Ecoles D’Art Américaines De Fontainebleau Book One: Projects Alexander Cheng
Contents Book One: Projects 4
Introduction
20
Week 1 - Landscape
46
Week 2 - Urbanism
84
Week 3 - Architecture
144
Week 4 - Scenography
190
Special Thanks
Book One: Projects 4
4
Ecoles D’Art Américaines De Fontainebleau
Introduction
20
Week 1 - Landscape
46
Week 2 - Urbanism
84
Week 3 - Architecture
144
Week 4 - Scenography
190
Special Thanks
The principal fountain in the Grand Parterre, the main garden of the château.
Alexander Cheng
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Background With a history dating back to 1921 the Fontainebleau Schools have hosted over 10,000 international students from all around the world. Disciplines of study include: architecture, music, composition, and other fine arts. The school is unique in its intellectual cross-pollination of musicians, composers, and architects. The program sets up an interaction of thought between music and architecture, and how one might inform the other. In the architecture program specifically, workshops, lectures, visits and studios are organized. Formal art disciplines such as drawing, watercolor graphic design and theatre design are practiced during the session. The program is hosted within the Château de Fontainebleau now a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Students reside within walking distance from the château, either in a local apartment complex or with a French family in the town. The school sets up weekly projects that engage the traditional modes of architectural representation. In addition, the school provides a studio environment to explore new ways of combining the craft of hand drawing with contemporary design methodology. No digital means of representation are engaged in the design process.
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One of the best views of the Château de Fontainebleau with the lake in the foreground, and its beautiful lawns and gardens in the back. Studio sessions, music performances, and other lectures are hosted within the château.
Alexander Cheng
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Studio
The studio space is located just through the main entrance gate in the south wing of the château off of the Cour d’Honneur, the primary public access point into the grounds of the château.
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A view of the main entrance into the studio space. The century-old sign of the Ecoles D’Art Américaines continues to mark the location of the school within the massive château.
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The studio space inside of the Fontainebleau château - before the work begins.
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Ecoles D’Art Américaines De Fontainebleau
Alexander Cheng
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Student Housing The Fontainebleau School sets students up with local housing within 15 minutes walking distance from the château. Most of the architects stay in contemporary studio apartments on the northwestern edge of town, in sharp contrast with the historic architecture of the region.
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The studio flat is clean and contemporary. The apartment offers a desk, a dining table, a kitchenette, en suite bathroom, an operable window, and large double doors that open out onto a private balcony.
Alexander Cheng
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A common weekend scene on one of the studio apartment balconies: wines, cheeses, and baguettes.
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Alexander Cheng
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Theme & Schedule Each year, the Fontainebleau program selects an overall theme of study that is to be incorporated into the musical and architectural work of the students. The selected theme of 2016 is “Transparence.” The schedule of work is broken up into 4 individual projects, one per week: Week 1: Intervention. Week 2: Urbanism. Week 3: Architecture. Week 4: Installation. Throughout the program, the students of architecture work in groups of 4 or 5. Each week, the team members of the group change, so that no one person works with the same person twice on a project. In this regard, the resulting projects reflect a very wide diversity of process and thought.
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The Ecoles D’Art Américaines De Fontainebleau flyer for the 2016 theme of “Transparence.”
Alexander Cheng
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The “Bleau Fam” 20 extremely talented young adults from all around the world compose the Fontainebleau Architecture Class of 2016. About another 30 musicians and composers bring the total attendance of the Fontainebleau School to around 50 students. The school brings together a diverse range of people from all over the world, including: Albania, China, France, Mexico, Morocco, Romania, Russia, and the USA.
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Abla
Alex
Anahide
Andrew
Arshaya
Henry
Kate
Kati
Kevin
Lucia
Ecoles D’Art Américaines De Fontainebleau
Carson
Danniely
David
Ellis
Fernanda
Maria
Nina
Rozita
Theresa
Victoriano
Alexander Cheng
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Book One: Projects 4
20
Ecoles D’Art Américaines De Fontainebleau
Introduction
20
Week 1 - Landscape
46
Week 2 - Urbanism
84
Week 3 - Architecture
144
Week 4 - Scenography
190
Special Thanks
A watercolor by Rozita Kashirtseva of the entrance gate to the Cour Ovale in the Fontainebleau Château.
Alexander Cheng
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Week 1 - Landscape During the first week, the project focuses on the scale of the landscape, a term meant to contrast the intellectual approach from those of the subsequent weeks - urban, architectural, and scenographic. Through the work this week, students develop an understanding of the château, its territory and history, its layering, its complexities and contradictions, the politics of its history, as well as those of its present status as a historical monument, touristic destination, site of culture, arts, education, but also a site of privilege, of tight regulations, of museification. The project seeks to have a conceptual approach to site and context that isn’t based on either subservience, dominance, or autonomy, but rather on dialogue, complementarity, debate, interdependence, opposition, and harmony. It is the pedagogical goal of this week to develop a working methodology with musicians and/or composers. Architects should strive to look for and find the terms in which music and design can enter into a productive conversation. To such ends, the local theme of this week will be that of the “Counterpoint,” under the larger thematic umbrella of “Transparence.”
