January 2014 Architecture Portfolio

A PORTFOLIO OF EXITS CARLY GERTLER, M.Arch 1 AP Harvard GSD

A PORTFOLIO OF EXITS operates through constant juxtaposition of project types to arrive at a more rich understanding of architecture itself.

Vacillation between projects of SITE-SPECIFIC ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN consideration of complete spatial relationships in architectural settings THEORETICAL SPECULATION theorizations on the application of architecture without specific context or program (NON)ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN applications of form and site beyond buildings proper

provides an exiting and entering of the discipline of architecture— landing, waiting, leaving, and returning.

Three main themes act as unifiers within this collocation: Narrative Translation, Systemization, and Perception.

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PROJECTS ON

NARRATIVE TRANSLATION

A BUILDING IN CONVERSATION B

THIS IS NOT A FARNSWORTH

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C

VISUAL EXTENSION

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A 5

TRANSLATING ORATIONS

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3 7 1

SEMANTICS OF OBJECTS

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MATERIAL AWARENESS

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PROJECTS ON

SYSTEMIZATION PROTOSURFACE

f2. The Exterior Datum

THEORIZING LOGICS

Mont Royal defines the urban fabric of the city through a zoning code of 205 m, where no building can go higher than the mountain itself. Historically the mountain also determines the city grid. Viewing from the Mont Royal lookout, there is a distinct dialogue with the buildings and the inhabitants of the city. A view such as this is rare and unusual for a dense urban fabric, making the exterior facade of the building even the more important.

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PROJECTS ON

PERCEPTION CAPTURING THE BLUR UNTITLED

BETWEEN THE WEST AND THE WESTERN

TABLE OF CONTENTS

extended out past the border... where was he?

The Searchers, 1956

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A BUILDING IN CONVERSATION_DANIELLE ETZLER INSTRUCTOR, HARVARD GSD CORE STUDIO 3, 2013 THIS IS NOT A FARNSWORTH_CHRISTOPHER HOXIE INSTRUCTOR, HARVARD GSD VIS 2223, 2013 VISUAL EXTENSION_JOEL SCHMIDT INSTRUCTOR, TCAUP ARCH 312, 2011

TRANSLATING ORATIONS_DAWN GILPIN INSTRUCTOR, TCAUP ARCH 218, 2010

SEMANTICS OF OBJECTS_JAN HENRIK INSTRUCTOR, A&D ART/DES 300, 2011

MATERIAL AWARENESS_ STEVEN CHRISTENSEN INSTRUCTOR, TCAUP ARCH 201, 2010

PROJECTS ON NARRATIVE TRANSLATION

A BUILDING IN CONVERSATION takes on the task of a mixed-use high rise - a city within a city - in which the juxtaposition of a sports facility/gymnasium, a bath/pool complex, and a hotel combine to form an urbanistic approach to a high rise in a city context. Structure, Facade, Circulation, Egress, Thermodynamics, and Urban Position are all taken on as elements of design to facilitate an integrated approach.

The building is sited in downtown Montreal, where the urban fabric is much about the duality between the “underground city”, the ground level street condition, and the experience from Mont Royal. This split of three is embodied in the project, portioning out each program in order to share collectively a vertical experience. All programs - gym/spa/hotel - exist at all three sectional levels.

Driving this split is the concept of PARTAGE (Noun: Division, sharing, the act of partitioning out or dividing up; A division in order to hold in common).

Engaging in a theoretical discussion, the building identifies this splitting with the Baroque notion of the Leibnizian “Fold” and the allegory of the baroque house. Described by a shrinking downward and an upward pull, the upper level is metaphysical and concerns the soul, the lower physical and concerns the body. This plays into the atmospheric divisioning of program vertically throughout the building - where the higher one is the more solitary and individual ones experience becomes.

Throughout the entire project, DATUM (Noun. A unit of measure) plays a large role in determining form, program allocation, urban strategy, thermodynamics, and structural strategy. This interest comes from Mont Royal’s specific relationship with the city of Montreal and its urban fabric. Shaping and regulating it, the mountain caps the city off at a zoning code of 203 meters, where no building can go higher than the mountain itself. Historically, the mountain and river similarly designated the original city grid, where the grid was set up on an axis of Mountain - River, versus N - S. The building responds to this geographical exterior relationship through the goal to reach a pinnacle and through the interior inhabitation therein.

CONCEPT Datum / The Urban Scale Mont Royal has a specific relationship with the city of Montreal and its urban fabric. Shaping and regulating it, it caps the city off at a zoning code of 203 m., where no building can go higher than the The urban fabric in Montreal is much mountain itself. Historically, the mounabout the duality between the “undertain and river similarly designated the EXPERIENCE ground city”, the ground level street, and EXPERIENCE FACADE TURE original city grid, where the grid was set Quiet / The Hotel the elevated mountain/building tzky Cloud Frame Ephemera and Mass - layering experi- Ground above - Panorama Space up Mountain River, building, versus N-S. ence.

