance of privacy. It divided the domain in two, providing an inner habitable space and an outer unoccupied circulation space. Thus

03 Nonspace, often transitory in nature

1. Augé, Mark. Non-Places: Introduction to an Anthropology of Supermodernity. London/New York: Verso, 1995. 2. Üngür, Erdem. “Contradiction and Ambiguity in Non-Place: Non-Place as a Transitional Spatial Concept.” (2011). 3. Evans, Robin. “Figures, Doors and Passages.” Translations from Drawings to Buildings and Other Essays, Architectural Association Publications (1997): 54-91.

Space can be designed to eliminate the non-space. Blurring the boundaries between circulation and program allows the unoccupied to be employed. Holistic design obscuring boundaries of program can create more engaging environments. Once a building can no longer be read for its normalcy and legibility, typical mentalities can be challenged. The building can contrast the everyday fixity using the qualities of play to disengage from the preoccupation and prescription of the everyday, re-engaging into a more stimulating environment.

OVER PRESCRIPTION and RIGIDITY Designers today have a tendency to process a design as a single â&#x20AC;&#x153;optimizedâ&#x20AC;? entity, rigidly defining space. There remains a desire to prescribe the use and experience of space, often producing a segregation and fixed series of spaces. These fixed entities restrain the potentials of the space and the isolation and disjunction of spaces generally corresponds with a presence of non-space. As seen in city planning, design tends to define and segregate function, place and relationship. This separation creates a disconnect by lack of proximity, elongated commute between, and an exclusion of programmatic overlap.

< Zoning of a city, showing a

strong programmatic segregation

OBJECTIFICATION Another creator of non-space is the objectification of buildings. Many buildings today have become objectified in their designs, standing out amongst the urban fabric as symbolic and commercially driven images. These buildings that are invested in “visual sensationalism”1 are more devoted to the distant appearance that can best be photographed, recognized or remembered. They are designed for greatest visual influence, rather than considering intimate and humanly scaled spaces that encourage participation or comfort. Once a building can’t be appreciated as a visual or object, an opportunity to inhabit and explore presents itself and a relationship can form between the inhabitant, the context, and the building. Spaces that are intimately scaled and inviting to the user can be understood as spaces desired to be occupied, and potentially manipulated. The objectification of buildings often leaves public space ignored or as an afterthought. Rather than part of the context or flow of the building, an arbitrary addition or leftover space typically manifests itself into an estranged non-place.

1. Daskalaki, Maria. “The Parkour Organization: Inhabitation of Corporate Spaces.” Culture and Organization 14.1 (2008): 49-64. Print.

< Objectification of a building, providing mainly visual sensationalism.

Space can be designed to eliminate the non-space. Blurring the boundaries between circulation and program allows the unoccupied to be employed. Once a building can no longer be read for its normalcy and legibility, typical mentalities can be challenged.

CASE STUDIES movements and reactions to social constraints

SITUATIONIST INTERNATIONAL was an artistic and political movement headed by Guy Debord. They believed that through professionalism in design, the world had become sterile and devoid of any spontaneity or playfulness. They proposed a movement that put the power back in the hands of the people, rousing them to decide what spaces they want to occupy and how they will occupy them.

NEW BABYLON Constant (a former member of the Situationists) idealized his city of New Babylon, which addressed the social constraints of the industrial and consumerist society. He strove to provide self-fulfillment and selfsatisfaction to the working class by proposing new and unconventional life experiences, or what he called “situations”. Proposing a series of megastructures that were linked and situated above ground, he wished to separate the constraints of working and societal responsibility at ground level and appropriate a landscape for the “homo ludens” (men at play) above. The daily wanderer, searching for new sensations, would move through a series of labyrinth like spaces that would be ever changing to the needs of the public. His compositions will remain purely “utopian”. An endless labyrinth of space devoid of private space, internalized and disassociated with the surrounding world, provides only a most extreme alternative to the daily situation.

Heynen, Hilde. "New Babylon: The Antinomies of Utopia." The MIT Press. Assemblage, No. 29 (1996): 24-39. JSTOR. Web. 8 Oct. 2013.

