Studio: Earth book - Andre Liegent - 813813

Architecture Design Studio: Earth

EARTH BOOK

ABPL20027 Sem 1, 2017 Andre Liegent - 813813 Studio241 - Tutor: Hella Wigge

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CONTENT 1. THREE TECTONICS 1A. POINT LINE PLANE 1B. MASS 1C. FRAME + INFL 2. SCRT 2A. CONCEPTACLE 2B. SITE ANALYSIS 2C. SOMETHING LIKE PAVILION 3. REFLECTION 4. BIBLIOGRAPHY

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1. THREE TECTONICS “When you have a big problem to solve, break it down to smaller one first.�

- Siddharth Katragadda Three tectonics (on ground, underground and above the ground) become the framework for solving complex architectural problem.

Understanding these three tectonics and how they relate to each other is important to break down large problem into smaller one. The first half of the subject focused on three tectonics understanding and exploration

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1A. POINT + LINE + PLANE (On ground) “A line is a dot that went for a walk” - Paul Klee Simple but powerful principle of PLP is essential source for not only Architecture but other forms of visual arts. Just as Niels Bohr, J.J Thomson and Ernest Rutherford explore the idea of atomic properties of matter, PLP explains the ‘atomic structure’ of visual arts. As quoted from Paul Klee, if arts, including architecture is to be broken down to the smallest particle it would be a dot (point). As dots are taken for a walk, the footprints become lines. As lines intersect and conjoin, planes are formed.

The first activity sought to explore the unlimited and fascinating progression of point to line to plane, as well as how it functionally serves as platforms for sitting, laying and standing.

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PRECEDENTS

Hunter Point Library model study, New York Steven Holl The interior of the library by Steven Holl accentuates simplicity by playing around with simple geometric planes like squares and rectangles. Subtraction by lines and curves create a dynamic opening which cast a fascinating shadow.

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Vitra Fire House, Germany Zaha Hadid

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The relationship between point, line and plane is apparent in this building.

The lines (columns) meet the polygonal plane (roof) at several points to support the roof. The planar roof is clearly explained by the detachment from the main building. The arrangement of the lines with unpatterned spacing and angle creates a more dynamic structural element.

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Yellow Peril, Melbourne Ron Robertson-Swann The Yellow Peril is a sculptural product of Robertson-Swann’s exploration with PLP. Geometric planes are placed and leaned to each other in a certain angle and point to achieve this abstract structure. It is controversial that it has been relocated for several times, ended up in Southbank recently. It divided public opinion into the one that admires contemporariness and the one that is difficult to accept its abstract form and colour.

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Graphic art by Kaity D’Angelo

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Abstract arrangement of lines and points form an intersection that leads to planes. The scatteredness is very dominant which produces an interestingly abstract art.

INITIAL SKETCH

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MODEL After defining the 2D composition from the sketch, I moved on to explore the 3D composition of PLP. The basic elements of this form are the lines and planes being folded towards the z axis. By folding the lines or planes, I achieved not only horizontal planes but also vertical planes. This vertical plane is then become a tool for me to introduce a higher level on z-axis. These different planes are arranged in a way to achieve an abstract and dynamic sets of point, line and plane. Intersections of lines also implicitly form planes. Although not in a solid form the relationship between this lines indirectly form hollow planes that define space.

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1B. MASS

(Underground)

“All material in nature, the mountains and the streams and the air and we, are made of Light which has been spent, and this crumpled mass called material casts a shadow, and the shadow belongs to Light.�

- Louis Kahn

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DARK

LIGHT

INITIAL SKETCH 19

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PRECEDENTS

Tindaya Eduardo Chillida Photo by: Phrame

“My only ambition is to create a useful space for the whole humankind so that when human being enters into this empty cube of 50x50x50 meters, he could feel its fullness the human smallness”.

- Eduardo Chillida

The evocative and mystical sculptural environment is a great example of underground exploration.

The underground cube is lit up magically by two skylights through two long tunnels which show an interesting glimpses of thenatural light As Chillida himself said to a letter to the press in 1996: “The idea was to create a sculpture that would protect the sacred mountain. The large space created in the heart of the mountain is invisible from the outside, but those who dare to venture within will see the sun and the moon from a hollow with no horizon.”