Sites Five specific sites are proposed as a starting point. The sites have been chosen for their capacity to represent a broad spectrum of the formal identity of the château’s open spaces. 1. La Cour du Cheval Blanc, Cour d’Honneur, or Cour des Adieux 2. Le Jardin de Diane 3. Le Grand Parterre 4. L’Étang des Carpes 5. La Cour Ovale Each group consists of 4 architects and 1 musical composer. Groups randomly select a site out of a hat, and work with the given site for the rest of the week to develop a project of counterpoint and transparence. This documentation includes work from Group 5, working with the Cour Ovale as the site.
Group 5: La Cour Ovale
Alex
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Henry
Maria
Rozita
1 La Cour Du Cheval Blanc
2 Le Jardin De Diane
4 L’Étang des Carpes
5 La Cour Ovale
3 Le Grand Parterre
N
Alexander Cheng
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Understanding The Cour Ovale The first thing to do in order to gain an understanding of the site is to go there and take it in. How does one observe and document the site? Perhaps the key is to flex the mind and see it through as many perspectives as possible, in order to discuss your findings with others. Pace it, smell it, observe it, zoom out to the whole, zoom in to the detail, understand its orientation, its position, its context, the logic of its design, its rules and idiosyncrasies. See it in plan, in perspective, in movement, from the point of view of a bird, of a cricket, of a running child, of the innocent eye of a puppy, or of an extraterrestrial. Understand how it changes, over a minute, an hour or a day, speculate on how it changes over the seasons, through out its history, since its construction. Is it still in a state of becoming, a ruin in reverse, or frozen in time? How does its color palette shift throughout the course of the changing light of the day? We each share our acquired knowledge with the other team members. We talk to one another and maximize through one another’s observations the broadest possible analysis and comprehension of your site. Together, we determine its main identifiers, formally, conceptually, programmatically.
Program The purpose of the intervention is to engage its site into a dialogue, be it formal, conceptual, historical, or all of the above. The proposal can be for an ephemeral installation or a permanent construction; it can engage the vegetal, the mineral or the animal, or be purely immaterial. It can react to or complement the site. Just as the notion of counter-point in music, this superimposition over an existing harmonic order is intended to layer and complicate a given order into a balanced equilibrium. How does the intervention affect one’s perception of the existing site? What does it obscure, what does it accentuate, or simply reveal? This will require a fine-grained and critical understanding of the existing condition, followed by a clear positioning relative to it. The intervention should not be subordinate to the site, nor should it upstage it. Rather, the combination of both site and intervention should produce a whole richer than the sum of its parts. The intervention should become meaningless if displaced, or removed from its site. Engage in an interdisciplinary dialogue with a musical composer. How can the collaboration itself be transformative? Work on synthesizing all of the group’s ideas into a single, final proposal.
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Cour Ovale
The west side of the Cour Ovale shows the imperfections and linear approximations of the court’s assumed oval geometry. An initial perception of rhythm and order is replaced with the quirky and idiosyncratic upon closer inspection.
Alexander Cheng
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The west side of the Cour Ovale shows the imperfections and linear approximations of the court’s assumed oval geometry. An initial perception of rhythm and order is replaced with the quirky and idiosyncratic upon closer inspection.
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The east side of the Cour Ovale. An entrance gate is slightly skewed from the long axis of the court. The Palladian openings to the right differ in size, form, and rhythm from the rectinlear windows to the left. The quirks of the space continue to reveal themselves upon analysis.
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The top of the tower to the west of the Cour Ovale is intricately ornamented with gold, and is arguably the most prominent part of the roofline in this area of the château.
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On the east side of the Cour Ovale, the entrance gate faces the tower opposite it to the west of the court. One could say that the entrance gate is the counterpoint to the tower, and vice versa. How can the project make this relationship transparent?
Alexander Cheng
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Constructing The Cour Ovale One way of understanding a space is through the construction of a drawing. The drawing then becomes a representational vessel that speaks to the architect’s interpretation of that space. The Cour Ovale is dimensioned on site and roughly sketched, which is translated into a drafted plan that draws out the regular and irregular geometry of the court, the various rhythms of solid and void, the alignments and misalignments of elements in the space, and the perception of counterpoint between the tower and the entrance gate.
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Is there a relationship between the rhythms of solid and void on either side of the Cour Ovale, or are they two separate, distinct ordering systems? Can attention be drawn to the slight rotation of the entrance gate pointing away from the center of the court?
Alexander Cheng
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An attempt to sketch the plan of the Cour Ovale. Written annotations in conjunction with dimensions taken on site inform the construction of the drafted plan.
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In the constructed plan, the Cour Ovale is represented with long, parallel side walls to draw attention away from the long faces of the court, in order to exaggerate the peculiarity of the two short ends.