PLAY “Play keeps us vital and alive. It gives us an enthusiasm for life that is irreplaceable. Without it, life just doesn’t taste good” Lucia Capocchione

The act of play itself can be seen as a discomfort and confliction with societal norms throughout the past. Play has often been considered deviant or childish. These reactions and beliefs, have gradually removed play from design coupled with the effects of commercialization, governance and economical design. However, recent resurgence is being seen in professional discourse and contemporary city design. The importance of play continues to be an understood and recurring need. The ability to play freely in our cities is essential to the wellbeing and sustainability of the city people. When integrated successfully, urban play can be valuable physically, culturally, and socially for people of all ages, backgrounds, and capacities. Play can generate memory and sense of place, further bonding people to the city. It’s a powerful force that benefits the architecture that encourages it and the occupants that experience it. From modernist approaches that decentralized and isolated urban programs, playful activities and spaces have grown increasingly segregated from the urban fabric. Design today is often conceived as a single “optimized” entity, restraining potentials and other possible realities. The relationship that architecture and the city has formed, limits the potential of both. The fixity minimizes experience and potential, undermining their original intent. In response, urban architecture can begin to design for the ability to provide spaces that allow for creative and ludic reappropriation. These spaces can renounce the normal and typical constraints of everyday design. Architecture today certainly has the possibility to produce multiple realities different than the typical, however these other realities still typically lack creativity and freedom to be optimized and reappropriated, as they are continually constrained by the architects intent and vision.

The structure and redundancy of the grid limits experience and stimulation. The square grid is ideal for navigating and occupying, yet it dulls the everyday, restricting unique use of space and confining activity to specifically designed spaces. Spaces such as parks are appropriated spaces for active use and games, offering courts, paths and shade for leisure. However, designating recreational or specific space for play is often antithetical. Defining space for a certain use limits its creative potentials. Uninhabited when not in use, these spaces exist merely to host specific events, and is understood as space only as it was intended and designed to be used. Skateboarding and Parkour, have been creative and liberating responses to the fixity of the city. Skateboarding, more than Parkour has generated a negative response to its misuse and “insensitivity” to public space. It is a prominent culture without space, which both liberates and challenges it as a sport, relying on surroundings to offer playable terrain, but simultaneously causing tension between society and free sport. Efforts have been made in cities to ban, fine, and punish skateboarders. In his study of the skateboarding subculture, Borden’s response is to inspire designers to think of architecture “not as a thing but a flow1”. Coupled with a an understand of architecture as “a flow” and a strong understanding of play, architecture can begin to attack the urban terrain, introducing spaces that begin to liberate cities of existing tensions and inspire new ways of movement.

“PLAY” The shear variety of definitions and interpretations of play, only capitalize on the complex nature and vast spheres the activity encompasses. The definition remains ambiguous. Several have attempted to characterize the term, often associating it to a meaningful entity of meaning, culture, and desire. Eugen Fink targets a unique human trait in his article Toward an Ontology of Play. He observes that humans strive for understanding and meaning to our existence. Unlike other animals, we anticipate the future and live in a state of transition.

1. Walz, Steffen P. Toward a Ludic Architecture: The Space of Play and Games. 2010.

Not content with just being, we live in a state of constant doing. The recess from life that play offers becomes necessary to step out of the constant movement and briefly disregard the “final goal”. His observations address the situation of society today and how it has begun to lose the ability to remove itself from the constant, reflecting and distracting ourselves from fulfilling the conquest of life. 1

1. Fink, Eugen. “The Oasis of Happiness: Toward an Ontology of Play.” Yale University Press No. 41. Game, Play, Literature (1968): 19-31. Print.

Johan Huizinga, on the other end, considers all aspects of play that have been here from the start, from play with words through metaphors to myth creation. Poetry and storytelling have continually been significant in culture. Huizinga observes, “in culture we find play as a given magnitude existing before culture itself existed, accompanying it and pervading if from the earliest beginnings right up to the phase of civilization we are now living in.” His understanding that play and culture go hand in hand suggests a strong and relevant relationship with each one influencing the other. Play is everywhere and is a well understood action remaining something different from “ordinary” life. It is both a significant form of activity and a social function. 2 Culturally, architecture and play seem to be two separate entities, where architecture can inspire or facilitate play, but doesn’t have the capacity or phenomenological connection to everyday needs and desires. If understanding play similarly to the definition that Roger Caillois proposes, and defining the elements of play as being free, separate, uncertain, unproductive, governed by rules, or make believe, architecture has the potential to adopt several of these characteristics. Architecture can be free in will and establish set places and times. It can become a space where people have nothing to gain or lose. It can establish rules concerning direction, speed, capacity, clearance (etc.), and it can create a sense of uncertainty in spaces and transit. 3

2. Huizinga, Johan. Homo Ludens. London Etc.: : Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1949. Print.

3. Caillois, Roger. "Man, Play and Games." Trans. Meyer Barash. (n.d.): n. pag. Print.

The objectives of play may always remain ambiguous, but the qualities of play are distinguishable from everyday activities, and can be applied to numerous aspects of design.

