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KEVIN FINCH VOLUME 4
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KEVIN FINCH VOLUME 4
ARCHITECTURE
Architecture Portfolio for Kevin Finch, Third Year Master’s Candidate at the Southern California Institute of Architecture
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DESIGNER Kevin Finch
SCHOOL OF INSTRUCTION Southern California Institute of Architecture
1GA INSTRUCTORS Matthew Au Todd Gannon Pavel Getov Anna Neimark Constance Vale Andrew Zago Emmett Zeifmann
1GB INSTRUCTORS Matthew Au Dora Epstein Jones Russell Fortmeyer Ming Fung Margaret Griffin Darin Johnstone Ilaria Mazzoleni Matthew Melnyk Anna Neimark Benjamin Smith Emmett Zeifmann
2GA INSTRUCTORS Ramiro Diaz-Granados Jeffrey Landreth Alex Maymind Iaria Mazzoleni Matthew Melnyk Devyn Weiser Emmett Zeifmann
2GB INSTRUCTORS Herwig Baumgartner Marcelyn Gow Peter Trummer Scott Uriu Devyn Weiser
3GA INSTRUCTORS Benjamin Bratton Michael Folonis Pavel Getov Kerenza Harris Coy Howard Andrew Zago
volume 4
FINCH
Contents. 1 3GA//FA//16 3 Timewarp: Zago Vertical Studio [DS4000] 2GB//SP//16 23 Iztaccihuatl: 2GB Design Studio [DS1121] 45 Drawing From the Digital, Rendering Out the Analog: 2GB Visual Studies [VS2594] 57 Design Development [AS3122] 63 Ad Infinitum: Iteration and Choice [CS2121] 65 2GA//FA//15 67 Obama Presidential Library: 2GA Design Studio [DS1120] 101 Digital Photograms: 2GA Visual Studies [VS4120] 109 Philip Johnson’s Glass House: Building vs. Text [CS2120] 111 1GB//SP//15 113 Tessellations/Casa Ultima: 1GB Design Studio [DS1101] 149 Romain Du Roi: 1GB Visual Studies [VS4101] 157 Santa Maria Assunta [CS2100] 169 1GA//FA//14 171 Mis(re) ad/Los Angeles Public Library – Hyde Park Branch: 1GA Design Studio [DS1100] 193 Studies in Boolean Geometry: 1GA Visual Studies [VS4100]
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3GA//FA//16
3GA - Fall 2016 2
Winton Guest House - Frank Gehry
Frank Gehry, Winston Guest House, Wayzata, Minnesota 1987
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TIMEWARP
SEOUL ANIMATION CENTER
The premise for exploring formal, programmatic, and tectonic difference in this project relies on the treatment of the ground plane as an object itself. In looking at Gehry’s wooden model for the Winton Guest house, the platform upon which the model is situated serves as a base plane and in terms of the model, is a part of the diagram. By rotating this model 90 degrees upright, a new diagram is formed: Hejduk’s wall house. In both cases, the rotated Winton model and the Wall house, the wall is now a device for delineating a vertical base plane, or canvas upon which the rest of the objects sit. In this project the position of the original wall, or ground plane, references a time-based process in which the relative location of where subsequent objects originated and where they ended up through manipulation of this ground plane. Placement of several objects either on the ground, within the ground, or below the ground establishes a control group for tectonic expression. After the torsion and peeling of the ground plane, certain objects now have different tectonic relationships both to the wall/ ground and to adjacent objects. The main objects are now displayed in reference to where they began in the diagram, and are expressed tectonically to the walls to which they are associated. The thickening of the ground plane allows for programmatic occupation in their wall form. In an effort to remain true to the original diagram, the remainder of the building program has been sunken into the ground and oriented about the depressions from where the ground was peeled.
OPPOSITE PAGE: Establishing archetypal forms from architectural hatch patterns [fig. 1]. Delineating a system for representing tectonic difference as objects are arranged either apart, touching, or overlapping [fig. 2]. Winton Guest House’s formal arrangments about the central object, and its relative representation of this project’s diagram when rotated [fig. 3]. Sectional diagram of this projects relationships to the ground, and how those relationships are altered when the ground becomes the wall [fig. 4].
3GA: Zago Vertical 4
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3GA: Zago Vertical 6
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3GA: Zago Vertical 12
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east elevation
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north elevation
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THIS PAGE: Diagrammatic Study models exploring the nature of peeling and curling materials. OPPOSITE PAGE: Final physical model of the proposed Seoul Animation Center.
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3GA: Zago Vertical 16
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THIS PAGE AND OPPOSITE PAGE: Orthographic photographs of the final physical model
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THIS PAGE: Detail view of the physical model from the SouthEast OPPOSITE PAGE: Detail view of the physical model from the North
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2GB//SP//16
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Aircraft Carrier - Hans Hollein, 1964
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THIS PAGE: Diagrams documenting the creation of this project’s parts from assemblages of the Fiat Lingotto Courtyard
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DS 1121 : 2GB DESIGN STUDIO 24
IZTACCIHUATL
ZIZEK MEGA-ASSEMBLAGE
Big, Dumb Buildings. The generation of these forms began with precedent analyses of existing buildings that fit this title. Buildings that are abnormally large, buildings that house a large amount of program space, buildings that are geometrically understood from a single view. By studying these buildings and the urban contexts they inhabit, an idea of an urban-generating architecture can catalyze new urbanities for the industrial enclave of Lincoln Heights in Los Angeles, CA. Form generation for this project began with the philosopher Zizek’s idea of third spaces. He describes architectural elements that are neither inhabitable interior space nor part of the building’s enclosure, yet still necessary for a building to exist. These ‘third spaces’ can be elevator shafts, air gaps in facades, light wells, thickened poche walls, or service corridors to name a few. This project sampled a courtyard wall of The Fiat Lingotto Factory by Giacomo Matte Trucco. This wall, not containing enough volume to contain the mass of a human, was then multiplied a number of times to produce mega-shapes that correspond to individual program elements such as a row of hotel rooms, a bank of offices, a department store, or theatre. These mega shapes were then multiplied hundreds of times to produce a volumetric requirement of 45,000,000 cubic feet.