Alexander Cheng
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Reflection Reveals Counterpoint The project seeks to use two large mirrored surfaces that lie along the skewed axis between the entrance gate and the tower at the ends of the Cour Ovale. The mirrors reveal both sides of the Cour Ovale to visitors and tourists that arrive at the entrance gate. The notion of counterpoint is heightened in the mineral landscape that exists between the tower and entrnace gate. Counterpoint is made transparent through geometry, scale, and reflective materiality.
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The intervention within the context of the whole château.
Alexander Cheng
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Tower
Gate
The tower and the entrance gate face each other across the Cour Ovale, and are drawn as counterpoints of each other.
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The intervention emphasizes and builds upon this relationship of counterpoint. The project relies upon two large mirrors that rest inside the Cour Ovale that reflect the mineral landscape inside the court.
Alexander Cheng
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Gate
Mirror 1
A longitudinal section by Maria Roldan of the Cour Ovale with the planned intervention. The two mirrors would be scaled, angled, and placed such that a full reflection of the tower and entrance gate is seen by the viewer.
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Mirror 2
Tower
Alexander Cheng
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An early rendering by Henry Peters of the idea of reflection to heighten the perception of the mineral landscape within the Cour Ovale.
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Refined watercolor rendering by Rozita Kashirtseva. The capabilities of mirrors and reflections may simultaneously presence both the tower and the entrance gate of the Cour Ovale from a single viewing perspective.
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Week 1 final presentation.
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Alexander Cheng
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Book One: Projects 4
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Ecoles D’Art Américaines De Fontainebleau
Introduction
20
Week 1 - Landscape
46
Week 2 - Urbanism
84
Week 3 - Architecture
144
Week 4 - Scenography
190
Special Thanks
The Week 2 project model, in the process of being constructed.
Alexander Cheng
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Week 2 - Urbanism “Transparency” allows us to question the representation of urban spaces in Fontainebleau. It is an opportunity to re-think the city’s intensities and variations as well as morphologies. Five groups are given a 200m x 200m site as well as an urban intensity through which to study it. The objective of the exercise is to produce an ambitious project that challenges the extant notions of urban planning in Fontainebleau. Each proposal must be unique, creative and intelligent. Each proposal will be appreciated less by its measured exactitude, representational rightness, or economical feasibility. Rather, it is more important to consider the essential ideas that the proposal raises. A volumetric representation should illustrate the boundaries, interstices and voids between public space, common space, private space and intimate space. The invention of a measuring apparatus for the given intensity and represent it spatially. Finally, each team will project an intervention regarding the assigned site and urban intensity.
Intensities & Sites Five intensities are randomly selected as a lens through which to “see” the site and develop a project. The intensities are as follows: density, light, sound, flow, and temperature. Five 200m x 200m sites are offered as a starting point to the investigation. The sites have been chosen to represent the range of private and public spaces of the town. 1. Town Parking Lot 2. Château Main Entrance 3. Dense Urban Housing Cluster 4. Single-Family Residential 5. Mixed Housing This documentation includes work from Group 2, working with a 200m x 200m square of the Château Main Entrance as a site, and investigating questions of urbanism through the lens of light.
Group 2: Château Main Entrance & Light
Abla
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Ecoles D’Art Américaines De Fontainebleau
Alex
Ellis
Victoriano
200 Meters Square
The assigned site for Group 2: the Château Main Entrance. The given area draws the town, the streets, and the château into the same conversational in terms of urban proximity to each other. How can the site be understood through the lens of light?
Alexander Cheng
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The site in broader context with the rest of the town to the west, and the château to the east.
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Street Town
châ
The area of the site can be broken down into three regions: the town, the street, and the château. The site is documented and understood in the circulation through these three regions.
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âteau
Alexander Cheng
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Three Paths Of Observation Three routes offer a broad range of observation across the entire 200m x 200m site boundary: the town, the street, and the château. These routes combined tell a diverse and holistic story of how light changes in relation with the public and private spaces of the site.
Town
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Street
château
Alexander Cheng
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The Colors Of Light Light reveals the color of our surroundings. Therefore, the qualities of light can be observed through color. To understand the site through light, the site and its colors are documented through an abstracted, blurred lens of perception. The three routes offer a broad range of observation across the entire 200m x 200m site boundary: the town, the street, and the château. The idea of rendering “color clouds” became the method of graphically representing the perceived colors.
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A photo of the town, street, or château through a frame focuses the whole urban scene into individual, distilled moments of color. The site can be understood abstractly in this way.
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The color cloud of the town, produced by Abla Bennouna and Ellis Wills-Begley.
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The color cloud of the street, produced by Alex Cheng.