PARKOUR “Traceurs recognize architecture for what it really is, a realm of possibility, interactivity, inhabitation, and reciprocity. Parkour relies on a deeply reciprocal relationship with the urban landscape, offering an insight in the study of place, space and our experience of embodiment and presence within them.” (Daskalaki, 2008)

Despite the restrictions of a fixed city, evolving underground play has overcome the isolation and structure. Parkour is an example that exists as an evocative art form of movement that reveals hidden terrains of the urban scape, motivated through desires as it re-interprets the city. Traceurs are the participants of this urban activity who rely on the public realm to provide constantly changing environments. Never taking over a play space, it merely borrows it for the time and leaves it, traceless and in its normative use. It doesn’t read the city as privately or publically owned, but as a continuous whole. Parkour transforms rigid concepts of place through movement, and re-evaluates the relationship between subjects and objects. Often discussed for its subversion and defiance, Parkour instead inspires a ludic and engaging character. Parkour not only provides a sense of liberation and challenges, but it also introduces the spectacle of the bystander. Witnessing the uncanny movement along rooftops, up walls, and over gaps, the shear possibilities of movement are perceived. This legibility of unique movement can inspire, question and captivate audiences, and can briefly allow their thoughts and motivations to drift. “This philosophy of parkour is a reminder of the need for producing theory and buildings that are not devoid of dialogue but encourage and embrace the dialogical qualities of everyday organisational practice.” (Daskalaki) Brunner, Christoph. "Nice-looking Obstacles: Parkour as Urban Practice of Deterritorialization." AI & Soc 26 (2011): 143-52. Print. Rawlinson, Christopher & Guaralda, Mirko (2011) Play in the City: Parkour and Architecture. In The First International Postgraduate Conference on Engineering, Designing and Developing the Built Environment for Sustainable Wellbeing, 27-29 April 2011, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Qld. Daskalaki, Maria. "The Parkour Organization: Inhabitation of Corporate Spaces." Culture and Organization 14.1 (2008): 49-64. Print.

STUDY of underground play

DOUBLE HAPPINESS Didier Faustino This work by Didier Faustino (2009), responds to materialism and societies fascination of possession and individuality. The set of swings acts as a nomadic piece that places itself into public spaces, introducing and activating new desire. Users will “escape and dominate public space through a game of equilibrium and disequilibrium… discovering a new perception of space and recover an awareness of the physical world.” mesarchitecture.org

CASE STUDY of escape and insertion

QUALITIES OF PLAY of the physical, imaginary, and virtual

MODALITY Play is a mode or state of being. Pertaining to a certain condition, play embodies the physical, imaginary and virtual. The physical pertains to the space, objects and players that associate. Imaginary refers to the non-material, and virtual addresses “that which is non material but has the form of effect that which is material. Virtual worlds are places where the imaginary meets real.”1 These various modes or combination of modes play can inhabit offer unique experiences to the individual. When not restricted by the desires of the architect, architecture has the ability to create new realities. A design can manifest itself in many different environments, instigating new ways to imagine oneself in space and time, initiating a transformation of thought, place and mind.

1. Walz, Steffen P. Toward a Ludic Architecture: The Space of Play and Games. 2010.

MODALITY

MOVEMENT

MOVEMENT Bodies not only move in, but generate space produced by and through their movements. Movements of dance, sport, and war are the intrusions of events into architectural spaces. At the limit, these events become scenarios or program… independent but inseparable from the spaces that enclose them. (Tschumi, B. as quoted in Asofsky, 1992, p.4).

“Movement places the visitor into positions and involves him or her in processes, guides views, enforces velocity, and presents or conceals parts of the whole.”1 Play thrives off of movement. Responsive to surrounding space and objects, movement and play can be sub-producers of space. The way one moves through space can reflect a playful or directed ambition, forward and fast and on a mission, or meandering and leisurely and free to follow desire. The speed and flow of a body through space can instigate certain states of mind.

1. Walz, Steffen P. Toward a Ludic Architecture: The Space of Play and Games. 2010.

The French term flaneur embodies a playful and leisurely movement, describing an individual who partakes in strolling, exploring and lounging. The person who frees themself to the slow movement and wanderings, was a recognized and valued character of 19th century France. Little wandering and exploring is exercised in today’s society, with everything given to the urban resident, labeled, prescribed, and defined, little mystery is left. Leaving them detached and oblivious of the depth and potential surrounding space can offer.

FREEDOM

Movement is often coupled with rhythm. Rhythm and movement are often considered in the fundamental design of an architectural space, considering how a design can break a rhythm, or create a playful rhythm of differing spaces. This thesis aims to break the rhythm of the everyday routine, inspiring free movement, driven by de- INDETERMINACY sires and responses to space. Playful movements can also loosely define spaces that in vite visitors to participate or spectate for various uses and lengths of time and in various numbers. Architecture can direct and invite such varieties of movement and instigate the desire to explore, participate, and activate themselves into new environments while instigating spontaneity and challenge.

Unique relationships between the spaces, objects, and players.

PLAYSPACE “PLAYCE” SPACE OF PLAY: the spaces of play are distinct from the normal world, separate in their ambitions and openness.