Thisstrategy split of three the Throughout ort the distribution of program The facade is oneisofembodied layeringinand the- entire onesHow re- In order to reach a pinnacle, the hotel can a building to theseprograms geological building - portioning outthe each program y, a structural system much like concealment, heightening juxtaposilationship to therespond lofted public Driving concepts and inspiration, top to bottom, left isto program right: acts as the subordinate supporter. exterior in relationships through its interior Opposite of a place to see and be seen, the in order collectively a vertical tion of theshare interiorority of the hotel andMont El Lissitzky’s Cloud Frame is explicit framing ones view to context.

Leibniz Baroque House, Royal height datum, facade ephemera, ground inhabitation? experience. at all three The This structural move facilitates the exteriorityAll of programs the publicexist spaces.

Where city is always framed by the building hotel acts as quiet escapism and subtle above frame of city, Buckminster Fuller Montreal Expo, El Lissitzky Cloud Frame sectional Encounters and loud acts xperience of lofted and ephemeral the facade levels. is the lightest - it is concealing itself - one is always in relationship to the experience.

THERMODYNAMICS STRUCTURE EXPERIENCE E EXPERIENCE minimal as the hotel entrance slips onditions through a unification the dense hotel programs wtihin. Where city through this understanding of where are Buckminster Fuller + The Utopia El Lissitzky Cloud Frame Quiet / The Hotel a and Mass - layering Ground above Panorama Space Similar division iswhere the Baroque quietly off the side street.

Divided into ural elements. One can occupy the facadeinis this the heaviest, conone is within the building.

Above, below, Montreal the asite of the 1967 World To support the distribution of program In order towas reach pinnacle, the hotel e strategy is one of layering and Throughout theLeibnizian entire building, ones notion of the and rethe right, three separate hotels, each has their own of this structure below each of crete meets exterior, this is “Fold”, alternately left, these masses act as points of Expo, where Buckminster program acts as the subordinateFuller’s supporter.vertically, a structural system much like nt, heightening the juxtaposi- lationship tothe thebaroque lofted public programs is Fair allegory of house/the monad. distinct character formally, spatially, and ed public programs. the most public programs. The facade is direction and datums inInside themselves.

This Biosphère was erected.

Opposite of a place to see anditbeconseen, the that of El Lissitzky’s Cloud Frame is e interiorority of the hotel and explicit in framing ones view to context.

Described byat a shrinking atmospherically. soft - explicit the cornersdownward of structureand - istained facilitated throughclosed the creation of a a completely and self-regadopted. This structural move facilitates hotel acts as quiet escapism and subtle ority of the public spaces. Where and The is always framed by the building an city upward pull, the upper level is metawraps layers of glass, structure, and panoramic circulation space around the a new experience of lofted and ephemeral ulating ecosystem within which there experience.

Encounters and loud acts is the lightest - it is concealing sheathing itself - oneand is always to the hotel physical concernsin therelationship soul, theoflower The hotelconditions rooms exist as monads - comthroughout the entirety the programs. buildings andhotel a museum. ground through a unification are minimal as the entranceSimilar slips pletely physical andthis concerns the body. This plays existed hotel programs wtihin. Where building. city through understanding of where interior, separateOne fromcan theoccupy exterithis, the of hot programs of structural elements. off division the side street.

Divided and into ority intois the atmospheric divisioning of prois the heaviest, where conone within the building.

Above, below, toquietly of theof panoramic circulation space. hotels as three separate the space this structure below each of gramleft, vertically throughout building. three act separate hotels, each systems: has theirwithown They s exterior, this is alternately right, these masses act asthepoints of thepublic core, dense and heavy whichcharacter the facadeformally, responds spatially, to containand or these hug lofted programs. distinct public programs. The facade is direction and datums in themselves. This in transfering heat without systems.

Light release heat through thermal chimneys. atmospherically. icit at the corners of structure - is facilitated through the creation of a comes in through clerestory windows s layers of glass, structure, and panoramic circulation space around the - there is an optional camera obscura to The hotel rooms exist as monads - com- bring in the outside world. throughout the entirety of the hotel programs.

CONCEPT Partage / The Fold Noun. Division, sharing; the act of portioning out or dividing up; A division in order to hold in common.

A BUILDING IN CONVERSATION

pletely interior, separate from the exteriority of the panoramic circulation space.

They hug the core, dense and heavy transfering heat without systems. Light comes in through clerestory windows - there is an optional camera obscura to bring in the outside world.

FACADE Ephemera and Mass - layering The facade strategy is one of layering and concealment, heightening the juxtaposition of the interiorority of the hotel and the exteriority of the public spaces. Where the facade is the lightest - it is concealing the dense hotel programs wtihin. Where the facade is the heaviest, where concrete meets exterior, this is alternately the most public programs. The facade is soft - explicit at the corners of structure and wraps layers of glass, structure, and sheathing throughout the entirety of the building.

EXPERIENCE Ground above - Panorama Space Throughout the entire building, ones relationship to the lofted public programs is explicit in framing ones view to context.

The city is always framed by the building itself - one is always in relationship to the city through this understanding of where one is within the building. Above, below, right, left, these masses act as points of direction and datums in themselves. This is facilitated through the creation of a panoramic circulation space around the hotel programs.