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Dark This drawing is an exploration with darkness within the underground surface. My intention is to stay as abstract as possible by avoiding a cave-like structure. Instead, the mass is shaped by having this wave-like structure, tangled and crumpled. Like hair, if we separate each elements it is just a string. But if many of this strings are bundled and knotted tightly, they actually form a mass. The characteristic of mass that I want to highlight here is the compactness elements which form a unite and massive structure.

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Light The drawing is an exploration of underground space with natural light as well as the experience it implies.

The natural light penetrating the hollow tunnel to give a monumental experience in the procession to discovering underground space.

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1C. FRAME + INFL

(Above ground)

“Steel and concrete in the form of columns and beams, provide framed structures and are, in this respect, akin to traditional timber construction. A frame structure allows a room to be more open and flexible and obviates the need for solid walls as a structural element�.

- Noboru Kawazoe (Metabolist Architectural critic).

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PRECEDENTS

Composition in Red, Blue,and Yellow, 19371942 Piet Mondrian

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Mondrian represents basic vertical and horizontal elements as the two essential opposing forces: the positive and the negative, the dynamic and the static, the masculine and the feminine. The dynamic balance of his compositions reflect what he saw as the universal balance of these forces. Mondrian chose to distill his representations of the world to their basic vertical and horizontal elements, which represented the two essential opposing forces: the positive and the negative, the dynamic and the static, the masculine and the feminine. The dynamic balance of his compositions reflect what he saw as the universal balance of these forces. The frame is filled with colors with some left blank.

Eames House, Los Angeles Charles and Ray Eames

Aside from the retaining concrete wall, the structure of the house uses steel frame.

The steel frame is infilled with various solid and transparent colored panels to define space as well as to explore with the light outcome on the interior throughout the day.

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ISOMETRIC 1:50 28

Frame

Frame + Flat INFL Flat INFL form partition and wall, as well as platform.

Frame + 2 Fold INFL 2-Fold INFL act as ladder

ISOMETRIC 1:100

Frame + 4 Fold INFL A series of 4-Fold INFL as a staircase.

Frame + Solid INFL Solid INFL as the highest platform for viewing

Flat INFL

Flat Transparent INFL

2-Fold INFL

4-Fold INFL

Solid INFL

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MODEL Frame + Infl = Permanent + temporary Frame + Infl, a project to explore with the idea of permanence and impermance, independency and dependency. Frame is often associated with permanence, while Infill is associated with impermanence. Frame generally act as a structure which is independent. Infill is structurally dependant to the frame. However, together they correlate to define spatial composition above the ground. For this particular project, the program assigned is a place for viewing.

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S

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Having experimenting and exploring the three tectonics, the second half of the subject focused on how the three tectonics relate to each other in order to translate the notion of secret into architecture. The site being assigned to us is Herring island, an island in South Yarra, 3km from CBD. While exploring the relationship between the three tectonics, we are assigned to design a pavilion for keeping secret.

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2A.

CONCEPTACLE 1 + 1= 1

We explore the relationship between the three tectonics through a conceptacle model. In mathematics, 1 + 1 = 2. However, in arts, when talking about composition 1 + 1 = 1. Two or more elements when combined, has to unite as one whole composition.

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MODEL

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The form is achieved by grafting the solid mass into the cubic frame. The mass form the foundation in which the frame sits on or grafted into. The solid mass came from stacking balsa blocks organically.

The simple cubic frame is infilled with transparent blue panel to experiment with colored shadow.

Point, line and plane is represented by the panels with slightly different material from the previous PLP model. The mirror panels are intended to explore with the idea of reflectivity together with the transparent blue infill.