Le Corbusier thought of space as living or dead, with the living space being inspired and livened through an interconnecting of events.1 Applied to a playful environment, a series of events can offer spatial awareness or detachment based off of organization and familiarization. 1

1. Walz, Steffen P. Toward a Ludic Architecture: The Space of Play and Games. 2010.

< Play in cities is often segregated and designated

INDETERMINACY, DOUBT, VAGUENESS Spaces of play thrive off of indeterminacy. Spaces that surprise, reveal and uncover provide greater engagement. The necessity of doubt is mentioned by Caillois. In a game, sense of risk or threat continues to please and press a player onward. There is little to no joy in an effortless activity, and a known outcome provides little interest. He argues that it must be constant and unpredictable. This sense of doubt and indeterminacy can manifest itself in built space. Where a predictable, dull building will cause little to no excitement, a building that instigates exploration, indeterminacy, and inspires new interactions, appeals to desires and impulse, creating an engaging environment. Designs that seem incomplete can spark curiosity and investigation, and designs that over stimulate and overprovide, can create confusion and thus exploration. 2

2. Caillois, Roger. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Man, Play and Games.â&#x20AC;? Trans. Meyer Barash. (n.d.): n. pag. Print.

PLAYSCAPE (Current reactions/attempts/thoughts)

The ground must understand it’s potential to shape experience and interaction. Matter must act as the agent, non-imaginary and non-representational, yet tangible.

< Parc de la Villette, OMA proposal

OMA/KOOLHAUS Rem Koolhaus’s work explores space through programmatic innovation exploring new relationships, spatial fields and segmentation. His work is often structured around the sequence of movement through his buildings striving for an architecture of liberation and “multiple freedoms”. His “programmatic sabotage” liquefies rigid spatial structure that inspires new forms of action through architecture. Rigid program aims to be dissolved into free flow circulation that is both non-specific and open to event, emphasizing the social impacts space can have.

His work is often recognized as creating “artificial landscapes” that blend the interior and exterior relationships and attempt to embody the openness and qualities of exterior spaces. Through sloped floors, curved walls and open spaces, these synthetic landscapes desire to remain open to individual choice, yet it has not been understood the effectiveness or implications of spaces of this ambition.

1. Dovey, Kim, and Scott Dickson. “Architecture and Freedom? Programmatic Innovation in the Work of Koolhaus/OMA.” University of Melbourne.

“The focus on these reductions is always on disestablishment, that is, always on excising the residues in the project of unwarranted authority, unnecessary governance and tired convention.”1

THE OBLIQUE Sepka Architeckti (House on a Slope) Situated on a slope and takes that natural slope of the hill into the interior, manipulating the floor to manifest itself in oblique form that alternates with the straight floor. Initially a request by the backer to accommodate cinematic projection in the space, the sloped floors not only define and emphasize the unique use of space, but are also designed to be inhabited. http://www.sepka-architekti.cz/

CASE STUDY

of the oblique

FUN PALACE Cedric Priceâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Fun Palace was designed in the 1960â&#x20AC;&#x2122;s, in collaboration with a theatre director named Joan Littlewood. The design dealt with the emerging ideas of information technology, game theory, Situationism, theatre, and cybernetics. For postwar Britain, he was idealizing an improvisational space that could negotiate the existing insecure social terrain. He explored concepts of technological interchangeability paired with social participation and improvisation. These spaces would provide the working classes a sense of agency and creativity, bringing to life an ever-changing building of magnified performance, public desire, and communal learning (Mathews). As intriguing an idea, the Fun Palace still remains an idealized system. The project exists as a destination, placing it outside the urban framework. The spaces, required to change every set period of time, relied on the mechanics of the building more than human desire and manipulation. Mathews, Stanley. "The Fun Palace as Virtual Architecture. Cedric Price and the Practices of Indeterminacy." Journal of Architectural Education 59.3 (2006): 39-48. Print.

CASE STUDY

of innovation of the times

MUTE ROOM Faulders Studio The mute room existed as an installation at the SFMOMA implementing a rolling field of memory foam, undulating and warping a surface that can dampen noise and impress movement, allowing it to linger. Originally designed to act as a room for listening to electronic music, the space simultaneously proposes a field of interaction and distortion. Fully understanding the properties of material allowed for a successful distortion of sound and experience. faulders-studio.com

CASE STUDY

of scape and experience

TOMAS SARACENO Tomas Saracenoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s most recent installation, In Orbit, allows visitors to navigate through three layers of netting, linked and manipulated by blown up PVC orbs. These balls, approaching 30 feet in diameter, fluctuate the geometry but allow for a seamless field of layers, blurring the landscape. The vibration of others and transparency of space are constant stimuli. The spectators around and below are witnesses to the spectacular world floating above, being explored awkwardly and magically. Warping the boundaries of spaceâ&#x20AC;Ś tomassaraceno.com