EXPER Quiet / In orde program Opposit hotel ac experien are min quietly three se distinct atmosph

The hot pletely i ority of They hu transfer comes in - there bring in

FIELD NOTES Focusing on thermodynamics, the studio began with three sites in drastically different environmental conditions: Dubai, Montreal, and Medellin. These three hand collages (acetone transfer, collage, ink, and graphite) explore field conditions by abstracting each city grid and overlaying abstractions of what creates a ‘site’. Montreal (above) looks at the entire city of Montreal as a negative, thereby exploring porosity of land by the St. Lawrence River and the duality of the Underground City versus the above ground experience.

SITE Downtown Montreal Sited in Montreal’s downtown district, the building has access to both a main road and a side street for private entrance of the hotel. Vertically, the site is flanked by the tallest buildings in Montreal, reaching just under 200 m. The building itself reaches a pinnacle of 203 m, the maximum allowed by the city, in order to face Mont Royal. The higher stories give the clearest view of Mont Royal and the St. Lawrence River on the opposite side.

Opposite page: Circulation Diagram primary, secondary, tertiary, and private circulation vertically. One main global elevator stops at all public program levels - between those run local circulation to each hotel grouping.

Study Model Wood + White Acrylic Montreal Site Model Ash + Veneer

This page: Site Plan + Site Sections Program Division Diagrams 1. FAR: 15 floors 2. Division of program to meet 203 m mountain datum 3. Partage: meeting 3 datums with public programs

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Top to bottom: Drawing 1 Plan: System 2 Pool Lobby Plan and System 2 Basketball Court Plan Image: The Exterior Datum Viewing from the Mont Royal lookout, there is a distinct dialogue with the buildings and the inhabitants of the city. A view such as this is rare and unusual for a dense urban fabric, making the exterior facade of the building even the more important.

Drawing 2 Plan: System 2 Hotel Plan Image: The Interior Journey I enter my room and I am within - A light bar shines from the window above onto the wall next to me. It is as if the interior of this room is completely separate from the hallway I just walked through. I like it, I am here to rest, enjoy the spa, and be by myself.

I sit down and enjoy the silence and meditative quality of the space around me.

Circulation Diagram Circulation Systems through System 2 a. global, b. local, d. tertiary, e. private

FACADE Ephemera and Mass - layering The facade strategy is one of layering and concealment, heightening the juxtaposition of the inferiority of the hotel and the exteriority of the public circulation spaces. Where the facade is the lightest - it is concealing the dense hotel programs within. Where the facade is the most opaque and heavy, this is the most public programs and/or acts to isolate the building from the neighboring skyscrapers. The facade is soft - explicit at the corners of structure - and wraps layers of vision glass, etched opaque glass, steel and concrete structure, and plaster throughout the entirety of the building.

EXPERIENCE

FACADE Ephemera and Mass - layering The facade strategy is one of layering and concealment, heightening the juxtaposition of the interiorority of the hotel and the exteriority of the public spaces. Where the facade is the lightest - it is concealing the dense hotel programs wtihin. Where the facade is the heaviest, where concrete meets exterior, this is alternately the most public programs. The facade is soft - explicit at the corners of structure and wraps layers of glass, structure, and sheathing throughout the entirety of the building.

Ground Above - Panorama Space Throughout the entire building, ones relationship to the lofted public programs is explicit in framing ones views to context. The city is always framed by the building itself - one is always in relationship to the city through this understanding of where one is within the building. Above, below, right, left: these masses act as points of direction and datums in themselves. This is facilitated through the creation of a panoramic circulation space around the hotel programs.

EXPERIENCE Ground above - Panorama Space Throughout the entire building, ones relationship to the lofted public programs is explicit in framing ones view to context.

The city is always framed by the building Quiet/The Hotel itself one is always intherelationship the In order- to reach a pinnacle, hotel programto acts as thethrough subordinate supporter.

Opposite of awhere place city this understanding of to see and be seen, the hotel acts as a quiet escapism and subtle experience.

Encounters and loud one is within the building.

Above, below, acts are minimal as the hotel entrance slips quietly right, left,street. theseDivided massesinto actthree as points off the side separateof hotels, eachand has its own abstract character formally, direction datums in themselves.

This spatially, and atmospherically as the building reachis facilitated through the creation of a es higher into the air vertically. panoramic circulation space around the The hotel rooms exist as monads - furthering the connection of the baroque house - completely hotel programs. interior and separate from the exteriority of the panoramic circulation space. They hug the core, dense and heavy, transferring heat without systems as part of the thermodynamic building strategy.

Light comes in through clerestory windows in the lower hotel rooms, yet the higher hotel rooms open up to a view of the mountain.

EXPERIENCE Quiet / The Hotel In order to reach a pinnacle, the hotel program acts as the subordinate supporter.

Opposite of a place to see and be seen, the hotel acts as quiet escapism and subtle experience. Encounters and loud acts are minimal as the hotel entrance slips quietly off the side street. Divided into three separate hotels, each has their own distinct character formally, spatially, and atmospherically.

The hotel rooms exist as monads - completely interior, separate from the exteriority of the panoramic circulation space.

They hug the core, dense and heavy transfering heat without systems. Light comes in through clerestory windows - there is an optional camera obscura to bring in the outside world.