The arrangement of mega shapes in this project relate to the ground in such a way as to establish a “grid” of pilotis that geometrically separates the building from the grid of the city. Because the overall mass of this project can be described as block-like, the idea of the block existing between streetgrid elements was challenged by situating the building over an existing street, allowing circulation to pass beneath. The pixelization of façade elements on this building give away its geometric laws; the fragmentation of the surface is the same fragmentation one would expect to find in this projects sectional qualities. This project accomplishes its demarcation of “dumb” not by being unable to speak, but simply by having nothing to say.
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THIS PAGE: Zizek FigureFigure diagram representing the reconstruction of city blocks in reference to the ground level of this building [midterm iteration] OPPOSITE PAGE: Plan view of this building [midterm iteration] in context with its infrastructurally thick site NEXT PAGE: Elevational studies of this project [midterm iteration]
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OPPOSITE PAGE: Axonometric study of the relative assemblage of this project [midterm iteration]Â
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THIS PAGE [TOP]: Diagram referencing the small urban grain of the project’s urban context. THIS PAGE [BOTTOM]: Diagram referencing the large block-like buildings in the project’s context. At certain scales, this building’s diagram references two scales of urban grain. OPPOSITE PAGE [LEFT]: Process of re-establishing city blocks in Lincoln Heights to accomodate this mega-structure. OPPOSITE PAGE [RIGHT]: Ground-Level Nolli Plan of the final iteration of this project.
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THIS PAGE: Project Elevations from the South [top] and East [bottom]. OPPOSITE PAGE: Axonometric view of the project within its context. NEXT PAGE: Project top view
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THIS PAGE: Photographs of the physical model - printed in ABS plastic. NEXT PAGE: Photograph of the physical model - printed in ABS plastic, later cast in aluminum.
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PREVIOUS PAGE: Photograph of the cast aluminum physical model. The original ABS print was used to create a plaster mold into which the molten aluminum was then poured. THIS PAGE: Photographs of the aluminum model situated on the project’s context model.
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DRAWING FROM THE DIGITAL, RENDING OUT THE ANALOG DIGITAL AND PHYSICAL FLATTENING OF IMAGES Beginning with the digital generation of Sol Lewitt Cubes, this heavily scripted process led to the flattening and re-thickening of various images and geometries. The first iterations began with the generation and orientation of Sol Lewitt’s Incomplete Cubes stacked in Rhino space and rendered from the top view. During this geometric creation, the scripting process also allowed for variations of color, scale of individual cubes, lineweight of centerlines and outlines, and alteration of certain geometries that began to move away from orthogonal cubes. The next step included the physical creation of the geometries created in the previous step. After ABS prints were made, sanded, and finished with gesso, these objects were then photographed in SCI-Arc’s Robot House. The sheer amount of photos required for the next step was streamlined and perfected by use of the robot arms with a DSLR on the end, while other robots held lights with color gels shining on stark white models. These photos were then re-compiled into another script that projected halftone patterns onto the original geometry. After a final run of certain Illustrator and Photoshop post-processing, the final images are geometrically amorphous, chromatically brilliant, and scalarly fascinating.
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THIS PAGE: Black and white study of stacked Incomplete Cubes. OPPOSITE PAGE: CMYK halftone study of the cubes that are expressed as transforming outlines. NEXT PAGE: Lighted photographs taken in the Robot House of the physical models of the digital constructs.
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THIS PAGE: Halftone study in Indigo. OPPOSITE PAGE: Halftone study in Red. NEXT PAGE: Final iterations of the digital/analog process.
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THIS PAGE: Small slice of the incredibly complex final image.
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AS 3122 : DESIGN DEVELOPMENT 58
DESIGN DEVELOPMENT OBAMA PRESIDENTIAL LIBRARY
After narrowing down the final designs of the previous studio [see 2GA studio] the process of design development began. The schematic design came from Anna Higane and Corot Wang. This project was a team effort between Mona Bajnaid, Kevin Finch, Anna Higane, Evaline Huang, and Botio Kuo. Throughout this process, the team developed structural, mechanical ,and environmental systems for the Obama Presidential Library in Hyde Parke, Chicago.
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PREVIOUS PAGE [LEFT]: Wall chunk describing the main structural build-up of this building. PREVIOUS PAGE [RIGHT]: Wall chunk describing how the skin of the building meets the ground. THIS PAGE [LEFT]: Structural diagrams showing slabs, cores, primary, and secondary structural systems. THIS PAGE [RIGHT]: Megadrawing showing the entire building and the systems exposed when a section of it is cut away.