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The color cloud of the château, produced by Victoriano Martinez-Carmona
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The Values Of Light Our surroundings, natural or built, are only revealed in the light. The play between the various intensities of light and shadow allow for the visual perception of space. Therefore, it is important to understand the site through the ways that the urban fabric manipulates light. During the daytime, awnings provide brief, relieving moments of shade for town passerby. A billowing street tree offers dynamic, fleeting moments of delicate shade along the sidewalk. The château’s enormous entry court is rendered in full, unrelenting sunlight. But by night, the vastness of the château’s main court disappears into blackness. The streets are kept well lit by lightposts. Stores and houses in the town glow softly through their windows. How can the values of light be measured during different times of the day? A DSLR camera with fixed settings can expose and record a visual quantity of light reflected off of a blank piece of paper, who’s brightness depends on the surrounding light conditions. The graphic armature to document the values of light translates the experience of walking through the town, the street, and the château into horizontal, linear bars of light values.
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A blank piece of white paper and a camera is the apparatus to record the quantities of light values inside a building, beneath a tree, or in broad daylight. The same piece of paper is used to record the light in the town, the street, and the château.
Alexander Cheng
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The Streets: Day 15 measurements of light intensity are recorded walking through the streets of the site during the daytime. The light value of the paper is photographically recorded, to be translated later into a comprehensive hand-drawn graphic of light and shadow. Through the documentation, it is clear that trees, cafe awnings, and other structures in the street alter the values of the light as people walk through the town.
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The Streets: Night The values of light in the same 15 spots are recorded during the night, when perhaps only artificial lights offer moments of illumination. Sometimes, the darkest spaces of the street during the day, are the darkest during the night, and vice-versa. The same method of camera documentation is also performed in the château and the town to get a holistic understanding of the light values of the site.
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Early ideas of how to represent light values through graphite drawing.
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Alexander Cheng
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Synthesizing The Light The photo documentation is condensed and synthesized into a graphite wash “barcode” graphic that represents the values of light in the château, street, and town at each time of the day: morning, afternoon, and night. On top of the graphite wash bars, the documentation of light values are translated into a musical notation - a “score” of light. Three lines of changing amplitude and frequencies allow light to be read in the same way that pitch is understood in music. The highest points are the brightest recorded spaces. The moments lower on the graph are the darkest spaces.
Night
Afternoon
Morning
The “Score”
Town
A numeric scale that ranges from -3 to +3 constitutes the basis for the graphic standard to create the drawing. -3 represents the darkest recorded spaces (blacks on the bars, low points on the “score”) and +3 represents the lightest spaces (whites on the drawing, high points on the “score”).
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Street
Château
Alexander Cheng
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Composing A “Score” Of Light Pablo Picasso once said, “Good artists borrow; great artists steal.” So, is it possible to take a “measure” of light from the existing “score” of the town, and perhaps insert that measure to alter the “score” of the château? Can certain desirable light conditions from the town at certain times of the day be brought to the château through an urban intervention? How does this idea translate into a comprehensive, architectural proposal?
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A “measure” of light extracted from the “score” of the town. In terms of light, the town is a playful urban space. It offers a great variety of very light and very dark conditions throughout the day.
Alexander Cheng
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An initial sketch for an urban planning proposal for the site. The core idea hinges on two primary elements: a gradient of light to transition between the street and the château, and a series of wavedecks in the château court.
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Alexander Cheng
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The geometry of the town, which represents democracy, crashes into the imperial court, creating a new axis of entry. The proposal offers fluid connection between the town, street, and château. A gradient of trees showcase the full range of light values, and transitions to the new axis of entry.
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The model shows the dense canopy of trees gradually fading away, allowing the light to reveal the new diagonal axis that extends from the town into the court. The scale of the wavedecks are derived from the numerical values of light recorded from the town, ranging from -3 to +3 meters in height.
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Week 2 final presentation.
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Alexander Cheng
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Book One: Projects 4
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Ecoles D’Art Américaines De Fontainebleau
Introduction
20
Week 1 - Landscape
46
Week 2 - Urbanism
84
Week 3 - Architecture
144
Week 4 - Scenography
190
Special Thanks
The stacking of a natural material, such as stone, can suggest the presence of man.
Alexander Cheng
85
Week 3 - Architecture The work is at an architectural scale, a scale which allows a person or a group of people to interact with its immediate environment. How can we isolate an individual element of an “ensemble” in order to transform it into architecture? A branch, a piece of stone of the chateau, a leave of a tree, the tire of a car? A single element can become a system. Using scale and topology manipulations, the elements can build a collective whole. The transparency of the process is as important as the resulting architecture. The intent of the exercise is to interact with the immediate environment by selecting elements of it and building a composition through the play with an element. Halfway through the week, each group will swap their selected elements with another group. One’s idea suddenly becomes another’s idea to play with. One group’s idea will become the neighbor’s idea, and vice-versa. In the end, it is important to consider the architecture of a neighboring project, as all 5 group models will be situated side by side, each on a large wood board. Each project seamlessly transitions to the next, just as one measure of a musical score transitions smoothly to the next.
Switching Ideas The primary challenge of this week is to take another group’s idea, and then interpret their thoughts about that idea to develop a project. The developed ideas are as follows: 1. Reality & Representation 2. Ordering Growth 3. Transparency & Opacity 4. Man & Nature 5. Decay By Addition This documentation includes work from Group 2, working with the idea of Ordering Growth to generate an architectural proposal that also responds to its two neighboring projects: Reality & Representation, and Transparency & Opacity.
