material mechanical metaphysical
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‘I want to give nature’s power a precence in contemporary society and provide thereby stimulating places that speak directly to every man’s sense as a living corporeal being.’ Tadao Ando 1985
HOUSTONBURNETTE material mechanical metaphysical
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precedent
Boston Children’s Museum and SANAA 21st Century Museum
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conception
understanding of program requirements and project goals.
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site analysis
iterations of site diagrams and development of understanding.
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parti and design
diagrams that support program arrangement and composition
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material, tectonics, and sutainability
taxonmy of the surface attributes, structure and building function.
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final
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precedent Boston Children’s Museum The Boston Children’s Museum Served as the precedent for my group, and each of us had different assignments to complete the presentation. My assignment was to hard-draw or construct perspectives that unlock the space ad form of the building, and address the approaches to the expression of systems and interior environments. To the left is a drafted drawing of the green roof of the Boston Children’s Museum, expressing the layout and sectional quality of the plants on the roof. On the next page are two hand drawn perspectives one illustrating the view of the building from the boardwalk in the typical rainy weather of eastern Massachusetts. The other is a view of the inside showing the exposed systems in the lobby. The swirling suspended ball in the focus of the perspective is a sculpture made form recycled steel poles, scrap lumber, and torn fishing nets.
Throughout the precedent study, my group began to realize not only the architectural concepts of the building, but subtle sustainability strategies. How do building environments educate children about energy efficient design?
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precedent 21st Century Musuem The 21st Century Museum was a self conducted precedent that involved producing a tabloid (to the right) of images, orthogaphics, and diagrams that explored the parts and components of the building I was personally interested in. For example the 21st Century Museum has a very complex formal quality within the purity and unity of a circle. I analyzed the ways in which people might circulate through the negative space, and how different spaces, depending on their geometry be used to serve the museum’s function of displaying and storing contemporary artwork.
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KANAZAWASHI
ishikawa japan: SANAA tokyo
21st Century Museum 2004
This museum was built by Sejima Kazuyo and Associates under the name SANAA in 2004 as a public building deticated to contemporary art and culture in Kanazawa Japan. The form of this building as well as the technology expressed by tensile structure and thin pieces of glass express the message of the 21st century. In addition to providing a form and function that represents developing technologies, the museum offers a variety of interactive art that captures all audiences, from a dry pool, to new concepts for furniture and fabric design.
The diagrams below demonstrate hierarchy, organization, program, and circulation respectively. In the initial concept of this building, the architect imagined a cluster of programatic spaces around an eccentric center. These diagrams eplain the use of geometry in determining the compisition of galleries, halls, and gathering spaces.
21st Centruy Art Museum, Iwan Bann, 2006 - 2008. http://www. iwan.com/photo_index.php?category=photography
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conception Children’s Museum The Charlotte Nature Museum in Freedom Park ineffectively responds to the energy of the park and local comunity. The challege of our semester studio project is to replace the existing edifice with place children can gather. In this design project children come to watch and play, learn about nature’s elements and how earth, water, air, and sun inform architecture, through technology, and site response. In addition this project must address the formal arrangements unique to a child’s experience, and educate to them the principles of achitectural language and symbolism.
El Lissitzky Poun 10 1919
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project narrative The Charlotte Children’s Museum conforms to the contours of th land and encircles a central space for gathering and learning. This building explains how we are a part of nature can utilize and retain energy from its four primary elements, earth, air, water, and sun in relation to the four annual seasons. The project consists of four pieces. A ring functiond as an exhibition space nd relates the position of the sun in the sky throughout the day. This architectural element encircles a space for live demonstrations. This interior open space also collects rainwater and stores it for passive cooling. Within this space, a vertical totem rises into the sky and provides cooling. Within this space, a vertical totem rises into the sky, and povides not only a marker on the landscape but a shaft for ventilation and wind powered active systems. Upon entry, a portion of the building calmly unfolds from the earth and guides young minds to the point where inspiration begins
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site analysis First I visited the site at freedom park. Seen here is the bridge connecting the site with the greater park seen beyond. Almost half of the site lies in a flood plain that frames the eastern portion of the site. To the south and west are roads the intersect at the site’s bootom corner. To the north are residences and an extension of the greater park. I began diagraming by looking closly at multiple scales of the topography, then I moved to use, and networks, finally I investigated the park at different times of year by expressing the personal and metaphysical attributes of the site.
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Impressive Conttours Trace
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Site Topography Trace
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Public v Private Site Trace
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Organism Site Trace
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Organism Site Network Trace
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In Spring the colors, aromas, and elements of nature vibrate intensely. This is the time of year with the tempurature is almost perfect, and life teams within it.
Summer in the park is very hot. Life is supressed by the dull heat and the draining humidity. The sounds of cicadas are still loud and combine with the parched panting of my dog.
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The temperature cools in autum, and things begin to slowly die. As the harvest comes to an end many vegetables are sold in the park. As they disapear, the essence begins to hibernate.
Winters are dry. Wind cuts through thin fabric and burns the skin. Snow is soft, but Ice is hard. This solstice is brutal, when one is in need of shelter, comfort, and closeness.
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parti and design Diagrams illustrate the process through which a design was discovered, delveloped and resolved. They are abstract representation of a more complex function or organization. I constructed a sequence which informs not only the primary ideas of the building, but integrated technologies, and sensitive approaches to site, and project goals.
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Through a series of rough models I focused on three possible configurations for my parti. One reflected the possibility for a tall slender building while another was a cluster of stacked boxes with pasths extending outward, while a third was a long narrow strip rsponding the site edge.