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AD INFINITUM ITERATION AND CHOICE
The architectural modalities presented in this course have been done so according to the thesis of ‘Fact and Fiction.’ While each and every one of these methodologies has a wide range of canonical support, it is up to the student to determine the validity of these applications as they pertain to their own design experience. While Clearness and Unclearness may appeal to some students, Character and Type might appeal to others. In any form of education, these different points of view should not be taken as truth, but as simply another way of looking at a problem. Any given architectural issue can be confronted by each of these means, but the designer is ultimately responsible for the methods they use and which school of thought most resonates with them. It is not enough to say “I like this method,” or “I don’t like this way of thinking,” but a logical and coherent argument must be made for tackling an issue a certain way as opposed to another. Although the intentional lack of clarity in a project is valid and interesting, I feel that having a desired and explicit effect of a project is far more interesting than leaving mysterious forms open to interpretation. However, in accordance to the effectiveness of character-driven techniques, it is much more difficult to find the right balance of ambivalent posture and blatant clumsiness; which begs the question of the type of character that is desired. A designer might be interested in creating a mysterious character, but does that not fall into the category of Unclearness? A project might want to be expressed as aloof and clumsy, yet this might also be grouped with ideas of Figuration. In referencing the Chinese encyclopedia of animals, the means of organization have inherent and interesting overlaps. A stray dog can be drawn with a fine camelhair brush, and one of the Emperors animals is certainly capable of having just broken the water pitcher. It is not the things that we place into categories, but the categories themselves by which these objects or ideas are organized. How much overlap
is necessary? Is an awkward character that is incredibly intricate also unclear by means of categorization? These architectural methodologies are not only categories by which we can group similar projects, but ways of thinking about contemporary architectural issues. Due to the exhaustive means by which post-modern architects have grouped and regrouped different eras of design [Jencks, Joe Day] we know that categorization is something that can be carried out ad infinitum. Yet by applying these categories as ways of thinking, several projects may be approached several different ways, or a single project might be approached in an equally exhaustive way. It would be interesting to see what projects emerge from a singular issue approached in each of the presented design modalities. Jorge Luis Borges’ description of the how the Chinese encyclopedia divides animals into certain groups is a common argument in the inherent flaws of categorization. By comparing this method of categorization to the way that Charles Jencks has categorized different style of architecture, we can see that there are obvious overlaps in the Chinese encyclopedia, and a tighter, yet still undefined, edge between architectural categories. As previously stated, these styles of architecture can be grouped and re-grouped in an endless number of ways. In the interest of focusing on a seemingly endless number of specific combinations, Borges’ The Library of Babel describes an imaginary library that contains every book ever written, or ever could be written. Jonathan Basile has effectively digitized this fictitious place into a searchable, catalogued, virtual library containing rooms, book stacks, shelves and volumes of every possible combination of up thirty-two
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hundred Latin alphabet characters in 10 4677 volumes. This is not an infinity; however one could not explore these options in Billions of lifetimes. Frighteningly so, one could find the exact description, date, and time of one’s own death; one has only to search for it. With an effectively infinite number of possible combinations, this can be compared to modern parametric design where a designer can generate thousands upon thousands of iterations dependent on input parameters. Yet thousands more can be generated by slightly changing one of these inputs. Designers can quickly be overwhelmed by the number of design iterations and options available to them, which begs the question: How do we pick one? Out of all this generated geometry, processed colors, and different combinations of thousands of lines each, how does a designer select the appropriate combination that effectively communicates a predetermined set of design sensibilities? Is the act of choosing the only control a designer has left over their own project? If the selection process has no guidelines, could not the same computer that generated the geometry also select it, and if so, what is the role of the designer in the parametric age? The digitized Library of Babel also contains image archives that use a similar algorithm to generate a series of pixels that, while mostly unintelligible noise, can produce something recognizable to the human eye. To this end, one might find images of one’s own birth, or even the creation of the universe, but could never have enough time to peruse through the seemingly endless combinations of pixels. So when we begin to compare these two vast amounts of data, the library and the parametric, we are left with a huge amount of date which needs to be sorted. It is this process of sorting that brings us back to the categorization of Borges and Jencks. However therein lies the problem; given any set of artistic, linguistic or architectural
set of standards exists a certain amount of arbitrarily composed rules and values. What can be considered ‘popular’ or ‘beautiful’ in one timeframe may not be considered so in another era. Are we lost in an un-sortable sea of data in which the ‘correct answer’ is the proverbial grain of sand on a beach? Is categorization the only way in which we can value one set of data over another? In the case of the Library, although one may find a description of one’s own death, there can be multiple versions of this; a description of murder, suicide, natural causes, starvation, hypothermia, etc. When these options are presented in this way, it is much more apparent that the knowing of the ‘right’ answer is ineffable. I believe the same can be said about an algorithmic output of geometry. A designer can select certain options, but will never know if it was desirable until presented to a body of peers for evaluation. However, to produce a truly academic argument in the field of architecture, one must engage in rhetorical persuasion. A designer must compare their project to those that have come before in an effort to place one’s work within an architecturally relevant discussion. Then, by comparing one’s work to another, the project can then become categorized with similar projects. So perhaps it is not the categorization itself, but the process by which things become categorized that should be scrutinized. Maybe there is no right answer. Perhaps what we create in unintelligible noise, with rare gems of understandable data inbetween.
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2GA//FA//15
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Farnsworth House, Plano, IL - Mies Van Der Rohe, 1951
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OBAMA PRESIDENTIAL LIBRARY OBSCURE ASSEMBLIES, FUZZY MONOLITHS, AND OTHER DICHOTOMIES IN ARCHITECTURE OPPOSITE PAGE: Southern view of the Library.
Beginning from the frame study, we thickened the size of individual members until a figure began to emerge from the densest areas of the frame. The most articulate areas of the original frame served as a means by which to erode this new massive frame. The openness of this resultant void is oriented towards the park, while the blankness of the surrounding mass faces the city. The object sits on the site in such a way as to register its relative ‘weight’ through the use of sunken platforms on an inverted plinth. The object’s depth below street level reveals different aspects of its figure/ground relationships from different points of view. Visitors enter the building through the excavated void. The essence of the void is felt beyond the extents of the building envelope by being physically connected to entry plazas. The building organizes itself spatially in a “U” shape around the eroded void. The amount of erosion increases by level from bottom to top that shifts the balance of symmetry and asymmetry about the void. A density-sparsity gradient from the center outwards provides a dense, articulated poche that describes a fuzziness of space and program. The first three levels of the building are public with the main entry on the first level and museum gallery spaces on the next two, with private spaces such as administration and the presidential suite occupying the top two levels. This project was in collaboration between Kevin Finch and Tiffany Adler.
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THIS PAGE: First floor plan of the Library. OPPOSITE PAGE: Typical plan for the second and third floors of the Library.