CASE STUDY of the spectacular

THE OBLIQUE Parent and Virilio First introduced in the 60’s by Claude Parent and Paul Virilio, the oblique was brought to life in their desire to break the orthogonal in every way. The introduction of escalators and elevators left the stairs disregarded and only horizontal floors. The inclined place was a ground revolutionized, and a wall you can experience. It makes the body aware of space, requiring effort to move up and an inclination to move down. Likewise, the slowness of going up, and the speed of going down introduce qualities concerning time and awareness. It is the architecture for being in movement. Verilio describes the oblique as “an architecture that plays off of disequilibrium” and states “Living in space is a dance. There are dancers that dance on a vertical surface with ropes. To me that’s what architecture has to be.” The inclined plane was appropriated back as a potential living element rather than a plane that had been claimed by the car. Rare cases such as the Guggenheim, Frederick Keisler’s Endless House and The Rolex Center by SAANA, have incorporated the oblique “presenting choice, where the orthogonal is always straight up and down.” By removing the horizontal a spatial continuity is achieved with the boundaries of floor and wall obscured.

STUDY of the oblique

two. EXPLORATION Design Studies Vellum

ATMOSPHERIC and ADJACENCY MODIFIERS Atmospheric modifiers can bring a new quality to a space or spark spontaneous interaction. Studying how temporary connections can be made, providing modifiers of space. Further, looking at these modifiers as ways to transition in space, connection program, provide programmatic modification or segregation, controlling certain connections and temporary adjacencies

open

closed

open

CELEBRATION of CIRCULATION + INDETERMINATE CIRCULATION A study of how buildings can begin to manipulate levels by closing them off and allowing it to be reappropriated around that space, potentially having the barrier lend qualities and potentials for the space. Furthermore, giving qualities to circulation that encourages pausing or spontaneity. Overlapping programmatic qualities and potentials can make circulation spaces more integrated and powerful in a space.

MODIFICATION IN RELATIONSHIPS Study of secondary scapes and reinterpretations of park and street. Challenging the understanding of a typical parking lot, how can it blend or be reappropriated to accommodate both program and people. Potential directing the movement and path of car, the typical flat and use lot can be manipulated. Allowing event and car to coexist, the relationship between the two fluctuates based on the desires and activity of adjacent space.

SWING FLING The act of play itself can be seen as a discomfort and confliction with societal norms throughout the past. Play has often been considered deviant or childish. These reactions and beliefs, have gradually removed play from design coupled with the effects of commercialization, governance and economical design. However, recent resurgence is being seen in professional discourse and contemporary city design. The importance of play continues to be an understood and recurring need.

Challenging the everyday swing designated to one axis, this play ”device” encourages a reconsideration of how one swings, aiming to inspire spontaneous ludic interaction and humor one’s impulses. It looks to encourage freedom of movement, movement that can be indeterminate or critical.

PROCESS

CNC Mill, Maple 16” x 24” x 4”

Mill Lathe Sand Assemble Sand Bolt Hang Swing

x+ y+

yx-

Sensors respond to directional movement1, spinning2 and leaning3 The relationship between space, force and desire is projected, magnified, and celebrated.

The relationship between space, force and desire is projected, magnified, and celebrated.

three. SITE

CHICAGO The third most populous city in the United States, Chicago is home to nearly 3 million people and sits among a metropolitan area of 9.5 million. Located among two rivers and along the fresh water of Lake Michigan its rapid growth in the 19th century around the bodies of water, made the city what it is today. With the fourth largest GDP in the world today, it exists as a dominant commercial, industrial and transportation hub. Influencing how people and goods move, it is a hub of both travel and distribution. The global city has a culture rich in art, music, film, and comedy. Attracting over 40 million visitors a year, it remains a destination city, for tourism, conventions, and business travel. A walkable city, the streets are organized in a strict grid that was designated in the original plan. The grid was a means of efficiency and control in its rapid development, which helped make the city what it is today, a city of boulevards and parkways, home to some of the longest urban streets in the world. The downtown remains the core of financial institutions including many cultural and commercial centers, mainly located around or within â&#x20AC;&#x153;the loopâ&#x20AC;?, Chicagoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s elevated rail system. Dealing with the repercussions of their commercial and industrial boom, Chicago is currently focused on its revitalization and future, pushing the potential of what the city can become. Generations before have set the precedent of revolutionary innovations. The city is now trying to set new examples, improving its livability and social spaces in the dense forest of previous development.

White Hispanic Black

Black

Asian

Hispanic White

Asian

DIVERSE IN DEMOGRAPHICS....

CLIMATE Chicago is humid continental climate with four distict seasons. SUMMER = hot + humid

> 75째

WINTERS = cold - sun

< 27째

= extreme cold waves and heat waves that can last for many consecutive days (oh, and thunderstorms are not uncommon)

and SEASONS

Wolf Point, Chicago

5 min.