Plan: Ground Floor Plan Image: Exterior Ground The urban fabric in Montreal is much about the duality between the Underground City, the ground street level, and the elevated experience of the city from Mont Royal. Engaging in this dialogue, the public never experiences the building at the ground level, instead they are always traveling either up or down to enter. Image shows the ground floor entrance of the public pool/gym programs, where the lobby resides one level below ground and from the street one can observe the diving pool. The street datum continues through the building with lights hanging at ground level.

Porosity Study Model: rockite, acetone, foam, cat litter aggregate

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STRUCTURE El Lissitsky - Cloud Frame To support the distribution of program vertically, a structural system inspired by El Lissitzky’s Cloud Frame is adopted. This structural move facilitates a new experience of lofted and ephemeral ground conditions through a unification of structural elements.

One can occupy the space of this structure below each of these lofted public programs.

Hotel System 1. whole system: floor girder, edge plate, and core concrete structure 2. floor girders and edge plates 3. single floor: plan and axon Lofted Pool/Gym System: 4. whole system: column, beam and truss 5. columns and beams 6. truss and edge plate 7. Two systems together: entire building

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Opposite Page: Section A & Section B, highlight the relationship of the hotel rooms to the exterior and the internal chimney’s affect on the exterior atmosphere.

THERMODYNAMICS

This page, top to bottom:

Buckminster Fuller + The Utopia Montreal was the site of the 1967 World Fair Expo, where Buckminster Fuller’s Biosphere was erected. Inside it contained a completely closed and self-regulating ecosystem within which there existed buildings and a museum.

Study Models Rockite and Ash, Resin, Copper Plate, Ash, and White Acrylic, Ash.

Similar to this, the division of public programs and hotel rooms vertically lets the building act as three separate systems within which a thermodynamic chimney can bring heat between hot/cool programs. These systems are then wrapped in a skin akin to that of Bucky Fuller’s Biosphere.

A hot core is created by three chimney systems which span from “hot” pool/gym programs below to bring heat vertically through the hotel systems and out into the air. This system creates bursts of vapor around the building - layering clouds in extreme cold weather to conceal the tight facade.

Montreal Site Model and Resin Study Model Resin, Copper Wire, Ash, Veneer

Opposite page: Final Section Model 1/3 of building modeled to expose the interior hotel rooms (museum board and gray spray paint). Structure modeled in white acrylic, base of model in gray chip board, floor plates museum board, facade clear acrylic and hand etched acrylic, museum wire.

THIS IS NOT A FARNSWORTH is an exercise done in collaboration with Yi Li and Yufeng Zheng critiquing the architectural process of rendering and imaging. Using the iconic Farnsworth house, our goal was to drastically change the environments it stood within in relationship to popular cultural references such as the renderings of MIR for BIG, American Western Cinema, and the CG digital immersive environments movement. Selected are two critiques, the first of Western Cinema and the second of MIR’s Nordic Romantic style renderings. Each rendering focused on critiquing effects used in the field such as the “sexy figure”, the “light flare”, the “foreground object” and “the dramatic atmosphere”.

As much as this is a critique of rendering, the same tools were utilized to produce the images such as 3DS MAX, Forest Pack, and After Effects. Each image depicts an immersive 3D environment that is then rendered out and stylized in After Effects.

“When renderings become reality, reality no longer has to compete” Aaron Craig Smith

Top row: The Searchers - American Western Cinema Middle row: MIR rendering for BIG - Nordic Romantic Bottom: The Treachery of Images by René Magritte

THIS IS NOT A FARNSWORTH COLLABORATORS: YI LI & YUFENG ZHENG

Top Image: Mies Farnswroth in a Nordic Romantic MIR Bottom Images: Mies Farnsworth in a Western Film All environments modeled in 3DS MAX as fully immersive digital environments using After Effects to then change the mood of the image

Nordic Romantic Farnsworth, 3DS MAX digital environment with After Effects post processing

Architecture is a product of the relationships forged between individuals and a particular setting.

VISUAL EXTENSION is a project focusing on this claim, in which a museum of slow-motion and time-lapse films become the setting for a narrative of relationships between form, body, and situation.

From the embedding of forms within one another, visual extension is made possible where physical movement is not.

This notion of seeing farther than one can go stems from a critique on the city, where one can go farther than one can see.

Context_University of Michigan’s Central Campus, South University Street

VISUAL EXTENSION

Above: Museum Facade, blank gallery slicing through Opposite: Glass roof allowing for visual connection between University Towers Apartments and the museum below

“...architecture becomes the discourse of events as much as the discourse of spaces” -Bernard Tschumi, “Space and Events”

Exposure of interior spaces revealing correlation of mullion rhythm to tempo of gallery spaces

-2 Archive

-1 Lobby Cafe Landscape

Slow gallery sits atop transparent office space; mullions respond to tempo of program above, stairs descend to entry level

1 Fast Gallery Theater

2 Offices

3 Slow Gallery

Descending levels: Slow Gallery, Blank Gallery, Offices, Entry, Fast Gallery, Lobby, and Archive

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Blank Gallery concept model

TRANSLATING ORATIONS focuses the translation of printed and spoken narratives into drawing and 3D form.