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THIS PAGE: Fourth floor plan of the Library. OPPOSITE PAGE: Fifth floor plan of the Library.
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THIS PAGE AND OPPOSITE PAGE: Frame and mass studies that les to the formal massing strategies of the building.
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THIS PAGE: Iterative diagrammatic process that led to the individual parts and pieces of the fram study. Elements in this phase were prioritized in the final expression of the building. OPPOSITE PAGE: Elevational diagram showing the prioritized horizontal frame mebers that would allow this project to be split into floorplates.
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THIS PAGE: Building Parti diagrams showing the expression of a void as the main public space with the majority of the program oriented around this void. OPPOSITE PAGE: Building Program diagrams depicting the general organization of the Library.
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PREVIOUS PAGES: Elevations of the Library. Note the expression of mass to void changes depending on the viewer’s orientation to the building. OPPOSITE PAGES: Site plan of thiss project. Due to the sinking of the building below grade, extensive site work was done to accomodate this large project into its context.
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TOP ROW: Corner elevation photographs of the physical frame model. MIDDLE ROW: Detail photographs of the physical frame model. The choice in model coloration played a role in developing the orientation of the final building’s central void. BOTTOM ROW: Elevational photographs of the physical frame model.
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THIS PAGE: Close-up rendering of the building’s central void and main entrance. NEXT PAGE [LEFT]: Elevational rendering of the southern view of the building with its surrounding context of Hyde Park and downtown Chicago. NEXT PAGE [RIGHT]: Axonometric rendering of the Library from the East.
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THIS PAGE: Elevational photographs of the final physical model. This two-part sectional model was contoured out of more than 700 layers of bristol paper.
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THIS PAGE: Corner elevation photographs of the final physical model.
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THIS PAGE: Cutaway of the sectional model showing the detail of mass, frame, and void within the building. FOLLOWING PAGES: Detail photographs of the final physical model. These pictures highlight the contoured quality of the model as well as the density of space that exists beyon the building’s central void.
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THIS PAGE: Photograph of composited physical materials.
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DIGITAL PHOTOGRAMS These projects began with a series of material studies that were re-composited into a piece that was intended to confound the difference between photograph and material. These material compositions were then used as transparency maps that were then applied to digital models of kitchen utensils. By lighting the scene, the projected shadows are then a result of the geometry of the object, and the relative diffuse and opacity of the light shining through the object based on its transparency map. The final compositing aimed to then confound the difference between photograph and rendering.
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THIS PAGE: Photographs of composited physical materials. OPPOSITE PAGE: Photographs of a folded print of a photograph of the composited physical materials. FOLLOWING PAGES: Final photogram from the kitchen utensil studies, and a final rendering of the original folded photograph.
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PHILIP JOHNSON’S GLASS HOUSE BUILDING VS. TEXT
For almost seventy years, Philip Johnson’s Glass House has been a controversial topic of architectural discussion. It has been called a direct rip-off of Mies Van Der Rohe’s Farnsworth House, as well as a bad copy; while others have described it as an appropriation of an architectural ideal. This paper does not aim to dispute these claims or reinforce the perhaps all-too-true simulacra effect of this house, but to debunk esoteric descriptions written by authors such as Christian Bjone, Stover Jenkins and David Mohney, and Frank Schulze about Johnson’s Glass House. Philip Johnson has been described by many as one of Mies Van Der Rohe’s most promising pupils. Not only is the Glass House/Farnsworth House the greatest example of his appropriation of Mies’ work, but he continued to reuse Meisian concepts throughout his professional career. While curating Mies’ retrospective exhibition in 1947, Johnson first saw Mies’ sketches for a glass box concept for ahouse he was working on outside of Chicago. It has been said that Johnson was interested in the idea of an all glass house, but was unable to reconcile how to pull it off until he had seen Mies working on the exact same project. While the details of The Glass House are dissimilar to the Farnsworth House, the volumetric and expressive qualities are one in the same. Although the Glass House is painted black to make it appear opposite of the Farnsworth House, these two structures perform and are experienced almost identically. Christian Bjone begins his book Philip Johnson and His Mischief by calling Johnson a fraud. Through several chapters of examples of misappropriation by other artists such as Andy Warhol and Richard Prince, we come to his account of Johnson’s design process for the house. He arrives at the conclusion that the Glass house is a bad copy of the Miesian glass box by referencing inexactitudes of measurements and tectonics. How might one
copy exactly an idea? Some of the first accounts of architecture are incredibly derivative following the Egyptian, Hellenistic, and Roman timeline of architectural development. To say that any of these are misappropriated is to say that ‘this column’ is not as good as ‘that column.’ Similarly, it is an ineffective argument to say that Johnson copied Mies. Being a student of Mies, Johnson had the perfect opportunity to “kill the father” and he took it, thus securing his place in architectural history. In Frank Schulze’s text, Philip Johnson, he goes into a more traditional formal analysis of the Glass House Compund that contains the House itself, the guest house, painting gallery, and overall site organization. Schulze notes the differences between Farnsworth and The Glass House as being calculated and precise, lending it to be “… more than the Son of Farnsworth.” Schulze goes on to describe the House as a single room of Fifty-Six by Thirty-Two feet that is almost totally transparent. It has no room subdivisions, setting it apart from fundamental ideas of domesticity. In this text, the design of the house was described as being tailor-made for Johnson himself and his own living standards and needs. Johnson never altered the layout of the non-permanent furniture or even afforded himself an extra pillow on which to rest his head if it was not included in the original design. Whether or not Philip Johnson subscribed to traditional standards of living or not is irrelevant in this case. Not only did Johnson emulate is mentor, effectively or not, but he had an obligation to maintain his convictions and prove to the world that the glass box could and should be the new American standard of living. The existence of several other structures on the site leads one to believe that Johnson did not in fact think that his pristine Glass House was an all-inclusive ‘machine for living in.’ The guest house offers several amenities that the main house itself does not.
