Design Thinking Book 2014 Washington University in St Louis

Premise :

This project is challenging the conventional segregated setting of the “after death” process in North America by creating a facility providing all services in one to the deceased and their families.

Color in architecture is used to influence and organize the experience of the “after death” process.

1

The Poetry of Color and Light _ Introduction _ What kind of Color Can We See in a Space _ What kind of Effects Can We See in a Space

2

The Story of Cemeteries 4 8

_ Cemetery History and Typologies

34

_ Funeral Facilities

8

_ Public Space Making 16

_ Color And Light Experiments

22

_ Beauty of Transition

28

48

Site and Program

Bibliography

_ Site Analysis

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_ Zoomed in Site Condition

8

_ Program

_ Bibliography

66

48

3

Architecture is a process of making.

We establish a framework with rational reasons and logics. We develop this process of making based on this frame work. One thing after another, until we get a sophisticated system.

4

Then, we can camouflage that framework under the skin of color. The choices of color add emotion and irrationalities into the overall qualities. We see a different world and another level of information in this case.

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Color reading

Spatial reading

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01

02

Colors wrap around the interior surfaces, but also cross the edges of the form.

What is perceived is a psychic effect opposed to the physical fact the application of the color to surfaces disrupts the spatial reading of the interior volume of the bar.

Spacial construction through color. The color applied in this case is not merely as a decorative coating. The color was used as an element of spacial construction.

The color fields effectively hang in space, undermining the unity and permitting the space to be perceived as free flowing.

kix bar, Vienna, Oskar Putz (1986)

Chequered flats at Dalston, London, (1999)

7

The Poetry of

COlor

what kind of color can we see in a space?

APPLIED COLOR Earth pigments have been synthesized to provide color for thousands of years.

They were costly and difficult to mix with the range of pigments available.

Roman frescoes1, found in Pompeii and Herculaneum and dating from the first century AD,

include remarkably realistic scenes of homes and gardens is a good example of earth pigment applied on interior surface

History of Pigments through Architectural Application 10

Introduction of oil 2 as a suspension for pigment gives artists possibilities using blended color. New shades of color were produced with a low cost.

The intense blue vaulted ceiling of the arena chapel in Padua with murals by Giotto from 1305, is an example of an astonishing use of azurite blue.

Bauhaus time From the Early 1800s to the Bauhaus, color courses in the mid 1920s was the intensely productive period in the advancement of our understanding of color in both art and science, and was marked by highly colorful

architecture.3 Wasily Kandinsky,4 and Piet Mondrian5 : abstract visual painting.

Gerrit Rietveld.:6 The Rietveld Schröder House

In twentieth Century, Le Corbusier, first sketched the premises of a logically structured system for color design in the magazine l’Esprit nouveau in 1921. In 1925 and again in 1932, he pursued these ideas and refined them in writing. His purist architecture, much of which was constructed in this time period, shows that the ideas were applied in practice.

Luis Barragán’s work is notable for its use of traditional materials, rich spaces, broad planar forms and unlike most of his contemporaries, the use of bright colors.[9] It still has strong influence on Mexican architecture, especially housing, making more modern styles difficult to sell.8

Ricardo Legorreta Vilchis was a disciple of Luis Barragán and carried Barragan’s ideas to a wider realm. Barragan, in the 1940s and 1950s amalgamated tradition and the modern movement in architecture yet his work is mostly limited to domestic architecture.

Legorreta applied elements of Barragan’s architecture in his work including bright colors, play of light and shadow, and solid Platonic geometric shapes. One of the important contributions of Legorreta has been the use of these elements in other building types such as hotels, factories as well as in commercial and educational buildings.9

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11

INHERENT COLOR

Water Filtration Plant 9 C+S Associati Contrete mixed with earh pigments

12

la defense offices almere netherlands 10 un studio Dichroic film glass finishes

Inherent Color is expressed in the true form of material.

Its static yet dynamic appearance offers a further dimension of opportunity for color in design.