“Gnarly Blue Heron” is a translation of an orated story by peer Charles Veneklase in which, on the way home from a family trip, his father struck a Blue Herring with the family’s 1981 Station Wagon. Translations from this story focus on the difference between what is discursive thought and what is a constructed fantasy of the mind.

Study Translation Drawing: Down the Rabbit Hole, focusing on Alice’s fall into Wonderland

TRANSLATING ORATIONS

SEMANTICS OF OBJECTS consists of two projects from one studio focusing on the semantics of design for the contemporary condition.

Project 1: Naturalizing Energy focuses on ways to inspire less energy usage through intervening at the source: the outlet.

A connection between nature and electricity is evoked through outlet covers that close and turn off the electricity, reducing “vampire energy�.

Project 2: Salt and Pepper proposes a language of delicacy and respect for food through the form of Salt and Pepper shakers. Translating the narrative of the origins, facts, and fiction surrounding the spices, a form is created that changes the way the user interacts with the spices to a more delicate and respectful action. Ten pairs of porcelain salt and pepper shakers are pulled from one plaster cast mold and individually fit to walnut bases.

Left to Right Project 1: Naturalizing Energy Project 2: Salt and Pepper

SEMANTICS OF OBJECTS

Above: Naturalizing Electricity outlet cover - renshape high density foam (set 1 of 8) Previous: Optional cover orientations, six variations were fabricated Through a subtle form cognizant of human factors and environmental concerns, a language of consciousness, knowledge, and awareness is shaped.

Above: Salt and Pepper shakers- porcelain slip cast forms (set 7 of 10) in walnut base

MATERIAL AWARENESS focuses on emphasizing the narrative of Traverwood District Library through freehand architectural drawing types such as plan, section, axon, and exploded axon. Designed by inFORM Studio, Traverwood District Library re-uses wood from its site location that has suffered the effects of the Emerald Ash Borer, a destructive beetle, which feeds on the tissues under the bark yet leaves it structurally intact. This wood is used in the floors, walls, ceiling, and structure of the library.

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1. Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning 2. Traverwood District Library, inFORM Studio 3. View for freehand perspective drawing, site of Emerald Ash Borer invasion.

MATERIAL AWARENESS

Above: Section cut studying different types of wood usage Opposite: View 3 from context diagram (pg. 19) focusing on how architecture frames both interior/exterior relationships of wood and nature

2 PROTOSURFACE_ANDREW WITT INSTRUCTOR GSD VIS 0224, 2013 THEORIZING LOGICS_LAURA BOUWMAN INSTRUCTOR TCAUP ARCH 322, 2012

PROJECTS ON SYSTEMIZATION

PROTOSURFACE focuses on mathematically controlling surfaces to create both space and aperture inspired by the work of mathematicians and sculptors such as Alan Schoen, Peter Pierce, and Antoine Pvesner. The project began with one single sphere as a means of creating geodesics for a medial surface instantiation. These three geodesics were then scaled and rotated about a single axis to derive an intricate and woven medial surface.

The modularity of these voids and their ability to connect through parametrically controlled transformations such as mirroring and rotating was then explored. The final surface uses eight aggregations of the single unit, yet can expand indefinitely. The individual faces of the final surface were exploded and offset individually to create a shingle-like surface which emphasizes the concave or convex curvature of the surface.

Surface creation through 1. sphere, 2. altered geodesics, 3. medial surface, 4. unitizing surface, 5. rotating, 6. mirroring

PROTOSURFACE COLLABORATOR: PATRICK BURKE

THEORIZING LOGICS is a three part project sited on and around the University of Michigan Art & Architecture building, This project looks deeply into the relationship of systems as a means to abstract form, delineate program, and translate conceptual notions.

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1 Art & Architecture Building, University of Michigan 1. Part 1 site: South parking lot 2. Part 2 site: East empty terrain 3. Part 3 site: South facade

THEORIZING LOGICS

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Part 1 speculates on alternative uses for surface parking through the application of a tessellated rhombi pattern in both form and intangible logics. Pattern acts as the basis for organization of program, sequence, and ground while creating a shared surface meant for all users: humans, cars, bikes, and animals.

PATTERN STUDY: TESSELLATED RHOMBUS 01. SPACED

02. COLLAPSED

03. BIASED

PROGRAM PATTERN

MATERIAL

EXHIBITION SPACE

CONCRETE

WORK SPACE

GRASSCRETE

PARKING LOT 1

URBAN FARMING

PARKING LOT 2

RESULTANT GRASS/

STAIR WELLS

FIRE ROUTE RESULTANT GRASS/STAIRS GRASSCRETE URBAN FARMING

Part 2 is proposed as a research space adaptable to fluid movement and ad-hoc occupations which separates itself from the institution next door through a lifted and contorted form. Through the process of embedding and intersecting six masses in plan and section, forms become realized in both skin and bone, leaving behind a structural framework to literally frame interior and exterior spaces.

CONTORTED COMPONENTS EXTERIOR LAYER // WORK SPACE, FACULTY OFFICES UNDERPINNINGS // CIRCULATION, MAIN STRUCTURE

plan section

plan section

Cross section left to right: showcase stair, faculty offices, entry ramp, street entry, open work area, offices

Longitudinal section left to right: work space, entry ramp, cafe, showcase stair

Part 3 focuses on surface as a boundary that responds to both theoretical speculation and environmental concerns. Considerations of interior program and avoidance of southern light exposure gives way to a form of undulating surfaces dictated by occupational and programmatic pressures.