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Even formally, the guest house is made entirely of brick and is completely enclosed – deviating formally from the main house. Whether or not Johnson himself used the guest house facilities might be unclear, but the deliberate design and implementation of this structure was Johnson’s way of including in his Glass House Compound what Mies’ Farnsworth was able to achieve in one structure. The Houses of Philip Johnson by Stover Jenkins and David Mohney also offers a formal analysis of the Glass House compound in a way that praises Johnson’s appropriation of the Meisian glass box. They state that the siting of the guest house makes it almost disappear. The guest house, in comparison to the main house does not disappear. Not only does it come in and out of site several times on approach to the main house, but the guest house is made entirely of brick. In contrast to the main house which is almost entirely glass, lending itself to actually disappear, the brick of the guest house stands out against its context. In plan, Jenkins and Mohney describe the “near alignments” of the guest house and main house as critical in communicating a forecourt space that would otherwise not be possible without the guest house. They also describe a stone wall that lines up “approximately midway” between the guest house and the main house as further delineating space among the compound. While the spatial arrangement of elements across the site may be critical in creating secondary and tertiary spaces, the argument here is that if Johnson actually copied a Meisian ideal, these alignments would be exact and obvious, not subtle and near-misses. The last major point that these authors make is that Johnson’s house is completely glass to take in the “nature” around the house. The fact that the word nature is thrown around in the world of architecture is naïve and unsupported. There is nothing “natural” about the “green” that surrounds the Glass House. In Rambunctious Garden, Emma Marris clearly states that the pastoral and pristine landscapes of Anglican design are no more than manufactured and highly maintained landscapes that are baseless in concept – even the perceived virginity of Yosemite is patrolled by park rangers who discharge high powered rifles at the first sign of wolves. Assuming we can let this turn-of-phrase be simply that, there is nothing about the Glass house that allows the
outside in, or vice-versa. The visual transparency of the house’s facades allows one to see what is beyond – not unlike a painting. In this regard, the walls themselves could be opaque with imagery of the outside painted on them while still having the same effect. Other aspects of outdoor-ness such as wind, rain, snow, smell, foliage, wildlife, solar radiation, and evapotranspiration are sealed off from the interior of the house by the very nature of building envelopes regardless of materiality. To say that the “carpet of green” surrounding the Glass House continues through the structure is also non sequitur. From the front entrance of the house, the edge of the turf is clearly set back by the width of the walkway, so there is yet another material between the “carpet of green” and the house that separates itself from this ground plane. From elsewhere in the house, the turf comes right up to the edge of the structure, but the brick floor of the house deviates drastically in color, shape, pattern, and materiality that further separates this house tectonically from its context. The only logical argument that can be made about floor to ceiling glass walls letting in the surrounding “nature” is the amount of visible light being let through the façade by the simple notion of window-to-wall ratios. As we forge our way through architectural education, we have a tendency to accept what is presented to us about iconic buildings and to form a dumb opinion of whether we “like it or not.” No further inquiry is required, so long as we can regurgitate the project’s metrics. A deepened analysis of accepted icons has, in this case, shown that what we may have been taught to see as canonical and relatable has in fact been written about in such a way as to do no justice to the pure architecture of the thing, but rather the architectural, social, and political implications of the thing. Philip Johnson’s Glass house may continue to be debated as a simulacra of the Farnsworth House for fifty more years, but we can do justice to the architects and their designs by being unbiased in the way we write about their work.
References: 1.Bjone, Christian (2014) Philip Johnson and His Mischief: Appropriation in Art and Architecture. Images Publishing. Victoria, AU. 2.Jenkins, Stover and Mohney, David (2001) The Houses of Philip Johnson. Abbeville Press Publishers. New York, London. 3.Marris, Emma (2011) The Rambunctious Garden: Saving Nature in a Post-Wild World. Bloomsbury. New York. 4.Schulze, Frank (1994) Philip Johnson: Life and Work. Alfred A. Knopf. New York.
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Cooper Union, NYC - Morphosis
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Butterflies - M.C. Escher
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TESSELLATIONS
TWO-DIMENSIONAL PATTERN RECOGNITION The design process of this studio began with the study of two-dimensional tessellations. Upon unraveling the secrets to their creation, I was able to use the same logic to reconstruct the tiles of this tessellations. In M.C. Escher’s Butterflies, there exists an infinite scalar relationship between each tile once the organizational logic is broken down. Once these patterns were re-represented, the next task was to express these tessellations in three-dimensions. By identifying the forms that could be created by lofting several patterns together, I was able to scale a certain “mother geometry” appropriately and from that, extract three dimensional forms that were either a positive or negative intersection between the original form and a regulating box that set up the proportions of what was to become a house.
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THIS PAGE: The top row shows the different tiles patterns within this tessellation. The following rows show different ways in which these tiles can be recombined. OPPOSITE PAGE: Solid void diagrams and color studies of these new realtionships reveal even more spatial an geometric relationships.
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THIS PAGE: Diagram of form generation from two dimensions to three dimenstions OPPOSITE PAGE: A small selection of the many forms that were created from the mother geometry. The selected form for the house design has been highlighted.
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CASA ULTIMA HOUSE DESIGN
Casa Ultima leverages sectional design processes in accordance to program aimed at domesticity. By increasing the frequency with which benchmark sections are taken, an infinite number of forms are thus generated. Due to the purely digital creation of this house, interstitial sections reveal digital artifacts of the process by which they came to be. This house is represented in a way that positions itself in the realm of buildings as drawings. The methods of representation treat elevations as sections, plans as diagrams, and axonometrics as elevations. By blurring the line between building contexts, new relationships between solid, void, mass and aperture are further discovered. Casa Ultima aims to situate itself as a study in what is expected versus what exists. OPPOSITE PAGE: Front elevation of Casa Ultima. The diagonal gesture across the facade is a feature that has remained since its creation from the tessellation.