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I chose two of these three possibilities and modeled them in a more refined manner, the I proceeded to model a third variation that expressed attributes from both configurations. Although this model turned out to not meet the formal criterial of the program, I cultivated the concept of parralleling the vertical totem with the satacking of spaces in rlationship to the sky and the earth.
The two paths that extend from the cluster form an intersection north of the center of the main geometry. These axes identify the basis for my parti.
In my resolved parti diagram I combined the crossing of these two axes with the formation of a primary circular space and a secondary space cut within the landscape.
This is my parti model and conceptural perspective. They capture my ideal expectation of tectonic mechanism and might.
The diagram above illustrates the experiencial sequence one follows through the building’s spaces. on the long narrow path to the building from the greater park, one crosses water in the river, earth in the ground and trees, air in the clearing, and sun above head. Once inside, each of these elements are portrayed in a way people understand.
This diagram is of the circulation through the arrangement of linear and L-shaped walls within the circumference of the circular form. The walls are placed not only compositionally, but fuctionally to frame spaces and provide area to display artwork and exhibits.
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The site is fully forrested. The site remains simple a dense network of trees within a small area of the park.
I mark a point upon the land. This represents the vertical totem which stands high and drews viewers to the park.
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The axes extend, and mark the lines that will become articulated for approach and experience through the environment
The clearing appears along the two axes, a larger one along the south enterance from the intersection, and a smaller from the park enterance.
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Within the final void, pieces of the program become placed and arrage in a way that matches the parti. Now one can understand the presence of the vertical totem, the ring which defines the interior space, and how they engage the landscape. My schematic design is complete, and now I can further articuate the tectonics, material palette, and sustainable systems. Below is the parti site model with layered topography.
Site Model 1/32� = 1’
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material, tectonics, and sustainability In this portion of the assignment I further exploded components of my building like those of a machine, and deisgned at a smaller scale, the ways in which parts interlocked to contribute to the function of all of the pieces as a whole. To the right is an axon drawing illustrating the different levels of my building, and the materials exhibited, for example, steel structure on the first floor with glass infill, and concrete retaining walls in the lower underground floor which load bearing interior walls. Finally the vertical totem consist of a steel truss like structure, and interesects all floors.
Material Taxonomy 01 80 lb
Material Taxonomy 02 80 lb
Material Taxonomy 03 80 lb
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The structural bay and wall section model illustrates the itegration of the sculpted steel swan beam within the concrete foundation. In addition it reveals the waffle slab structure supporting the first floor, and the return ventilation sytem that occupies the spaceEntry within theStructural structure Plan above. Lastly, Level 1/16" = 1' the horizontal braces that extend between the beams are a material that expands and contracts to regulate air flow. Below are structural plans for both floors
C
Urban Gardens
Lobby Play it Safe Ticket
Ground Floor Structural Plan 1/16" = 1'
Invention Lab
Theatre
Childhood
Facade Analytique 80 lb
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HVAC Diagram which explains the connection of supply and return air ducts to the architecture, and the path in which the air travels, into and out of the building.
This a program diargam showing the final placement of all the differnet program elements, such as classrooms, exhibition spaces, and support spaces.
Lighting Analytique 80 lb
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The above diagram illustrates the building’s response to the climate and topography of the site. The digram includes a sloped facade to avoid direct solar gain in the summer, and increase it in the winter. The vertical totem provide passive ventilation, the central space collects water and the building engages the slope for passive cooling. This is a transition into my final representations of the project.
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final Representation of all the work in very refined orthographics and presentation material. The final set includes plans, sections, details, and that fully convey and comprehesively depict the project as a whole. I presented my project by using the diagrams to lead the critics through my design process and strategy for satisfying the program. To the left is my final site plan, illustrating my building within the context of Freedom Park and the surrounding neighbor hood. below is a site section exagerated x2 to show the surface of the hills and the dip of the flood plain, south west of the project.
Photovoltaic Panels
Return Fan
Sun Space Swan Beam
Channel Glass 54 o
Shear Panels
Intake
Moment Connection Waffle Slab
Rainwater Collection
Water Storage Tank
Coils & Fan
Air Supply
Concrete Retaining Wall
Guest Seating
Shop
Kitchen & Catering
Member Seating
WC
Capillary System
Gravel
Detail Wall Section 1/2" = 1'
Detail Solar Voltaic Section 3:1
Urban Gardens
Lobby Play it Safe Ticket
Entry Level Structural Plan 1/16" = 1'
Invention Lab
Theatre
Childhood
Gallery
WC
Entry Level Floor Plan 1/8" = 1'
Ground Floor Structural Plan 1/16" = 1'
Landscape Entry Section 1/8" = 1'
Lower Lobby
Guest Seating
Kitchen & Catering
Member Seating
WC
Shop
Temporary Exhibit
Conference Room
Climbing Sculpture
Theatre Support
Artabounds
Office
WC
Ground Floor Plan 1/8" = 1'
Bridge Entry Section 1/8" = 1'
This group of photographs illustrates the disassembly of the model into the seperate floors. The model details the suface fo the photovoltaic roof, and the precise form of the structural members around the perimeter. In addition the model provides scale to the pathways within and to the building from the greater park. Lastly, this model gives life to the cafe, a piece which slides beneath the land south of the major potion of the project.
Final Model 1/16� = 1’
This project, which involved designing a children’s museum in order to teach young people about the sophistication of nature and ways in which architecture can respond to its layers and interstices. This project taught me to consider nearly all aspects of the site, and find moments that build form and mechanisms can connect, address, or respect our metaphysical understanding and experience of water, earth, sun, and air. Houston Burnette