Group 2: Growth
Alex
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Arshaya
Carson
Lucia
The idea of “growth� is an idea that was developed by another group that was randomly selected by our group to adopt as a way of thinking to develop the project.
Alexander Cheng
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The initial idea developed in the beginning of the week was to investigate the way architecture can heighten the perception of the relationship between man and nature.
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Alexander Cheng
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Boulders Of The Forest The first day of the week is spent in the Forest of Fontainebleau, drawing and sketching elements of the natural surroundings that have the potential to influence architecture. The surroundings are drawn with increasing lengths of time, starting with one minute, then five, ten, and twenty. With more time, the surroundings are understood in greater detail. The presence of boulders in the forest is unique to the area, and is compelling to study as an element of the surroundings.
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How does a boulder in the forest change over time? How does its texture change when lichen and moss grow upon its surfaces? How is a boulder’s form altered over the years from water erosion? 20 minutes of sketching address these questions.
Alexander Cheng
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Hiking through the Forest of Fontainebleau. Tall slender pines in tandem with broad canopied deciduous trees shade the trails from the sun. Large boulders covered in mosses and other lichen are scattered throughout the woods.
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Often the boulders in the forest had a naturally undulating, scale-like texture that is perhaps a result of a unique water erosion. Moss begins to grow in the crevices of these bumpy channels.
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What appears to be a natural cave is actually altered by man to create a cavernous path of light and shadow beneath the large, naturally forming boulders of the forest. Man’s presence is evident in the stacked stone masonry walls that support the boulders above.
Alexander Cheng
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Inside the man-made cave, the experience of the forest and qualities of light through the trees were augmented by the depth and darkness of the artificial space. This relationship between the natural and the man-made is compelling to investigate further in the project.
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Man & Nature The Forest of Fontainebleau revealed that the line between the natural and artificial can often be crossed with very small interventions. The cavernous space discovered in the forest was initially thought to be a natural formation, but upon closer inspection, was man-made. There are countless ways to study this relationship. For example, is a boulder seen as “natural” anymore if it has been sawn in half and split apart so that a person can walk through it? If a boulder is taken out of the forest, and placed in the center of a town square, is that boulder still “natural?” Perhaps it is in the careful contrast of context, place, scale, form, and other factors of manipulation that the relationship of man and nature can be brought to light. For the project, it can be the challenge of architecture to heighten awareness of this relationship.
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Sketches of boulders being manipulated by simple interventions. Taking a cut, drilling a hole, offering a path - these are all ways that the act of man can profoundly impose his presence on something natural with the most simple action.
Alexander Cheng
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Is it in the creation of space that man is presenced in stone?
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Vittorio Gregotti tells us that, “man put stone on the ground in order to recognize place in the midst of the unknown universe and thereby measure and modify it.” In essence, it is in the modification of the surroundings that we have an ability to “measure” and appreciate nature.
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Ordering Growth The project is defined as a cavernous “growth observatory” buried beneath the ground. It combines the idea of the man-made and the natural, with the idea of growth. 10 trees are planted in a grid, and allowed to grow freely towards the light through 10 apertures randomly sized and placed overhead. There are 3 typologies of aperture: narrowing, straight, and widening. Depending on the location, size, and type of aperture, the trees will grow differently toward the light. In turn, the trees’ trunks and branches will bend and twist to reach for the light, while canopies of leaves will flourish in the light and die in its absence. While the space is planned and man-made, it is in the observation of natural processes, like the arc of the sun, that ultimately control the experience of the space in its maturity.
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The three typologies of aperture, from top to bottom: narrowing, straight, and widening. Narrowing apertures focus the light to smaller, concentrated points in the space below, while widening apertures disperse the light to a greater floor area.
Alexander Cheng
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The plan of the “growth observatory” shows the trunks of the trees planted in two lines. But over time, the canopies of the trees respond to the scattered swaths of light that enter from above. Natural light makes the tree growth deviate from its gridded origins.
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Nature exerts its force over the ordered grid. The arcs of light pass through the apertures of the cave, influencing the direction of each tree’s growth. The trees eventually are no longer ordered by the grid, but instead follow the order of light.
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The section of the “growth observatory” in the forest reveals how the three types of apertures bring light into the space. With the phenomenon of growth as the didactic element of the architecture, visitors in the space begin to understand how essential the light is to nature.
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The location, size, and type of aperture influence the trees’ lines of growth. As the trees take on their unique forms and bear foliage, they begin to alter the space of the cave. Some trees grow tall and straight, some grow low and wide. and others grow and crash into each other.
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Building The Model The construction of a large model is essential to the spatial clarity of the project. Taking a section, cutting directly through the middle of the cave was decided to be the best way to represent the project in model form. The method of construction primarily uses papier-mâché combined with plaster and paint. An underlying formwork is made to use as a foundation to build upon with the papier-mâché and plaster. This formwork is crafted from a few different materials: cardboard tubes - used for the apertures, crumpled paper taped down - to build up the topography for the cave, foamcore - to build the walls of the cave, and inflated balloons glued along the sides of the foamcore walls - to give the interior of the cave its curvature.