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PREVIOUS PAGES: Vector renderings of Casa Ultima. Experiments in line, color, and solid-void further reveal volumetric realtionships within the house. OPPOSITE PAGE: Examples of iterative sections that were uses to develop the experiential qualities of Casa Ultima.
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THIS PAGE: 360° photos of the physical model of Casa Ultima from parallel views. OPPOSITE PAGE: 360° photoes of the physical model of Casa Ultima from aerial view.
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View inside the sectional model
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Left view of the sectional model
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Rear view of the sectional model
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Right view of the sectional model
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ROMAIN DU ROI LETTERFORM TRANSFORMATIONS
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OPPOSITE PAGE: Lowercase letter “g” as described by the official alphabet of the French courts.
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THIS PAGE: Sequence of diagrams showing the creation of the hybrid letter. NEXT PAGE: Oblique view rendering of the final letterform. FOLLOWING PAGE: Grasshoppergenerated vector rendering of the final letterform.
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SANTA MARIA ASSUNTA IL DUOMO DI SIENA The city of Siena is situated in the center of the Italian province of Tuscany which occupies the heartland of Italy. The cathedral, or Duomo, of Siena serves as the city’s main place of Catholic worship. Designed in the 11th century by Giovanni di Agostino, Santa Maria Assunta, Saint Mary of the Assumption, has elements of both Romanesque and French Gothic design influences.1 From the outside of the city, the Duomo dominates the Sienese skyline.(fig. 1) One approaches the Cathedral from the East, walks along the Southern façade, and enters the building from the West. The original church was built on the highest point of the very hilly terrain of the city—the eastern most portion of the structure coming very close to the edge of an extremely steep slope. At the beginning of the 12th century, the cathedral’s baptistery was added on the eastern edge of the existing church just down the slope. The height of the baptistery is level with the ground plane of the old church. This was done to aid in the expansion of the old cathedral. Just fifty years later, the additions to the cathedral were made with the extension of the baptistery roof.2 (fig. 2) The exterior of the cathedral is made of alternating bands of black and white marble on the South, East, and North walls. This technique is known as pietra serena, or serene stone.3 The campanile also exhibits this striping pattern. The Eastern façade makes up the end of the church choir that is situated above the baptistery. (fig. 3) Moving up the outer walls, the wooden roof pitches towards the center from the north and south until each side meets the clerestory on the next level up. The black and white striping is more frequent on the west side of the cathedral than on the east side. The eastern and western portions of the clerestory are divided evenly by the cathedral’s dome which marks the location of the intersection of nave and transept. The exterior arcade of the dome hides the unique hexagonal crossing barrel of the dome. The roof of the white dome then rises above the barrel, terminating about three-quarters of the height of the campanile. (fig. 4)
The western façade (fig. 5) exhibits various motifs and design styles due to the time it took to complete and the change of designers in the process of construction.4 The backside of the façade that is not covered by the roof of the clerestory is constructed with the same black and white striped pattern of the western portion of the clerestory. The lower portion of the western façade is wrapped on the north and south by the continuation of the adjacent pietra serena. This pattern terminates at the spring line for the three arches that signify the entrances to the cathedral. The tympanum above the church portals display various carvings of saints and symbols of Siena and her allegiance to Rome, such as the She-Wolf.5 These are bordered by spiral patterned archivolts which meet the ground in a compound column. While the lower portion of the façade exhibits clearly Romanesque influences, the upper portion shifts to canonical gothic. Above the spring line of these archivolts begins the west work of the cathedral. On the north and south sides of the western façade two gothic style towers rise up, embellished with sculptures of saints and ogive arches. Above the archivolts begins a design that was influenced by the cathedral of Orvieto.6 The three arches are topped by a pitched pediment with a single sculpture in the center each. The top of these three points creates a baseline for the remainder of the west façade. In the center, a rose window is framed by a square of figural sculptures—the frame flanked on either side by ornamental towers. Between the rose window assembly and the outermost towers, an arcade of ogive arches is topped by a pediment with a tympanum fresco. This same element is repeated above the rose window, completing the western façade of the cathedral.
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The interior of the duomo follows a basilica plan (fig. 6) with the nave along the main axis that is divided from the side aisles with pietra serena compound columns. (fig. 7) The floor of the duomo is what attracts visitors—several dozen mosaic paintings depicting scenes from the bible adorn the ground plane of the interior, the most intricate of which are covered for protection except between the dates of August 15 – September 15.7 The compound columns rise to meet the groin vaults of the side aisles, except for the center column which rises to the very top of the vaulted clerestory. (fig. 8) The side aisles terminate with exterior walls adorned with chapels and frescos. At the end of the north side aisle is the Piccolomini library. This library houses paintings and relics of Eneo Silvio Bartolomeo Piccolomini, a favorite son of Siena who later became Pope Pius II.8 The line between the top of the side aisle vaults and the bottom of the clerestory is adorned with the busts of saints and priests facing the nave towards the inside. Stained glass windows sit centered above these arches to form the clerestory. From the eastern and western facades, the clerestory terminates in a rose window, while the clerestory’s intersection with the transept is treated differently. The crossing of the cathedral was the first to display a hexagonal intersection of vaulting. While this feature is masked by an arcade on the exterior, this feature of the dome’s barrel is revealed on the interior by a thin arcade that exposes the exterior of the barrel to the inside of the nave. (fig. 9) The groin vaulted roof of the nave has painted mosaic intersections with blue in the negative space and white and yellow dots to symbolize the night sky. This sky pattern is repeated on the interior of the dome that opens to
an oculus topped by a glazed tower. The graphic panelization and oculus are representative of the Pantheon in Rome. Returning to the exterior of the duomo, we notice something peculiar in the piazza to the south. (fig. 10) A complete pietra serena wall extends from the east side of transept several hundred meters to the south and terminates at a large, blank, unfinished wall that resembles a larger version of the cathedral’s main façade. Before the completion of the new choir over the lower level baptistery, a new church or duomo nuovo was proposed.9 The plan was to extend the transept to the south proportionally so that the nave of the existing church would become the transept of the duomo nuovo. Due to structural negligence, lack of funds, and ultimately the black death, the extension of the Siena Duomo was never fully realized and plans went forth to finish the cathedral as we see it today.10 All that remains is the eastern wall of the new nave, complete with black and white marble striping, groin vaulted side aisles, Romanesque embellishment and a pitched wooden roof. The new façade, facciadore, exists now as the terminus of the piazza del duomo.11 Due to Siena’s alignment with Rome, the city was in constant turmoil with her neighbor, Florence. The design of the Duomo di Firenze, Santa Maria di Fiori, was happening around the same time as the construction of the western façade of Santa Maria Assunta. After Brunelleschi’s involvement with the dome of Florence, the race to construct larger and larger cathedrals began between the two cities.12 While Florence was true to the Romanesque tradition, Siena took influences from French Gothic and lore of the city of Siena and by extension, Rome, to create a narrative for its cathedral. The use of pietra serena comes from the story of the death of Remus of Rome. Remus’ son, Senius fled Rome when Romulus murdered Remus. The black and white stone symbolizes the black and white horses that carried Senius and his brother Aschius to the site where they would found Siena. Legend also tells of the clouds that concealed the boys from their Roman pursuers—black and white.13
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Figure 1 – View of the Siena Cathedral taken from the North.