RESISTANCE AND REGISTRATION OF INTERIOR PROGRAM HIGH REGISTRATION LOW REGISTRATION HIGH RESISTANCE LOW RESISTANCE UNAFFECTED

Roof plan

Sun study: 8 AM

Sun study: NOON

Sun study: 5 PM

Plan Detail

“The surface... is the boundary which does not merely register the pressure of the interior, but resists it” ZaeraPolo, “The Politics of the Envelope”

Undulating surfaces create East/ West apertures while maintaining the illusion of one surface. This illusion is strengthened through a gold mirror sheathing which reflects ground and sky at alternating intervals.

Elevation

Night Elevation

Roof Plan

PLEAT LINE

Pleat Line Detail Elevation The “pleat line� defines both the program within and the pleating action done on the surface. Each pleat registers or resists the interior program, pushing in or out at varying degrees creating more light where necessary. Meanwhile, these surfaces remain bound at the top and bottom by the existing building.

3 CAPTURING THE BLUR_JOEL SCHMIDT INSTRUCTOR TCAUP ARCH 312, 2011 UNTITLED_KEITH MITNICK INSTRUCTOR TCAUP ARCH 412, 2012

BETWEEN THE WEST AND THE WESTERN_ CHRISTIAN STAYNER INSTRUCTOR TCAUP WALLENBERG THESIS STUDIO, 2012

PROJECTS ON PERCEPTION

Indeterminacy and ambiguity are conditions that suggest possibilities as opposed to fixed meanings. Shifting authorship from the maker to the audience, they invite speculation and engage viewers tangentially.

CAPTURING THE BLUR is an 11 week project made up of three smaller intensive studies, all of which focus on creating both conceptual and perceptual “blurry space�. First two studies explore positive/negative form making through ambiguities in haptic masking and perceptions of kinetic forms. The third study theorizes on the possibilities of creating an inhabitable space from Study 1 and Study 2. The program here is a stop motion cinematography museum that takes on a labyrinthine framework, winding six separate pathways throughout the structure.

Blurry photographs and Concept Models: upper left photograph is used to begin formal investigations by layering on white solid (far left) and carving out positive/negative space.

CAPTURING THE BLUR

Concept Model 4: Negative Cast of Concept Model 1 & Concept Model 2 focusing on the kinetic release from the initial solid white box

Above: Museum Model before cladding, exposed circulation, and (opposite) after cladding.

Longitudinal and cross sections of concept models

UNTITLED is a project grounded in the perceptual logics of “othering” where the self is constituted through everything but itself. Through the act of delaminating symbolic forms, pulling apart the symbolic volume from its programmatic usage or implied meanings, one’s relationship to form becomes ambiguous.

Chicago’s Navy Pier is treated as a tabula rasa for an intersection of two worlds: Planetarium and Aquarium.

Program begins to form separate from the defined symbolic spaces these two Institutions carry while the institutional logics of each remain held fast. A de-composition ensues as one moves through the Aquatarium in sequence, experiencing an inversion of what one thought was the institution versus what actually is the institution. Within this separation lie unifiers as the “semiotic cut” or “ah-ha” moment, where the symbolic is not longer delaminated from its prescribed role. These moments run from beginning conceptual diagrams to the architeture itself in the form of the follow-through or the horizon.

Site: Chicago’s Navy Pier Conceptual Diagram: Mona Lisa de-composed, described through context

UNTITLED

Left to Right Construct 1: Voided symbolic A-frame house then delaminated from its symbolic center through image and relationship Photo Construct: Building off Construct 1, this photo construct focuses on blending of delaminated parts through the concept of the follow through Drawing Construct: Exploring natures of the follow through and delaminated symbolic center at three scales of the pier.

Working drawing

REDEFINITIONS & SPECULATIONS ON INSTITUTIONS FIGURE 1. ORGANIZATION OF INSTITUTION BASED ON RELATIVE SPEED

1_PLANETARIUM AS OBJECT RELATIONSHIPS_planetary

1. relative MOVEMENT

2. relative NUMBER

3. relative INCLINATION

4. relative SPEED

void symbolic center circulating body gravitational pull ROTATIONAL SPEED X

FIGURE 2. EXPERIENCE OF INSTITUTIONS

2_AQUARIUM AND PLANETARIUM AS EXPERIENCE RELATIONSHIPS_personal

1. relative INFERIORITY

2. relative SCALE

3. relative EXPOSURE

4. relative SEGREGATION

5. relative BOUNDARY

segregation boundary condition exposure opinions/illusions confusion

variables as a function of [movement, time,

circulation, scale]

3_AQUARIUM AS ECOSYSTEM AND EDUCATION RELATIONSHIPS_aquatic

1. relative SITE to STABILITY

2. relative PRESSURE

3. relative MAINTENCE

OF ECOSYSTEM

FIGURE 3. RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN MENTAL STABILITY AND ECO-STABILITY eco-stability mental stability

variables as a function of size

Site Model: comparison of new site to existing pier

Relationship of Earth’s horizon to other planetary orbits

Horizon corrected, acting now as unifier of planetary orbits Diagrams detail logic used in delineating sequence of programmatic planetarium spaces