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To create the apertures in the top of the cave, cardboard tubes were cut with a saw to the thickness of the cave’s section.
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A foamcore box shell is used for the structural basis to shape the space of the cave. Holes are cut in the top of the box to fix the apertures in the top of the model.
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The rest of the apertures are fixed into the top of the foamcore box. The remaining area on top is built upon with crumpled paper taped down, to build up the thickness of the earth above the cavernous space.
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The interior of the foamcore box receives a few small, blown-up balloons on the walls. The papier-mâché is then applied on top of the balloons to form the smooth, curvaceous surfaces of the cave.
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The foamcore box is fixed to the site board. The remainder of the board is filled with more crumpled paper in preparation to receive a papier-mâché and plaster surfacing later. This will eventually become the topography. A blow dryer is used to quickly dry the papier-mâché.
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The top of the cave receives papier-mâché carefully spread around the cardboard tube apertures, and is quickly dried in preparation for assembly with the rest of the model.
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The top of the cave is fixed upon the rest of the foamcore box. The rest of the topography is quickly and roughly covered in papier-mâché to then be covered in plaster for a rougher, sandier texture.
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Finally, the model nears completion. A stilt supports the center of the cave span while the water evaporates out of the heavy papier-mâché covering. The resulting clean up process is lengthy due to the extremely messy nature of the plaster and papier-mâché.
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The completed section model offers a profound sense of the earth mass and depth required to form to the cavernous “growth observatory.” The conical volume of the apertures are revealed through the section cut. Trees grow through the apertures, puncturing through to the ground above.
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Sunlight comes through the aperture, filtering through the tree canopies and illuminates the floor of the cave with a dappled softness.
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The entrances bored into either side of the cave emphasize the aligned planting of the trees in the space. The placement apertures coupled with the time of day create moments of intense lightness, and deep darkness in the space.
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From the back, the “growth observatory” is simply a part of the landscape. It is a mound of earth that the forest grows upon.
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The cave next to neighboring projects. The nature of the forest and slope of the the topography lends itself as a condition for neighboring projects to respond to. A forest of bending planar sculptures gradually build in scale and geometric complexity towards the entrance of the cave.
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The nature of the section model beckons the audience and jury to get closer to the project and peer into the space. A flashlight moving over the various apertures simulates the arc of the sun during the presentation.
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Week 3 final presentation.
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Book One: Projects 4
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Introduction
20
Week 1 - Landscape
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Week 2 - Urbanism
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Week 3 - Architecture
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Week 4 - Scenography
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Special Thanks
Scenography requires a stage to give a performance. The château offers various spaces to put on a show.
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Week 4 - Scenography For the last week of the Fontainebleau program, four groups of five architects each will explore relationships between architecture and music through the collaboration with musicians and composers in order to design and construct a full-scale installation. This installation, in tandem with a selected site in the château compound, will be used as a stage to deliver an acting performance. The performance and built installations should be sensitive to the formal, material, and acoustical characteristics of the selected site, and express an understanding or interpretation of that place. The project should engage and transform existing spaces of the château that will challenge the audience’s understanding of the archiecture. One of the greatest challenges to the scenography project is to demonstrate efficient use of limited resources, materials, and time in order to achieve the full potential of the installation and performance. The performance hinges on the simplicity and clarity of the group’s idea, and in the precision of the installation’s construction. The performance should be no longer than ten minutes.
Sites & Performances Four groups of five architects each select one site to build an installation and give a performance. The site can be inside the château, in one of the exterior courtyards, or in the gardens. Each kind of site offers different spatial characteristics to play off of and emphasize through the performance. The choice of site is crucial to compliment the storyline of the performance. Each group’s selected sites are as follows: 1. Arcade in the Cour de la Fontaine 2. Treeline in the Grand Parterre 3. Pathway in the Jardin Anglais 4. Château Horseshoe Stair in the Cour d’Honneur This documentation includes work from Group 1, giving a performance titled, “ARCH-itecture” that takes place in the Arcade in the Cour de la Fontaine.
Group 1: ARCH-itecture
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Anahide
Fernanda
Kati
Maria
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1 Stair Arcade
2 Treeline 3 Pathway
The sites of performance for each group around the château grounds.
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Often it was difficult to find a place to get work done late at night after the studio in the château closed, so materials would be brought outside, and groups would work by the streetlights of the town.
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Selecting Sites The entire studio is given a tour around the château grounds in order to get a sense of the many interior and exterior spaces that the château has to offer. The selected location has to be a space that augments the intent of the performance. Is the site in the gardens? Is it a covered space, in case it rains on the day of the performance? Is it made of hard surfaces, for sound reverberations, or is it made of soft surfaces, to absorb soundwaves? All of these questions are critical to the site selection.