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2B. SITE ANALYSIS

PROPOSED SITE

Herring Island, located about 3km from CBD, is an artificial island formed in 1928 by cutting a new path for the Yarra River through an old basalt quarry, as a plan to control flooding of the river. This bushland is now open for public, accessible via shuttle boat provided by Parks Victoria. It includes public facility such as picnic table, bench, gallery, walking trail, water fountain, etc. The close proximity from CBD give an addition to more public landscape in urban context. As quoted from Perkins, ‘’It can seem hard to get to but when people come here it has all the elements of an island - a sense of isolation, of quiet, of being out of the rat race.’’ The specific site was chosen because it has the most suitable characteristic in accommodating my narrative. It has thick bushes and tall trees surrounding it, able to hide the pavilion. People can still reach this place, only with great curiosity and courage. Located on the edge of the island that face the east side, users are able to get a more relax experience achieved from the embankment and suburban view. Noise is realtively low on the side. It is an ideal place to generate the feeling of revealing secret. It is such a relief after revealing a secret.

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Herring island is filled with different kind of vegetation. In the middle of the island is generally flat grass and short trees and bushes. As we move to the perimeter of the island, there are more thicker bushes and taller trees.

Source of decibel is mainly divided into two: The one coming from CBD and the one coming from eastern suburb. More noise is heard on the west side from CBD, mostly from busy Monash fwy and Alexandra avenue. On the other side, noise from suburb is less heard.

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There are two point of landing on Herring island: South and North landing. Public boat provided mostly stop at North landing. The red line represents the designated pathway.

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1 : 2000

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1A. POINT + LINE + PLANE 2C. SOMETHING LIKE PAVILION

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PLP

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Mass

INITIAL SKETCH

INITIAL SKETCH

Frame + INFL

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PRECEDENTS

Araucano Park, Santiago, Chile

by Guillermo Hevia García + Nicolás Urzúa Soler Photographs: Nico Saieh The pavilion aims to create an interaction with park users through its mirrored concave and convex curves which generate a universe of multiplications and deformations of people and the surrounding environment.

“We have meant to build an uncertain experience, a situation of estrangement, one which we do not intend on controlling, as the possibilities of reflection and deformation provoked by the concave and convex mirrored steel bi-dimensional planes are infinite. We have multiplied the amount of reflecting and deformation situations in order to produce an interaction belonging to a world of illusions, more surreal than real. We want the visitor to be expectant of what is going to surprise them in the next place.”

- Garcia and Soler (The architect) The mirror panels used inspired me to use the same elements to create illusion, self-reflection and intimidating experience in my proposal.

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Farnsworth House 14520 River Rd, Plano, IL 60545, United States

by Mies van der Rohe The use of glass envelope inspired me in using transparency in order to express the feeling of revealing secret

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Temptation

B-B SECT IO

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ENTRY POINT

A-A SECT IO

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A-A SECTI 1 : 200 A-A SECT IO

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B-B SECT IO

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PLAN 100 11:: 200 46

B-B SECTIO 1 : 200

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ION

ON

In the diverse world that we are living today, we all have secrets. Sometimes in order to cover secret we need to make lies. The way I see secret, is that it is often used as weapon or defense in society. The notion of keeping secret and lies, has created a world of hypocrisy, which may harm the society.

Conflict

Resolution

The space that I proposed is to give a contrast experience between living in a world of hypocrisy and the free world without lies. It is basically a journey of realising that we can live in a better place by getting rid of secret.

There are 3 main experience that I would like to emphasis in this place: 1. Temptation The journey starts with people getting lured to the space filled with randomly placed mirror panels. You get a glimpse of the organically placed mirror panels. The reflection of light and shadow casted by these panels is fascinating. Thus, tempting you to explore more of this place. This is associated to the feeling you have when you are tempted to lie to keep your secret for defense purpose.

2. Conflict As you explore the place, go deeper and lower towards the edge of the island, you will find out that the mirror panels are becoming denser and narrower. The narrow space symbolises the intimading feeling you experience when you make too many lies to keep your secret, so your movement become limited.

Not to mention that the mirror panels can be very confusing that it could be difficult to go back to the first place. At the same time, the mirror panels can also give a sense of self-evaluation and self reflection.

3. Resolution The ultimate experience of this place is the transparency in the pavillion. You are guided to this pavillion by a gradually sloping ramp which is also filled with mirror panels. The pavilion, mostly made of glass is extruded from underground to the edge of island. While taking a procession down the stair you will see an artificial waterfall as a representation of cleansing and peace. The recording room and toilets are under the stairs.