20 min.

The site sits at the branch of the river and is both an important landmark in Chicago and a current point of interest. There is a desire for a development that could create a sense of place in Downtown Chicago and many feel that Wolf Point is that development, potentially housing a park or museum. It is currently a 4-acre parking lot and the last open space along the river in downtown. The riverâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s setback allows the site to remain open and sunny, and the site actually juts out into the river exposed to water on three sides. Its central location allows it to be a visual symbol up and down the river views.

WOLF POINT Wolf Point Tavern

< Historical depiction of Wolf Point

THEN. Historically, it was the site of the city’s earliest settlement and that of the city’s first three taverns (most famous, Wolf Tavern, where the name Wolf Point might have originated from), hotel, ferry, drug store and bridges. The first settlers established themselves at the point over 160 years ago, founding their business and life. Chicago’s first railroad was introduced across the fork in 1848. Since then, Wolf Point experienced many transitions and ownership, serving as a lumber yard in the mid 1800’s and then sold to the Kennedy family by previous owner and businessman Marshall Field.

What remains of their property today is the 4 acres still known as Wolf Point, which is now being considered for major redevelopment after nearly 100 years of inactivity. The city had nearly a century to buy the property for the benefit of the public, but the sale was never realized.

“The MOTHERSHIP”

obtrusive? insensitive?

economical? Modern?

< Current Wolf Point Proposal

... NOW? The result is a current development proposal, which has received much criticism, and has been labeled insensitive and inappropriate. The current plan disregards the city’s historic origins and relationship to the site. Its position along the river is applicable to the cities River Walk requirements, yet the current proposal dominates and degrades the riverbank. The 50-80 story towers shade the site and block the sky, adding to the already uncomfortable density of the area. The people in protest of the development argue that the site should be park like, softening the hard edges of typical development along the river. The river is lined by plenty of tall buildings, but the Wolf Point proposal’s “Mothership” is the first building to stick out into the river, dominating all views. The approval of the development only solidifies the docile state urban residents have become, accepting each obtrusive and typical building.

CONTEXT Residential

Wolf Point

Merchandise Mart

Apparel Center

Wolf Pointâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s neighbor, 350 West Mart Center (or previously known as the Apparel Center), is situated behind the site. It is considered an architectural eyesore, but maintains its historical significance as a once apparel annex, containing nearly 1000 clothing showrooms. The building is now home to the Chicago Sun-Times and a Holiday Inn, its previous concrete walls turned into windows. Now the center of showrooms, the Merchandise Market is sits adjacent to the site, remaining the worldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s largest commercial and wholesale design center as well as a destination for international business location. Across the river is a high rise residential complex, the train station, and a soon to be built office tower. Surrounded by dense residential, commercial, office, transit and destination space, Wolf Point is the epicenter of many building typologies.

Adjacent Programs

LAYERS

the L City River

^ Depth of the city, raised train system provides layers.

Design Studies Vellum

Project Analog Models

A PLAYFUL RELIEF

four.

We can look to the act and necessity of play as an interruption to the current state of mind, freeing the individual and providing new realities. Understanding playing as a state of openness, pliable and reflective of peoples needs, the spaces of this thesis will demonstrate new architectural techniques that will allow for the creation and overlap of spaces that can inspire or initiate these states of mind, detaching the user from the everyday and liberating their desires and impulses. The architecture will monumentalize these actions and remain empathetic to a ludic environment that can re-imagine how one considers, responds, and experiences a space.

While architectureâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s spatial expertise is typically used to rigidly define and segregate the uses and experiences of spaces, it is also possible that architecture could develop new techniques that would allow it to become an instigator and an interrupter of the usual.

A PLAYFUL RELIEF ACTIVATING THE DISENGAGED

CONTINUOUS CIRCULATION non-hierarchical

integrating playful qualities

DESIGN STRAGIES

CIRCULATORY MODIFIERS changing relationships/access

CELEBRATION OF CIRCULATION

ATMOSPHERIC MODIFIERS interrupters/instigators

The site sits at the confluence of Chicago’s two rivers. Walking distance from the loop, Chicago’s raised metro system that circles it’s dense financial district, the site is accessible from the city’s heart. Visually present, and an ideal stop along the river, the site remains an ideal recreational and public destination. Chicago’s river taxi operates daily, often taking over 100 trips a day, Wolf Point sites directly along it’s path, offering a potential stop that can offer recreation, liesure, and exploration, becoming a hub of transportation, interaction and play.

SITE POTENTIAL

O , IL

5 min.

2 min.

