David Sherland Thesis 2015-2016 Professor Matz New York Institute of Technology
Nature is a network of life, living things co-dependent and integral to each others survival. The fairy tale concept of nature corrupts this idea of codependency through favoritism and a misunderstanding of what a natural environment is and can be. Biodiversity involves all living things. What is a natural environment? Parks are popular in dense urban environments, thought of as bringing nature back into the city. However, these are just as synthetic as the cityscape around them and are almost totally uninhabitable. With cities reshaping our living environments we must consider how they interact with local ecosystems. Proposed is a new World's Fair themed along the lines of urban ecology and sustainable development. This, to redefine what the public understands as a built environment and a natural environment.
The Inbetween Space. Overlapping built space and natural spaces grants the opportunity to generate a new kind of natural environment. Beyond just parks and “green space” and bring to question what a natural environment really is. Entry Sequence Walking paths will cut through the site, an exhibition of unbuilt landscape. A large entrance at the Northern tip of the structure directs occupants through the public program where auditoriums and assembly spaces can hold exhibitions, educational talks, and events.
Sublevels. A dark cave like space to explore the boundaries of built and natural spaces. Mushrooms, mold, moss, algae, bats, and other types of life can live in spaces like these inside building foundations and under bridges. Foundation walls built using the same techniques used in drydocks allow some control of ground water yet still allow water into the space. Unisphere. A relic of the 1964 Queen’s World’s Fair. A 120 ft representation of the Earth and is currently used as a sculpture/fountain in a nearby park. As part of this proposal it will be relocated and repurposed into a greenhouse that cuts through the ground to bridge the underground and above ground spaces.
LIGHT BOX An exercixe in emperical design. A box is constructed with one open end and slits cut in one side, Light cuts through the openings and creates patterns visible inside that were then traced and interpreted into a model.
iceland. The world of the assembly line has superceded and dominated the natural world; pre fabricated, artificial, synthetic, mass produced. Mass production has deployed the clothes we wear, the food we eat, the spaces that we live in, and our means of transport, it is bound to dominate our way of thought. It has entered our politics, our economics, our religion, and our creativity. Witnessing the forces of nature transforming the ground, sea and sky, prompts the imagination towards an alternative strategy of design.
london London is one of the most dense urban developments in the world. a mixture of historical brick and stone row houses with modern glass and steel towers are entangled by a network of roads and rails. Steel, brick and concrete shape the landscape here. an ecosystem driven by the mechanisms of politics and economy. City planners dictate the order of the urban fabric as the city grows and rebuilds itself from the center out.
THAMESMEAD PAVILION. A directional device that points to local town centers. A map was plotted out and the resulting tracing was f lattened in a similar fashion to Mercador Projection used for world maps. Thamesmead was originally conceived in the 1960s to be a modern residential development to address the housing shortage in london. N thamesmead was characterized by parks, open space, canals, and marshlands. 0 40’ 60’ The original plan to accomodate 60,000 people was gradually THAMESMEAD INSTALLATION cut and reduced in scale and quality, The current state of thamesmead does not connect with the original character of the site and the town center is in need of vitalization.
CHRONOS What then would bring back the memory of Thamesmead? Architecture as an interpretation of time. A structure that weaves together the politcal, environmental, and industrial threads of a community. Chronos is that expression. The chosen design from a one day exercise, it was designed and built collaboratively in Birchmere Park in Thamesmead.
EXOTERRA A short graphic novel following the story of a boy born in a barren inhospitable world. Humanity resides within spherical shelters and they contain all aspects of their lives. Inf luenced by a binary star system, the architecture of the sphere is a play on gravity. The bond of parents and child or the love of another person is facilitated by gravitational forces. This side project helped me to ref ine a new way to represent myself graphically and think about the connection between space and emotion.