Lake Michigan planetarium

voided tank

projected aquarium

tank aquarium

1 HOTEL_circulation through voided rooms

2 AQUARIUM_tanks take to the periphery, occupy space of voided tanks

3 AQUATARIUM_programmatic slippage, delamination of planetarium function

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Pier Plan +1

Pier Plan -1

4 PLANETARIU space: recogn form yet sepa program

entry tank

voided tanks

Lake Michigan

5 PLANETARIUM_true space: programmatically aligned

UM_partial nition of arate from

6 INSTITUTION_decomposition of circulation: circulate through median space while visually accessing hallways

7 INSTITUTION_decomposition of circulation: entry through median space while exit through primary space

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One enters the institution underneath the pier, sequentially working through layers of Planetarium/Aquarium scenarios. Between these two institutions is the transit terminal.

Without acknowledgment of the institution it is surrounded by, this terminal connects traveler to hotel to Chicago interrupted.

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AQUARIUM

PROJECTED AQUARIUM: PROGRAM SLIPPAGE

PLANETARIUM: PROGRAMMATICALLY ALIGNED, ACCESSIBLE ONLY THROUGH TRANSIT TERMINAL PLANETARIUM: ENTRY THEATER

PLANETARIUM: OUTDOOR THEATER

PLANETARIUM

Top Down, Left to Right: Longitudinal Section Site Plan Site Elevation Next Page: Structural Study Model, looking at decomposition of structural elements producing non-functional pylons concentrated in areas of highest programmatic weight

PLANETARIUM: PARTIAL SPACE, RESTAURANT BELOW

TRANSIT TERMINAL

HOTEL

PROJECTED AQUARIUM: PROGRAM SLIPPAGE

AQUARIUM: VOIDED TANK

The film genre of the Western presents a mythology of the West so powerful that it has largely overshadowed the actual place and experience of the landscapes it frames and cinematically represents. Instead it has become an inhabitable mythology -- a “promise land” in which American ideals of individuality are founded. Today, the (Old) West of the Western is confronted by the realities of complex political, social, and environmental issues that comprise the space of the new (Contemporary) West.

This project takes place in the Navajo Nation, possibly the most famous of these constructed landscapes – from the expansive Cinemascope views of Monument Valley to the tracking shots of Gregory Peck on horseback in Canyon de Chelly.

Constructing vision through extreme foreground and background views, the Western removes the contemporary situation of the West, leaving a “middle ground” open for architectural intervention.

The architecture of the middle ground seeks to make explicit paradoxes and occupy this spatial void by providing a new representation in which ideas of far, near, and middle are reframed through the relationship to horizon, land, and program.

In a single architectural investigation spread over three sites, Between the West and the Western seeks to mediate between the building scale and the landscape it is situated within - ultimately creating spaces of an active body-politic in a new promise land of the Contemporary West.

Left: The extreme close-ups and panoramas of the “Old West” The Searchers, The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly, Once Upon a Time in the West, The Wild Bunch, and High Noon

BETWEEN THE WEST AND THE WESTERN

The Contemporary Western: one project separated over three sites in which architecture becomes the mediator between building scale and the landscape of crisis it is situated within.

Top to Bottom: Wallenberg Symposium Exhibition: The Contemporary Western is constructed through active engagement of issues of site, culture, and ecology. Rather than the passive engagement of watching a Western Film, each project is set up to engage the viewer through different means of abstract framing: the tripod, the pinhole camera, the mirror (French landscape) and the camera.

Explication: Three books were designed to detail the elements that constructed this “Contemporary Western� in a film script form. Each set up the scene (site analysis), described the actors (program placements), and directed the production (middle ground diagrams).

Major US Indian Route 41 State ownership boundary Self-determined dirt road Self-determined dirt lot Concrete lot

Social program Residential

Setting the Stage – Three Sites (Left): Intensely controversial, the Peabody Energy-owned Kayenta Mine provides electrical power for much of the American southwest (Arizona, Nevada, and California), constitutes the main source of air and water pollution in the region, and is the primary site of employment and revenue for the Reservation economies. Its reclaimed land, once held culturally sacred to the Navajo, serves as the architectural ground of Scenic Transportation. The mine’s coal is hauled 75 miles by railroad to the Navajo Generating Station, a power plant located near the border of the reservation and Page, Arizona. This border land, framed by the three 775 foot-tall gas stacks of the Navajo Gen-

erating Station, is the site of Consumer Motel. Fast Infrastructure, as the third architectural intervention, is sited north of the Kayenta Mine in Monument Valley, a region specifically imaged in John Ford’s 1956 film, The Searchers, and layered with representational significance.

Actors – The Vernacular (Map + Photographs): Within this construction of the Contemporary Western exists a catalogue of vernacular architectural and landscape elements that combine to act as middle-programs, creating a human scale in a place where no sense of something larger than self is evident.