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The entire studio sketching, photographing, and taking notes on the château grounds. Photocredit: David Morgan.
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Arcade In The Cour De La Fontaine The Cour de la Fontaine, or “Fountain Court,” is a large, transitionary court between the château’s main entrance court and the Grand Parterre. A series of seven arches on one side of the Cour de la Fontaine arcade face Carp Lake. This arcade is the to be the site of the performance. The selected site is mineral. It does not offer any organic surfaces. The floor is a flat and civilized surface, paved completely in stone. The form of the vaulting overhead, in tandem with the hardness of the stone, is able to project sound out onto the court. The arcade plays a game of solid and void, hiding and revealing. These spatial properties can prove to be useful in adapting the space into a stage.
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A group member sits to rest in one of the openings between the arches of the arcade, and looks out towards the Cour de la Fontaine and L’Etang des Carpes.
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One arch of the seven that compose the arcade in the Cour de la Fontaine. The arch naturally reveals the scene. The structure for the arch naturally hides activity from the public. The architecture frames the way that the performance is viewed by the audience.
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ARCH-itecture The title of the performance is “ARCH-itecture,” named after architectural features of the site, as well as the intent of the play. The performance seeks to make the audience aware of the students’ collaboration between architecture and music. Through “ARCH-itecture,” the intent is to make transparent the way that the architect works, and the way the practice of building can be influenced by music. Finally, this exercise in theater is an investigation in how music can transform the experience of an existing architectural space. Only the center three of the seven arches are used in the performance to concentrate the attention of the audience to the middle of the space. Three strings musicians sit and play music inside of the arcade, each one centered behind an arch. The performance unravels the story of the architect in 3 stages: drawing the space, building the space, and experiencing the space.
The Study Of ARCH-itecture
1 Draw
2 Build
3 Experience
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The vaulted space inside the arcade is transformed into a concert hall that projects music out to the court.
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Early sketches of how to use th arches of the arcade to tell the story of the architect. It was decided to focus the efforts to the three central arches of the arcade. The idea of hiding and revealing in the performance using the arches plays off of the theme of transparency.
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In order to shroud activity within the arcade, a sheer curtain needed to be hung inside each arch. A rudimentary string tension system uses the structural piers of the arches to hold up the curtain. However, the weight of the curtain makes the string bend in the center.
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Large tubes of bamboo are used instead to span the gap within each arch to hang the sheer curtains. The bamboo is stronger than string, and will not flex in the center when the fabric is draped over it.
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The bamboo shafts are over five meters long, and require multiple people to carry them. It takes at least three people to then hoist them into place between each arch using a ladder and string to affix them to the structural piers of the arcade.
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A material with physical presence is needed to build walls during the second stage of the performance. Here, roll paper is being tested by wrapping it around two vertical poles. However, the paper rips easily in the wind, and is not suitable for the performance.
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A thick, hairy string does not fall apart in the breeze. It is stronger than the roll of paper and lighter to carry for the actors. Six lengths of strings are cut and are spooled around wooden dowels for easy unraveling during the performance.
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The final stage setup before the performance. The bamboo rods hold the sheer curtains in perfect, horizontal lines. Two easels with drawing boards flank either side of the center arch, for the architects to draw the architecture in the beginning of the performance.
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The audience gathers in front of the stage before the performance. They spread out in a thin line between the three center arches.
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ARCH-itecture Part 1 - Drawing The Space During the first stage of the performance, the imagined space is drawn on paper. Just as it is done in practice, the architect projects his or her vision to paper, to be shared with others as an idea, to talk about the potential of a space.
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At the beginning of the performance, the three arches of the arcade are drawn out in thick, black marker for the whole audience to see. This establishes an immediate visual connection between the sketch, and the way the space will be used in the performance.
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ARCH-itecture Part 2A - Building The Walls In the second stage of the performance, each actor unrolls a spool of yarn around two vertical poles: one inside the arcade, and one out on the court near the audience. The lines of yarn bring the dimension and scale of each arch’s width out to the crowd. These “walls” of yarn give a sense of boundary and enclosure, suggesting the extension of the space out into the plaza.
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One of the actors unspooling the yarn to form a “wall.� She wraps it around a pole in the court that is being held up by an assistant.
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Six volunteers each hold a pole while the actors unspool the string back and forth from the arcade, out into the court.
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ARCH-itecture Part 2B - Building The Floor The second half of the “building” phase of the performance involves the construction of the floor. A long tube of brown paper is unrolled from beneath the arcade into the court towards the audience. Slabs of slate are periodically laid down to keep the paper from blowing away in the wind. The floor is arguably the oldest element of architecture, and is the most archaic notion of civilized space. The floor suggests to the audience that they now have a path to walk towards the arcade, into the space.
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One actor holds two ends of a string that runs through the tube of brown paper. She walks forward to unroll the brown paper with two other actors behind her, laying down slabs of slate to keep the paper weighed down.
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The paper is unrolled, bringing the floor of the arcade out to the audience.
