Pillips Exeter Academy Library khan Analysis

Phillips Exeter Academy Library Louis Kahn Analysis Tectonic Exercises Ellen Linder

Table of content

Louis Kahn p.4 Exterior p.6 Facade p.14 Plan p.16 Snowflake-workshop p.18 Khans plan p.30 Tempo p.32 Light - Core

p.36 Light - Tempo

p.42 Light - outer walls p.48 Levels p.54 Load bearing system p.58 Concrete

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Ellen Linder Academic year 2014/15 M2 Tectonic Exercises TU/e

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Louis Kahn

1901-1975

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Kimbel Museum

Salk institute

Light Material Negative/positive shape Symetri

National Assembly Building Ellen Linder Academic year 2014/15 M2 Tectonic Exercises TU/e

”A brick exterior to match the Georgian buildings of the school and an interior with the ideal environment for study” ”Chosen for his sympathetic use of brick and his concern for natural light.”

1965-1971

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Exterior The exterior is very strict and repetitive. There is no direct connection with the surroundings other than the paths leading up to it. A quick experiment is done to determine if the surrounding has big affect on the appearance of the building.

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Small workshop: portraying the library in other situations.

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- Composition The building gives the impression that four walls have been attached on one large mass. As seen in the model this gives an illusion that the building is slightly bigger than it is in reality.

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Workshop: What is the impression if the walls would have different openings than the standard windows in them?

The impression is most certainly different however I feel like there is mote to these walls than the expression. It becomes clear that the walls also have a function within.

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Facade All four facades are more or less identical.

The only differences are in the design of the windows. The void made for the windows is the same for all four facades. The facade is clearly bound to symmetry.

Common/American

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The windows are placed and shaped in a manner that makes a pattern of pillars between them that are wider at the bottom than the top. The brickwork between the windows enhances this. For every window the brick �takes� a little more space.

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The placing of the windows also reveals the diffrent floors inside the building.

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Plan

The plan of the buildning is based on a grid.

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The plan is symetrical in two lines. This means that to draw the plan you only have to draw one quarter of it.

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Snowflake-workshop

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The plan is also symmetrical in a diagonal direction.

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By using the same method I could create my own pattern and potential plans for the design task.

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A quick transformation to 3D was made to get the feeling for the space that could be created.

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Khans plan The snowflake workshop was to free. There were no limits. To add limits or rules I studied the way Khan developed the plan.

He starded with a square and then used cirkels to determine the distance to the next square. After a few steps a grid is developed.

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As he came up with the grid system he also filled it with function. Depending on the different function a sense of tempo is added. In the atrium there is a calm void. In the parts of functions there is movement. In the the parts with the books there is s calm movement, when people stroll to find a certain book, and so on.

Atrium Function Books Reading

It is not very clear how Khan came to these desitions but it is clear that the grid, their function and the tempo is important for the plan and that the layout of the plan was not made by chance. I will take the aspect of tempo and try ti use it in my design.

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Tempo

I took the snowflake exercise and tried too ad a sense of tempo in the plan.

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By casting the elements I could create a working model.

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The most obvious way to create tempo in the model was to experiment with the distance between the elements.

However I still fell like there is too much freedom in this exercise so I continue the analysis to find more influences.

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Light - Core After examining the plan it is clear that the building is much more than the external impression says. It is a structure of many components.

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The most characteristic component, the one that is seen as the symbol of the building, is the core. The core is both a large �window� to the floors of the building it is also an important source of light.

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Core - Model

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The lights way down.

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Model, Light test.

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Light - Tempo

Using the tempo model I experimented with how the light acts with the model.

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Experiment - removing the outer walls. I very much liked the light that is displayed on the inner element.

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The light has a hard time reaching out from this arrangement of elements.

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When lighting up the model from outside it becomes clear that the inner core never gets direct light.

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This would mean that this part of the plan would have to be lit in an other way.

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Light - outer walls The light is let in in two ways: By small windows, for direct light to the reading space, and by larger windows, for the overall light.

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The light that is let in follows with the line of the entrances, creating colums of �gaps� in the facade.

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I combine the snowflake exercise and the technique of the element-model to create my own design, In order to work faster I choose this time to use foam board instead. The effect is another type of light since the light behaves very different on this material.

However I prefer this kind of light since it has a greater effect of reflection and spreads the light more effective.

I used a two-layer facade where the elements overlap each other in a way that does not close the space entirely but still creates a boarder between inside and outside. This means that there will be entrances all around the model.

Corner - inner layer Ellen Linder Academic year 2014/15 M2 Tectonic Exercises TU/e

Corner - outer layer

The appearance becomes very different depending on if the corners are put in the outer layer or the inner layer.

The model seems more unified when the corners are in the outer layer but if they are in the inner layer more light is both let in and out from the model.

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I made a small exercise where I tried to make gaps in the elements. Different types gave different expression.

Ellen Linder Academic year 2014/15 M2 Tectonic Exercises TU/e

It became clear for me that if the gaps were made in the inner layer, the reflection of the light on these elements disappear which I did not appreciate. However when put in the outer layer it crated a lot of interesting effects.

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Levels

Looking at the section we can see that some of the floors are not covering the entire plan. This creates spaces where the height of the roof is doubled. I took the techniques i used before and added levels in this model.

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Four levels added

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Doubel height

The levels also opened up the opportunity to light up the building in different ways.

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Load bearing system

When looking at the bearing system of the library you can assume that the outer walls carry only them self and part the roof while the inner core carry the floors of the building.

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For my design the system would be similar with the walls carrying the roof and the core carrying the floors.

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Concrete For the library Khan used a modular system of concrete for the core. However in this case the most iconic part of the core is not load bearing. The diagonal element is the load bearing system. For my design i would like to include the concrete in the structure in a more visual way.

Load bearing system

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I would like to continue my work with the tempo elements. To build these elements one method could be piling.

The walls of the elements could then be casted in place around the pillars.

By using reinforcement different levels could also be cast in place.

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