Futurama. The exhibit at the 1939 New York World’s Fair, and later rebuilt at the 1964 World’s Fair in Queens, was built by General Motors to show the future of what cities could be along with how highways and automobiles could work. Designed by Bel Geddes it was a collection of large scale models of cities and highway systems and was one of the f irst illustrations of how expressway systems could connect the nation. The 18-minute ride carried passengers on a conveyor belt past these displays, the orientation and views were modeled off of 408 “topographical sections” based on aerial photographs done by Fairchild Aerial Surveys.
Tesla Labs Stony Brook University
Speed’s Airport Levittown
Speed’s Airport located in College Point is an abandoned airport that was one of the busiest that served New York City. It housed f light schools and skywriting businesses, while also serving commercial traff ic. The 1964 World’s Fair used the airport extensively to traff ic in visitors. It was also used as a mooring point for Goodyear airships. The site is now abandoned following the development of larger airports in the area; LaGuardia, Newark International Liberty and JFK. It is largely a marshland and prone to constant flooding, erosion and ground plane failure. The site lies mostly empty with undeveloped space as a result. This presents an opportunity to explore buoyancy as an architectural form generator and delve into the issues of the interaction of man-made built environments and natural processes.
Brookhaven National
Inbound & Outbound Flight Plate shows the take off and approach patterns for aircraft landing on the airstrip. It is based on prevailing winds and airtraff ic from nearby airports. This can be used to determine orientation for siting future development.
Flood Map
Buoyancy as a design generator. An experiment is conducted plotting out various World’s Fair Expos and their importance. Wood f loats are placed in a pool with weights, vertical pieces plot out points in 3d space which are connected to generate a form.
Massing
Sketches
Sketches
Designing with composites. Photographs were used to assemble composites of spaces in conjunction with a 3d model. Photographs were taken at Indian Island, Mt Sinai Harbor, the site itself, and some other North Shore Long Island locations and superimposed on top of the 3d model. This allowed the design of a space with a particular look, feel, and textures without the tedious task of detailing and lighting on foliage and water.
Research Lab Plan
Elevations
Long Section
Short Section
Facade Anchor
Facade Connections
Mesh Facade. A chainlink metal mesh facade will be suspended between the primary structural membeter using high tension cables. Cables are used in place of steel members to preserve the translucent nature of the facade surfaces.
Massing
Circulation
Structure
Model Photos
bibliography. -Abram, David. The Spell of the Sensuous: Perception and Language in a More-than-human World. New York: Pantheon Books, 1996. -Airport, N.Y. Aerial Photographic Prints and Negatives of New York State, New York State Archives, Queens. -Barlett, Peggy F. Urban Place: Reconnecting with the Natural World. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2005. -Campkin, Ben. “Bugs, Bats and Animal Estates: The Architectural Territories of ‘Wild Beasts’.” Architectural Design Archit Design 80, no. 3 (2010): 34-39. -Gissen, David. Territory: Architecture Beyond Context. Chichester: John Wiley & Sons, 2010. -Gross, Alan. “Remembering Flushing Airport.” NYC Aviation, July 23, 2006. http://www.nycaviation.com/2006/07/remembering-f lushing-airport/?feedsort=more#.VsKYoI-cEuU. -Jerolmack, Colin. “How Pigeons Became Rats: The Cultural-Spatial Logic of Problem Animals.” Social Problems 55, no. 1 (2008): 72-94. -Kuznick, Peter J. “Losing the World of Tomorrow: The Battle Over the Presentation of Science at the 1939 New York World’s Fair.” American Quarterly 46, no. 3 (1994): 341. -Lee, Jen Yoohyun. Species to Species. London: Goldsmiths University, 2011. -Morshed, Adnan Zillur. The Aviator’s (re)vision of the World: An Aesthetics of Ascension in Norman Bel Geddes’s Futurama. 2001. -Truman, Benjamin Cummings. History of the World’s Fair: Being a Complete and Authentic Description of the Columbian Exposition from Its Inception. New York: Arno Press, 1976.