Wolf Point, Chicago

the LOOP

water taxi

multiple points of access

maintain natural river bank maximum southern exposure optimal views down river branches

desires of site:

The project remains empathetic to the desires of the site, by maintaining a river bank, providing public space, and responding to the strong visual corridors. The building desires to activate playful potentials.

visual corridors

857’

130,000sqft / 3 acres

560’

102’

The base plane allows for parking, but with no designation, allowing for habitants to coexist with cars and an ambiguous relationship between the two, responding to the needs of one another.

The site, accessible from multiple elevations offers a variety of access points, lending to the ambiguity of the building and site. I lower access point funnels visitors off of Kinzie Street from the back, providing pedestrian access along the river, up into the building. Upper access is available from the main street intersection, drawing visitors underneath the belly of the building, out towards the river point, and then up onto the building. The base level allows open access from the cityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s underpass, with the cores providing access into the building through programmtic openings.

DESIGN STRATEGIES

lower access

equal playing field

* RECONSIDERATION OF “PARKING LOT”

underpass street access upper access

panelized ďŹ&#x201A;oor surface allows for programmatic inserts (liesure)

The ramp provides a continuous route up and through the building. The ramp provides certain access to programmatic levels, while remaining ambiguous in its destination. The path its programmatic in a leisurely nature, panelized to allow for programmatic inserts that can initiate pause, speculation, or interation. The ramp winds indoors and outdoors, allowing greenscape to occupy its slope.

RAMP ASSETS

ACCESS POINTS

The program incorporates both the public and private. Office spaces, lounges, recreation, galleries, cafes, bars, entertainment and learning centers, mix together up through the building, connected by multiple paths. Circulation is celebrated, and indeterminate routes encourage exploration and deterrence from routine.

+ flexible, manipulative potentials

PROGRAMMATIC ZONES

OBSERVATION

BAR

GALLERY

down to office

post - mingle

OFFICE

LOBBY/OPEN PERFORMANCE

BOX THEATRE

up to gallery

Spectation/ open to below

RESIDENCES

INFOSCAPE/LIBRARY LOUNGE

rockwall

RECREATION

sand pit

PARK

spa/hot tub

“PORCH” RESIDENCES

CONFERENCE LOUNGE

“DECK”

OFFICE

RESTAURANT

OFFICE

CAFE

RENTAL

EXHIBITION

GIFTSHOP

MUSEUM

STAIR COURT

roof

RESIDENTIAL

The relationship of public and private is blurred, providing maximum integration and variety in program. The roof is a direct expression of this relationship, embedding the private in the public and providing direct access while respecting a gradient of privacy.

ROOF LEVEL

A strong visual prescence along the cityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s river corridors, the roof is an attractive activity point magnifying everyday event, spontaneity and movement.

ROOF ACTIVATION

BASE PLANE + CORES

boathouse bar/cafe

rental

*CONNECTOR

stair court

POOL

PARK

instigators, interruptors, connectors

PERFORMANCE

MODIFIERS ATMOSPHERIC AND PORGRAMMATIC

A system of barges provides a changing relationship between base field and river point, allowing for an insertion of program among the rivers edge. The barges are deployable down the river, and can group to provide a multi-programmatic destination in the river.

BARGES

THE “FLEET”

CONNECTOR

pool ice rink reﬂection

court beach spectation

performance event open

park

conglomerate reconfigure attract disperse

!*?

101

West

South

Laminated glass, oneway pre-tensioned cable wall system

East North

cess

operab ws

le windo

continuous ramp, suspended [cables] precase concrete panel system

ential ac

rchâ&#x20AC;?

residential â&#x20AC;&#x153;po

<--- resid

moto m+ syste

grass

operable sliding glass doors

cabel system

upiab

le lan

restaurant

e dscap

e slab + girders

it, occ

precast concret

l un entia resid

structural girder

concrete girder

green roof

library

ce footings

cast in pla

103

office

2-way concrete waffle slab,

ss pocket

<---- sliding gla

4-5â&#x20AC;&#x2122;

door

elevator mechanism, guides, motors

ge support

steel girder, brid

shaft ator elev crete con

pinio and rack

<---- sliding gla

Brutus

SEASONALITY

Chicagoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s dramatic differences in climate desire that the site become responsive to the extreme weather conditions. The interior provides a highly diversified, enjoyable and public destination for the harsh winters and in the summer allows for the softening of threshold and activation of river, slope and bank.

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Continuous, and abundant circulation draws visitors from the street up onto and into the building, providing a continuous route that ascends the entirety of the program, and incorporating numerous chutes of secondary circulation intended to instigate spontaneous and variable routes throughout.

AMBIGUOUS CIRCULATION

PROGRAMMATIC CORES

The cores provide a unique relationship between in and out, drawing visitors up into the building while lightening and varying the mass.