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ARCH-itecture Part 3A - Experiencing The Space The final section of the performance brings the audience into the space to hear the acoustics of the strings instruments reverberating within the stone vaults of the arcade. The curtains are pulled down, and the audience walks in the space that the architects build - between the string walls and along the brown paper floor, into the space of the arcade. Upon entry, the space augments the sound of the music being played by the strings instruments.
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By the suggestion of the architecture, the audience walks towards the arcade.
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As the audience enters the arcade, the volunteers remain still and stoic, ensuring the string walls stay erect during the performance.
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ARCH-itecture Part 3B- Experiencing The Space The last scene of the performance has the actors framing each musician beneath a cardboard arch. This brings absolute clarity to the idea of the architecture framing the music, and the music bringing a new way to engage the architecture. By this time, the story of the architect ends, with the people enjoying the space that the architect draws and builds. This reinforces the fundamental idea that the architecture inherently exists for people.
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The audience walks between the string walls, along the brown paper floor, into the space of the arcade. Upon entry, the space augments the sound of the music being played by the strings instruments.
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Book One: Projects 4
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Ecoles D’Art Américaines De Fontainebleau
Introduction
20
Week 1 - Landscape
46
Week 2 - Urbanism
84
Week 3 - Architecture
144
Week 4 - Scenography
190
Special Thanks
A few sketches and farewell comments are exchanged in each others’ sketchbooks at the end of the program.
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Special Thanks I cannot thank the administration of the Ecoles D’Art Américaines De Fontainebleau enough for all of their tremendous efforts to put this wonderful program together. Thank you to Anthony Béchu, for your leadership in directing the architecture school. Thank you to Joe Kerr, for organzing and promoting tons of events with the architects and musicians throughout this whole program. Thank you to Jen Jahn for making sure that all of the students took the time to thank the generous people that helped us get to France. A big “merci beaucoup” to Catherine Delloye, for taking care of three clueless students at three in the morning on a weeknight, and of course for her incredible efforts as head administrator in Fontainebleau. Thanks to the “other” Catherine, who organized the amazing tour of eastern France at the end of the program. I still don’t know how you always had baguette sandwiches prepared for every single lunch we had on the go! Thank you to the rest of the administration who’s names I need not mention - you know who you are and how meaningful your work is to the students of the program. Next, a huge thank you to the many faculty of the Fontainebleau Architecture School. It is sad we only had a week to get to know each of you, but they sure were eventful weeks! Thank you, Mireille Roddier! You always had limitless energy, a smile, and endless kindness in guiding our first week of investigations. Thank you, Amandine Gallienne - I’ve never met someone who wore two different shades of purple better at the same time. Thanks, Pablo Lorenzino - I loved getting pizza and ice cream at the end of week two. To Tarik Oualalou - thank you for checking in on our project every day, and telling us when our work was “bon,” and when it was not so “bon.” Thank you, Antonio Frausto - I don’t think we would have been able to present our project without your willingness to shove our huge model in your tiny hatchback to take to the château! Thanks to Anne-Françoise Jumeau - for guiding us safely through the Forest of Fontainebleau. Thanks, Jean-Guy Lecat - I’ve never had such a hard time discussing a project with a professor until you came along, but in the end, all of your wisdom and sage advice helped our week four performance tremendously. Thank you to Anne Scheou - always approaching our group with curiousity and and grin. Thanks to Armelle Chatriot - who was willing to let us use her car to shuttle heavy steel stands from one end of the château to the other in her small European ride. And finally, gigantic thanks to Rennie Jones - the 2015 winner of the Fontainebleau Grand Prix - you are the coolest teaching assistant anyone could ever ask for, and I’m so glad to call you my friend! You were such a big help when I couldn’t speak French. You would offer empathy when I was frustrated by a professor’s critique. And seriously dude, you are always on top of things! Finally, the BIGGEST THANK YOU to the whole 2016 “Bleau-Fam” - musicians, composers, and architects, that I met at Fontainebleau. It was your energy, humor, and personality that really made this whole experience worthwhile. I’m so thrilled that we got to meet and be together for a month, and cannot wait to see what amazing things we all do in the years to come. To all my archi-buddies: Abla Bennouna, Anahide Nahhal, Andrew Oberst, Arshaya Sood, Carson Leung, Danniely Alexandra, David Morgan, Ellis Wills-Begley, Fernanda Ibarrola, Henry Peters, Kate Weishaar, Kati Albee, Kevin MacNichol, Lucia Boano, Maria Roldan, Nina Gogina, Rozita Kashirtseva, Theresa Moriarty, and Victoriano Martinez-Carmona - I love you all. So many moments and stories to hold on to and cherish. I know all of your names are going to come up quite a few times when people ask me, “Who do you know?” I can’t wait to travel all around the world to see you beautiful people. See you real, real soon!
Thanks to all of you!
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The 2016 Fontainebleau family of architects, musicians, and composers.
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Photocredit: David Morgan.
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Ecoles D’Art Américaines De Fontainebleau END Book One: Projects Alexander Cheng