The color change of Copper through oxidization

1.Stone 2.Concrete 3.Marble 4.Bamboo 5.Ceremic 6.Steel 7.Aluminum 8.Glass 9.Fiber Glass 10. Oak board

13

EPHEMERAL COLOR Color generated through the play of light is never static and has the capacity to be used as an instrument to tune and transform architectural space.

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The Sagrada Familia 1882 Antoni Gaudi Stained Glass CASTING COLOR ACROSS INTERIOR SPACE

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The PLAY of

COlor

what kind of effects can we see in a space?

THE PROGRESSION OF TIME THROUGH COLOR

Skyspaces12 James Turrel In the 1970s, Turrell began his series of “skyspaces” enclosed spaces open to the sky through an aperture in the roof. A Skyspace is an enclosed room large enough for roughly 15 people. Inside, the viewers sit on benches along the edge to view the sky through an opening in the roof.

18

“ So if I have a sense of the space, if I feel that the space is tangible, if I feel there is time, if there is a dimension I could call time, I also feel that I can change the space. “11 ---- Olafur Eliasson

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THE CHANGING OF COLOR THROUGH LIGHT

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“Architecture is the learned game, correct and magnificent, of forms assembled in the light. “ Le Corbusier

Le Corbusier was a master of light, declaring it both a fundamental basis of architecture and the key to personal well-being. In these modest religious works Le Corbusier deploys light to create enchanted, emotionally charged spaces wedded to the cosmic rhythm of sunlight and season. Corbusier reimagined sacred space and charted new ways that buildings can both reveal and inhabit the universe around them.13

Left Page: the Dominican monastery of Sainte Marie de La Tourette Right Page: the parish church of Saint-Pierre in Firminy-Vert

21

COLOR AND LIGHT EXPERIMENT 1: TRACING LIGHT

In the first experiment, contrast of light and shadow is adjusted to the maximum amount. The silhouette of the highlights are deformed based on the irregular shape of the wall.

Left Page:

Right Page:

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Overlaid hight lights on one slide create new composition. highlights and shadow position from 6am to 12pm in 30 min increments, st Louis, MO

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COLOR AND LIGHT EXPERIMENT 2: COLOR OVERLAY

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COLOR AND LIGHT EXPERIMENT 3: CHANGING LIGHT DIRECTION

“Colors are light’s suffering and joy” -- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Goethe’s book Theory of Colours 14 provides a catalogue of how color is perceived in a wide variety of circumstances, and considers Isaac Newton’s observations to be special cases. Unlike Newton, Goethe’s concern was not so much with the analytic treatment of color, as with the qualities of how phenomena are perceived. Philosophers have come to understand the distinction between the optical spectrum, as observed by Newton, and the phenomenon of human color perception as presented by Goethe

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This prismatic experiment shows the fact that when light goes through a prism, the direction of light is changed and the spectrum is revealed. And color arises at the edges, and the spectrum occurs where these colored edges overlap.

15째

10째

5째

0째

27

THE BEAUTY OF TRANSITION

Liminality: A transitional space where two extremely different states meet

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Carlo Scarpa Brion Cemetery

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EPHEMERAL COLOR

There are two important transitional states in our lives.

One happens at the beginning of a life, and it is always celebrated with color and light; the other one happens at the end of our lives, but it’s often time rendered with darkness and sorrow.

If light is the metaphor of life and the absence of light is the metaphor of death, does that mean where they meet should be a place of color?

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The story of

cemeteries

HISTORY OF CEMETERY

Church Burial Ground

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Rural Cemetery

Memorial Park

Before 1831 large, modern grave yards did not exit in America. People were buried in old church burial grounds, town commons, or municipal burial grounds

However, the old church burial grounds were beginning to be seen as inadequate, dangerous, crowded, expensive to maintain, and as carriers of disease. At the same time, cities are becoming more crowded, real estate prices are rising.

In 1831 with the construction of Mount Auburn Cemetery, a large burial ground in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and the movement to build cemeteries in America began.