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Figure 2 – Cross section of the Siena Cathedral showing stages of construction.
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Figure 3 – View of the East façade of the cathedral. This façade extends the new choir over the below-ground baptistery.
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Figure 4 – View of the Siena Cathedral from the Southeast. Note the differences in pietra serena treatment between the lower outer nave walls, and upper clerestory walls.
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Figure 5 – Western façade of the Siena Duomo.
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Figure 6 – Plan diagram of the existing Cathedral. The old church is outlined in purple and the new baptistery is outlined in blue.
Figure 7 – Interior of the Siena Duomo from the church portals looking towards the apse. Note one of the mosaic paintings that adorn the entire floor of the cathedral.
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Figure 8 – Interior of the Siena Cathedral looking up towards the nave roof and main dome. Note the treatment of the piers, roofs, arcades, vaults, and dome.
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Figure 9 – The arcade treatment on the inner terminus of the nave adjacent to the dome reveals the outer portion of the barrel supporting the dome.
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Figure 10 – View of the incomplete Duomo Nuovo from the south façade of the cathedral looking southeast.
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Footnotes: 1 - Diana Norman, Florence, Siena, and Padua: Art, Society and Religion 1280-1400, ch. 6, pp. 143 “…Giovanni di Agostino, the (previous) capomaestro in charge of the Duomo…” 2 - Diana Norman, Florence, Siena, and Padua: Art, Society and Religion 1280-1400, ch. 6, pp. 133, Plate 163 – Longitudinal section of the Duomo showing the stages of building. 3 - Dora Epstein Jones, lecture, Architecture Culture 1, SCI-Arc, Los Angeles, Wednesday, March 11, 2015. 4 - Diana Norman, Siena, Florence, and Padua: Art, Society, and Religion 12801400, ch. 6, pp. 142 “An alternative hypothesis is that the top half of the façade was designed in the 1360’s, after the events surrounding the new baptistery and the Duomo Nuovo had been experienced.” 5 - Carol Field, The Hill Towns of Italy, Siena, pp. 29, “…Siena took the side of the emperors, while her rival, Florence, a mere forty-five miles away, supported the Popes. 6 - Carol Field, The Hill Towns of Italy, Siena, pp 34, “Had the plans been arried out, this would have been a much larger cathedral than its rivals in Orvieto and Florence.” 7 - Carol Field, The Hill Towns of Italy, Siena, pp 35, “The famous floor, and enormous carpet of inlaid colored marble designs, is like a gigantic book telling stories from the Bible…The best of them are almost always hidden by protective wooden planks and are unveiled only from August 15 to September 15.” 8 - Scala, The Piccolomini Library in the Cathedral of Siena, Introduction 9 - Diana Norman, Florence, Siena, and Padua: Art, Society and Religion 1280-1400, ch. 6, pp. 137, Plate 168, Diagrammatic plan of the Duomo Nuovo. 10 - Diana Norman, Florence, Siena, and Padua: Art, Society and Religion 1280-1400, ch. 6, pp. 137, “By contrast, in Siena the Black Death led, at least indirectly, to the abandonment of the project of the Duomo Nuovo.” 11 - Diana Norman, Florence, Siena, and Padua: Art, Society and Religion 1280-1400,I ch. 6, pp 137, “The facciatone, the right aisle and the outside wall of the left aisle are all the remain of the Duomo Nuovo today.” 12 - Diana Norman, Florence, Siena and Padua: Art, Society and Religion 1280-1400, ch. 6, pp. 134, “Meanwhile in Florence around 1293-96, at the same time that Giovanni Pisano was working on the façade of Siena Duomo…” 13 - Carol Field, The Hill Towns of Italy, Siena, pp. 28, “Legend says that Siena was established by Senius, fleeing Rome after the death of his father Remus. With his brother he set up the familiar roman wolf suckling Romulus and Remus as the symbol of the city, and chose black and while for the shield, because he rode a white horse and his brother a black one, or perhaps because the two of them were hidden from enemies by two clouds, one black and one white, as they made their way north to safety.” Bibliography: 1.Norman, Diana (1995). Siena, Florence, and Padua: art society and religion 12801400. Yale University Press. 2.Scala (1982) The Piccolomini Library in the Cathedral of Siena. Istituto Fotografico Editoriale, Firenze 3.Dillerman, D.M. (1999). “Cosmopolitanism and Campanilismo: Gothic and Romanesque in the Siena Duomo Façade.” The Art Bulletin, Vol. 81, No. 3, 437-455. 4.Pregil, Philip (1999) Landscapes in History, 2nd Edition. John Wiley & Sons. 5.Carli, Enzo (1999) Siena Cathedral and the cathedral museum. Scala Publications 6.Johnson, Geraldine A. (September 1995). “Activating the effigy: Donatello’s Pecci tomb in Siena Cathedral.: The Art Bulletin 77 (3): 445-459. 7.Official website of the Siena Duomo. http://www.operaduomo.siena.it/eng/index.htm 8.UNESCO World Heritage website. “Historic Centre of Siena.” http://whc.unesco.org/ en/list/717 9.Nevola, Fabrizio (2007). Siena: Constructing the Renaissance City (Second Ed.). Yale University Press. 10.Kauffman, Richard (1983). The Hill Towns of Italy. New York: Dutton. 11.Listri, Massimo (1999) Hidden Tuscany: Unusual destinations and secret places. New York: Rizzoli International Publications. Image Index: 1.Norman, Diana (1995). Siena, Florence, and Padua: art society and religion 12801400. Yale University Press. 2.Scala (1982) The Piccolomini Library in the Cathedral of Siena. Istituto Fotografico Editoriale, Firenze 3.Wikimedia Commons. Search Terms: Siena Cathedral, Siena Duomo, Santa Maria Assunta Siena. 4.Images from the author’s personal archive. Images taken between August 2012 and December 2012. 5.Official website of the Siena Duomo. http://www.operaduomo.siena.it/eng/index.htm 6.UNESCO World Heritage website. “Historic Centre of Siena.” http://whc.unesco.org/ en/list/717