107

RIVER ACTIVATION

VISUALLY OPEN and TRANSPARENT

109

STREET APPROACH and PLAZA

PHYSICAL MODEL

1/20” = 1’

MDF milled base, acrylic, 3D printed bases, basswood, museum board

111

113

115

117

DETAIL MODEL

1/8”=1’

MDF, acrylic, spackle, basswood, museum board

119

< Ramp detail models

programmatic portentials

121

five.

EVERYTHING

â&#x20AC;&#x153;Everything is an exhibition showcasing twenty architectural thesis projects, each challenging existing notions of architecture. The work is the result of a year of intensive architectural research and design work, and is united by a common ambition to reframe the physical world as a place of augmented experience. These thesis projects are supplemented by additional content and media, which emphasize the converging research interests and agendas of the studio, situating its work within the context of current architectural discourse and contemporary culture. â&#x20AC;&#x153;

< models are embedded into the walls

< objects, such as iPads supplement the presentations and exist in the wall

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EMBEDDED OBJECTS iPads, trackpads. models, booklets, headphones

MODEL BOX

LARGE PROJECTIO 52” x 37”

SMALL PROJEC 42” x 32”

Everything presents a layered experience--one in which the boundary between the architectural discipline and other practices and ideas is contested, blurred, or even expanded into new intellectual terLARGE PROJECTION ritories. 52” x 37” The format of the show reinforces this question of boundaries by investing the wall, an architectural manifestation of the boundary, with the potential to act in other capacities: as a filter, as a lens, as a dematerialized cloud of content, and as an intellectual arbiter of this content. This content is presented across a wide range of digital and physical media, including interactive audiovisual presentations, physical models, augmented reality, film, and written works. Visitors are enlisted as explorers of this content rather than mereSMALL PROJECTION 42” x 32” viewers, and are invited to poke, prod, grab, and manipulate the work into new sequences and realities.

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CONTENT:

Site Model Trackpad Interactive Projection Headphones Detail Models

MATERIALS: MDF assembled frames Cambric Zippers

< audio tracks and

accompaniments are accessible from both sides of the wall offering isolated sensory interpretation or elaboration of projects

< each wall provided a

new interaction/discovery, unique to each individualâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s project.

< an ambiguous take on “everything” offered guests a unique and different experience upon each pop of “pill” ... pleasant or not

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IMAGE CITATIONS ORDER OF APPEARANCE page 8+9 http://www.americapictures.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/Black-and-white-Chicago-Illinois-United-States.jpg 01 page 10 Janne Moren. Flickr. 02 page 12 AC Miller Photography. [Photograph]. http://acmillerphotography.blogspot. com/2011/01/urban-view-5-of-6-looking-down.html 03 page 13 Chistopher Martin. Photograph. http://christophermartinphotography.com/tag/motionblur/ 04 page 14 http://planphilly.com/articles/2013/08/21/city-council-to-receive-report-on-new-zoning-code 05 page 15 http://robertacucchiaro.wordpress.com/2012/01/12/omaprogress-and-beijings-cctvtower/ 06 page 16 http://nikosgeorgopoulos.blogspot.com/2012/03/on-guy-debords-naked-city-postedon.html 07 page 17 http://cartellogiallo.blogspot.com/2012/12/constant-nieuwenhuys.html 08 page 18 Thomas Saraceno. Cloud Cities. 09 page 23 APK. americanparkour.com 10 page 25 Mesa Architecture. Double Happiness. http://www.mesarchitecture.org/double-happiness-2009/ 11 page 28 http://photography.nationalgeographic.com/photography/photo-of-the-day/basketball-hong-kong/ 12 page 29 https://ksacommunity.osu.edu/image/diagrammatic-seminar/parc-de-la-villette-omaproposal-diagrams-0 13 page 33 http://siciliavenegasclaudiadai1grupob2012.blogspot.com/2013/05/intervencion-seccion-preparacion-para.html 14 page 35 Mute Room. http://www.s-t-m.jp/work_mute_room_01.php

15 page 31 http://www.sepka-architekti.cz/ 16 page 37 Thomas Saraceno. Cloud Cities. 17 page 39 Image: extract from Functioning the Oblique, Claude Parent/ Paul Virilio http://boiteaoutils.blogspot.com/2010/09/oblique-function-by-claudeparent-and.html page 59 Chicago Helicopter Tour. ShutterRunner. Flickr 18 page 59 Dimitri H Photography. (Febuary, 2011). Chicago River Morning. [photography]. http://dimitrihphotosdotcom.ďŹ les.wordpress.com/2011/02/ chicagorivermorningbw.jpg 19 page 65 http://arcchicago.blogspot.com/2013/01/hour-of-wolf-transformationof-chicagos.html 20 page 66 The Chicago Architecture Blog. http://blog.chicagoarchitecture.info/ category/streets/orleans-street/ 21 page 67 http://suzyguese.com/chicago-illinois-wishes-you-were-here/

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