As the economy was growing, it also came to be the fact that Americans wanted to provide better ammenities for their citizens.

Cemeteries were seen as the last great necessity. By moving the dead out of the city center to places like Brooklyn and Cambridge, these “rural cemeteries” allowed for much larger burial grounds that also removed the dead from the immediate realm of the living.

In 20th-century memorial parks across the country there is a lot less emphasis on death than in older cemeteries.

The emphasis is mostly on beauty, and memory and the living. The imagery becomes very stark. “You don’t go out to the memorial park very often. It’s seen as an American phenomenon. We send our old people off to homes and hospitals to die; we only go to the cemetery for funerals and then avoid them.” 22

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CEMETERY TYPOLOGY

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CEMETERY AROUND WORLD

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Lachaise Cemetery

Los Angeles Forest Lawn Cemetery

Mount Auburn Cemetery

La Recoleta Cemetery

Organized with paved path and a high level of landscape.

Natural Landscape with small markings and an organized layout.

Organic layout with low density and moderate landscaping.

High density with lowest level of landscaping and a focus on the deceased

case studies

Olšany Cemetery

La Recoleta Cemetery

(Olšanské hřbitovy in Czech) is the largest graveyard in Prague, Czech Republic, once having as many as two million burials. The cemetery is particularly noted for its many remarkable art nouveau monuments.

La Recoleta Cemetery (Spanish: Cementerio de la Recoleta) is a cemetery located in the Recoleta neighbourhood of Buenos Aires, Argentina. It contains the graves of notable people, including Eva Perón, presidents of Argentina, Nobel Prize winners, the founder of the Argentine Navy and a granddaughter of Napoleon. In 2011, the BBC hailed it as one of the world’s best cemeteries,[5] and in 2013

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SCALE IMPACT

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CREMATION

80 Gt Britain

70 60 50 %

Canada

40 30

USA

20 10 0 1950

1960

1970

1980

1990

Proportion of cremations in selected Countries over recent decades 23

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2000

The Missouri Crematory was the sixth modern crematory built in the United States and holds the distinction of being the first crematory built west of the Mississippi River. The crematory is located at 3211 Sublette Avenue in St. Louis, just across from the State Mental Hospital off of Arsenal Street. Now called “Valhalla’s Hillcrest Abbey” it is owned by the Zell Family, who also own the Valhalla Chapel and Memorial Park on St. Charles Rock Road.17

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COLUMBARIUM

A columbarium is a place for the respectful and usually public storage of cinerary urns (i.e. urns holding a deceased’s cremated remains).

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Below: Golders Green Crematorium

London, UK16 Right: City of Dead Art Illustration

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FUNERAL FACILITIES IN STL

CITY OF ST. LOUIS

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FUNERAL HOMES CREMATORY

PUBLIC CEMETERY

Map of Bellefontaine Cemetery, St. Louis (1875) 15

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CEMETERY AS A PUBLIC PARK

Public Space Making?

Rural cemeteries used to be public parks; At that time they didn’t have museums galleries or botanical gardens.

A big open space with nice landscape is where people want to gather.

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tALK ABOUT

SITE

SITE LOCATION

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The site is located in Venice, IL. It is a city in Madison County, Illinois, United States. The population was 1,890 at the 2010 census.

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SITE ANALYSIS

residential neighborhood

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Industrial Belt

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Natural Land Farm Land

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Flood Zone

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ZOOMED IN SITE CONDITION Military training center Mississippi River

chain of Rocks canal abengoa Bioenergy

ft

ft

790

200 ft 255

1ft

218 Venice, illinois

Mckinley Bridge

industrial zone

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flood zone

site

neighborhood

Water Activities

Seasonal Vegetation Change

Looking west

Looking up Levee

Looking East

View Quality 59

PROGRAM

Colombarium

Crematory

Reflection Chapel

Parks

3’x3’ 3000 spaces Incorperated with circulation and landscapes 12,000 sqf

Freezer room (2) 4,000 sf Furnace room 1,500 sf Small worship rooms (4) 2,000 ft

Main Chapel 10,000 st Living Unit for religious workers (3) 1,000 sf Dining Space 4,000 sf