These found everyday elements, such

as the scenic overlook or the gas station, constitute the body of the Contemporary Western experience.

tire repair station

motel

water/ wind infrastructure

street market gas station/ art depot meeting lodge church

scenic overlook

fast food restaurant trading post church

demand internal

external

internal

external

temporal

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representation vernacular

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vernacular

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Contemporary West Site Map (Above) As the frontier of the American political and theological imagination , the West and its history remain largely misrepresented today through the timelessness of the Western film genre.

Alongside this idealization of the West exists another West: that of the Native Americans as occupants rather than invaders, of an economy dependent on federal handouts rather than individualism , and of a natural environment overburdened with man’s misuse rather than a land ripe for occupation.

This is the contemporary western situation, lost between the extreme foreground and background shots of the Western film genre. No more explicit is

this situation than in the physical place of the Navajo Nation of northeastern Arizona. From the expansive Cinemascope views of Monument Valley to the tracking shots of Gregory Peck on horseback in Canyon de Chelly, the Navajo Nation is a place mainly experienced through its continuous representation by outside sources.

What is lacking from this external representation is an experience of the physical place itself, the experience of a contemporary west. Constituting the project of the Contemporary Western, Between the West and the Western is composed of one architectural intervention separated over three sites in the Navajo Nation, proposing architectures’ ability to intervene within and

around political, cultural, and ecological issues of the present west.

Capturing Middle: From the understanding of the frontier as the middle territory of America, to the gap between the panorama and close up of the Western film genre – middle appears as a consistent means by which to engage within the dialogue of the West. The production of the Contemporary Western focuses on an architectural grasping of this middle, varying between each of the three sites according to formal movements, views, and concepts of occupation.

They wondered what what happening to the ground as it was reflected off the strange surface ahead

Film Still Vignettes (Right):

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The Searchers, 1956

Within the film stills, the architectural condition occupies this middle ground.

Each re-appropriates western cinema characters into the representation of the Contemporary Western.

He looked across the augmented landscape to see in the distance three faint towers...

His Ennio: horizon why was is theerased ceilingasmoving? up, down, ahead, and behind were replaced by juxtaposition of land 15:00

The land was extended out past the border... where was he?

My Daring Clementine, 1946

The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly, 1965

My Daring Clementine, 1946

Actively Constructed Vision (left): The Contemporary Western is constructed through active engagement of issues of site, culture, and ecology.

Rather than the passive engagement of watching a Western film, each project is set up to engage the viewer through different means of abstract framing: the tripod, the mirror (French landscape), and the pinhole camera.

Top: Consumer Motel Middle: Scenic Transportation Bottom: Fast Infrastructure All models: high density foam (routed), 3D prints, acrylic etched, metal wire, wood, collage elements.

THE LANDSCAPE Scenic Transportation The Landscape is omnipresent and within Western cinema. It acts as a foil character, there to make explicit the situation at present. Scenic Transportation takes the landscape as a referent to compose a passive space engaged through sight and movement on the reclaimed land of Peabody Energy’s Katenta open pit coal mine. Here, land is constantly in motion as the act of mining moves, removes, and replaces what was once held culturally sacred. Combining vernacular programs of the scenic overlook, gas station, and airport, Scenic Transportation facilitates a visual middle ground through taking the ground and roof as architectural primitives for generating a space of occupation. Visually creating juxtapositions and oppositions through varying rhythms of reflective surfaces and varying understandings of ground, the architectural form explicates the notion of excavation and the temporal value of land.

THE GUN Fast Infrastructure The Pistol acts as a form of communication and active engagement within the Western film. As an architectural analogue of the pistol, Fast Infrastructure combines the typical water/ wind infrastructure found within the frontier space of the Navajo Nation with a fast food restaurant typically found at most highway junctions, facilitating a dialogue of consumption and production.

Sited on the entry to Monument Valley along US Highway 163, multiple exterior views are collapsed through cinematic analysis of aspect ratios shaping both form and aperture. Much like cinema, architecture here acknowledges its power to allow or deny views through the manipulation of building form in response to the highly represented landscape.

Inside, the walls are clad in a water membrane, constantly shifting as water is taken by local farmers, creating a vacillation of space and awareness of resource use while people order, diners sit, and toilets flush. Akin to Richard Slotkin’s idea of the promise of “regeneration through violence”, where we constantly remake ourselves, remake our myths, and re-assert our privileges through violence, the architecture of spontaneous infrastructure finds a more constructive and peaceable way of occupying land and realizing promise.

THE HORSE Consumer Motel The horse constitutes the material basis and sphere of action for the Western film, engaged actively by the lead as a supporting actor by which to foreshadow against.

As an architectural analogue of the horse, Consumer Motel responds to its highway adjacent site between Arizona and the Navajo Nation by embedding within the ground, aggregating, and rotating, thus constituting a new landscape of form by which to frame issues of consumerism, territory, and boundary.

Consisting of a combination between motel, trading post, and street market, Consumer Hotel brings together local Navajo traders, outside buyers, and temporal residents as a place of democratic congregation and meeting.

An ambiguous middle space is created through a disruption of these usually linear programs, emphasized by an embedding within the earth to create a new relationship of the individual to land. Inhabitation of the interior occurs at mid-ground level as occupants experience a changed horizon line favoring a framing of land rather than landscape.