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[MIS(RE)AD] This exercise began with the analysis of Tony Smith’s SMOKE at LACMA. I noticed a strange arrangement of geometry, and I found myself being unable to complete the task at hand: draw a plan of this sculpture. Upon further study of this sculpture, I found it was not the arrangement of the geometry, but the individual pieces of this sculpture that was producing a misreading. The following exercises are re-orientations of the SMOKE sculpture, a dissection of the logic inherent in its pieces, and the reiteration of this logic to create a new family of forms. These new shapes within shapes would serve as the foundation for this studio’s building project: The Hyde Park Branch of the Los Angeles Public Library. LEFT: Axonometric view of the rotated sculpture. RIGHT: Plan, front, and side elevations respectively of the rotated sculpture.
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THIS PAGE: Orthographic drawings of new ‘family members’ that draw their logic from Smith’s Platonic solids. NEXT PAGE: Orthographic drawings of new ‘family members’ that draw their logic from Smith’s Platonic solids. NEXT PAGE BOTTOM: Diagram of of the wireframe relationship of and between the family.
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PREVIOUS PAGE: Color studies of individual family members. These color palettes are based on the paintings of Josef Albers. LEFT PAGE: Color studie of an individual family member. These color palettes are based on the paintings of Josef Albers. THIS PAGE: Diagrams of the creation of the individual family members showing how their logic derives from platonic solids. FOLLOWING PAGES: Color studies of all family members in a single geometric composition. These Color palettes are based on the paintings of Josef Albers.
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LOS ANGELES PUBLIC LIBRARY HYDE PARK BRANCH OPPOSITE PAGE: Rendering of the final library form with perforated skin. NEXT PAGE: Color studies of the proposed library’s elevations. These studies were used to further drive volumetric relationships within the structure.
The Hyde Park Branch of the Los Angeles Public Library was the focus of this studio. The existing library, originally designed by Hodgetts and Fung, was assumed to be non-existent, creating a tabula rasa for the design of this new library. The site itself is situated in South-Central Los Angeles, on the corner of Florence and Van Ness between the 110 and 710 freeways. After spending several weeks in studying geometries inspired by Boolean operands, and the artist Tony Smith, I had amassed a large collection of formal shapes from which I could begin. Being a native of Southern California, I’m well aware of the cultural and social connotations associated with South-Central Los Angeles: gangs, violence, and poverty. Also, having studied landscape architecture for my undergraduate degree, I am very familiar with Reyner Banham’s Los Angeles: The Architecture of Four Ecologies, with this site sitting within his “Plains of Id.” At first, I was reticent to impose any geometry upon a site which had little to do with prismatic shapes and an architect/artist from the 60’s. However, I was able to put aside my concerns for the project, and carry on with these geometric studies; after all, I’ve never designed a library before. The formal strategies of the exterior of the library draw from sacred Platonic solids and evoke feelings of prismatism. The panelization of the building skin is created through a gridded pattern that slips from its geometric edges and creates a misreading between Platonic edge and graphic edge. Strategies of program were developed through an internal shape that had similar language and logic to its exterior. By means of orienting these two shapes in an interest of creating meaningful pochè, aperture was then introduced to accommodate related programs such as reading rooms and offices. The orientation of the building on the site takes advantage of maximized sun exposure in areas that require the most daylight.
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THIS PAGE: Photographs of the physical model built for this library. NEXT PAGE: Line drawing elevations of the library. The pattern is ispired by the paintings of Agnes Martin. The slippages were wrapped in such a way as to dissociate the relationship bewteen geometric edge and graphic edge. This pattern was used to further develop systems of aperture and panelization.
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East-West section of the library.
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North-South section of the library.
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First Floor plan of the library.
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Second Floor plan of the library.
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STUDIES IN BOOLEAN GEOMETRY
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PREVIOUS PAGES: Diagrams that show the process of development of this shape. A series of sections then show the interior qualities of the prism. The shape was then modelled in polystyrene, photographed, and scanned in an effort to further distort the geometry. The styrene model was then used to cast a foam replica of the solid. The same scanning process was repeated, then the foam model was cut into sections, re-scanned, and compared with the original sections of the styrene mold.
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