Coming to this pavilion means all lies has been left behind and secrets have been uncovered. The clarity of the glass represents the freedom and transparency in the society. Standing on the edge of the pavilion, you are shown the embankment which portray a more relaxing view and low noise compared to metropolitan view and noise on the other side. Lastly, I imagine this place becoming a commune place where people can socialise freely without being afraid of judgment, hypocrisy and lies.

*Children can crawl into the small void space under the mirror panels. That represents the fact that children have less secret, they can go through the confusion easily

Mirror plane

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MODEL

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3. REFLECTION I have learned a lot of things during these 12 weeks of Studio: Earth. The three tectonics that is taught on this subject has given me a better understanding about the basic elements of architecture: PLP (on ground), Mass (underground) and Frame + INFL (above ground). It helps me broken down a complex problem into smaller one. Feedback from weekly tutorials has helped me comprehend that there is always a reason behind every elements put on architecture. It is not a good architecture when we put things because we feel like doing it. There should be a strong argument backing up our design.

The most challenging part of this subject is combining the three tectonic together as a composition. Doing each tectonic’s project separately was not that difficult, but merging them into one harmonious composition needs more effort. It is more difficult because unlike my previous studio subject (Designing Environments) where we only need to relate two elements, but in Studio Earth, we need to combine the three tectonics together. I was happy with my exercises at the beginning of the semester, but I believe that I can push myself further and better translate the intended program (Secret) into architecture. There are still a lot of room for improvement for my final project in terms of the idea and presentation.

In terms of idea, the strong points in my first 3 exercises are lacking in the final project. That is where I should push myself beyond limitation. In terms of presentation, I believe that I should learn more about using computer drawing as it can give a more accurate and proffesional presentation.

Overall, I am happy with this subject. One major thing that I learned is that ideas do not come overnight. It takes research, observation and experiment to find the solution. I realised that the expensive part of studying is making mistake and failing. If I counted the amount of my works, there are more rejected and failed ideas than the successful one. But, without those failed ideas, I would not come up with the best solution. . That encourage me to be not afraid in making mistakes. Because that valuable and expensive process is the one leading me to one successful idea.

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4. BIBLIOGRAPHY Brown, SL 2016, Hidden Vault: Tributes to ‘Yellow Peril’ sculpture found in public places across Melbourne, viewed 25th May 2017, < http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-04-05/vault-yellow-peril-sculpture-tributes-scattered-across-melbourne/7248702?pfmredir=sm>.

Fiederer, L 2016, AD Classics: Vitra Fire Station / Zaha Hadid, viewed 25th May 2017, < http://www.archdaily.com/785760/ad-classics-vitra-fire-station-zaha-hadid-weil-am-rheingermany>.

Frearson, A 2016, Distorting mirrors frame a secret garden in Santiago’s Parque Araucano, viewed 30th May 2017, <https://www.dezeen.com/2016/05/05/moma-young-architects-program-santiago-parque-araucano-mirrored-installation-guillermo-hevia-garcia-nicolas-urzua/>.

Perez, A 2010, AD Classics: Eames House / Charles and Ray Eames, viewed 30th May 2017, < http://www.archdaily.com/66302/ad-classics-eames-house-charles-and-ray-eames> Perez, A 2010 AD Classics: The Farnsworth House / Mies van der Rohe, viewed 30th May 2017, < http://www.archdaily.com/59719/ad-classics-the-farnsworth-house-mies-vander-rohe>.

Perkins, M 2012, Island surprise just a hop, skip and a punt from city high-rise, viewed 4th Mat 2017, < http://www.traveller.com.au/island-surprise-just-a-hop-skip-and-a-punt-fromcity-highrise-1pmwh> Rosenfield, K 2015, Work Begins on Steven Holl’s Hunters Point Library in Queens, viewed 28th May 2017, <http://www.archdaily.com/633001/work-begins-on-steven-holl-s-hunters-point-library-in-queens> The art story, Piet Mondrian: Dutch Painter, viewed 1st June 2017, < http://www.theartstory.org/artist-mondrian-piet.htm> Tremlett, G 2011, Spanish island allows massive cave to be bored into ‘magic’ mountain, viewed 29th May 2017, <https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/jan/20/eduardo-chillida-tindaya-fuerteventura>

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