Burial Ground 500 spaces 300,000sqf

Funeral rooms (4) 5,000 sf Famaly resting rooms (3) 1,000 sf Green Burial Process room 1,000 sf

Varies Stop for reflections (4) 1,000 sf Sky Obersvatery 1,000 sf Big outdoor gathering space 10,000 sf

312,000 sf

41,500 sf

17,000 sf

15,000 sf

total 385,500 sf

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Site Sterographic

Location 2

UNITED STATES

Location 1 Location 3

CREMATORIY Freezer room (2) 4,000 sf Furnace room 1,500 sf Small worship rooms (4) 2,000 sf Funeral rooms (4) 5,000 sf Famaly resting rooms (3) 1,000 sf Green Burial Process room 1,000 sf

Locatio

Main Chapel 10,000 st

COLOMBARIUM CHAPEL

3’x3’ 3000 spaces Incorperated with circulation and landscapes 12,000 sqf Burial Ground 500 spaces 300,000sqf

Green Burial PARK /

Varies Stop for reflections

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AFTER DEATH PROCESS

Funeral Tradition Around World

1

3 62

2

4

1. Military Funeral 18 2. A Balinese cremation ceremony 19 3. Suspended Burials 20 4. Sulawesi Funeral 21

Main Chapel 10,000 Living Unit for religious workers ( 1,000 Dining Space 4,000

Freezer room (2) 4,000 Furnace room 1,500 Small worship rooms (4) 2,000 Funeral rooms (4) 5,000 Famaly resting rooms (3) 1,000 Green Burial Process room 1,000

Today in modern culture, developed western countries can be categorized with two models of “after death” process model. This project is challenging the conventional segregated setting of “after death” process by creating a facility provides all services in one to the deceased

UNITED STATES Location 1

NEW MODEL

burial burial

Location 3

crenation

funeral funeral

Location 2

crenation

hospital home

Location 1

Location 1

EUROPE

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PROGRAM & ARCHITECTURAL STRATEGY

7:00 AM 8:00 AM 9:00 AM

EAST

10:00 AM 11:00 AM 12:00 PM 1:00 PM 2:00 PM 3:00 PM 4:00 PM 5:00 PM

WEST

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The organization of the program is organized by the orientation of the sun through out the day.

5:00 PM

WEST

7:00 AM 8:00 AM 9:00 AM

EAST

10:00 AM 11:00 AM 12:00 PM 1:00 PM 2:00 PM

7:00 AM

3:00 PM

8:00 AM

EAST4:00 PM 5:00 PM

9:00 AM

Surface Continuity 10:00 AM

11:00 AM WEST

House In Norway24

12:00 PM 1:00 PM 2:00 PM 3:00 PM 4:00 PM 5:00 PM

WEST

Underground Structure Silent Night, proposal VELUX Competition25

Cantilever Structure Tam Art Cross by BIG26

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EPHEMERAL COLOR 1

Bogucki, Peter I. Encyclopedia of Society and Culture in the Ancient World. New York: Facts On File, 2008. Print.

2

3

4

McLachlan, Fiona. “Robot Check.” Robot Check. Routledge Taylor&Francis Group, n.d. Web. Nov. 2012. PG20 “Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History.” The Bauhaus, 1919–1933.

N.p., n.d. Web. 23 Nov. 2014.

“Wassily Kandinsky.” Paintings. N.p., n.d.

http://www.wassily-kandinsky.org/wassily-kandin sky-paintings. jsp 5 “Piet Mondrian.” Broadway Boogie-Woogie, 1942 by. N.p., n.d. http://www.piet-mondrian.org/broadway-boogie-woogie.jsp 6 “AD Classics: Rietveld Schroder House / Gerrit Rietveld.”

ArchDaily. N.p., n.d.

http://www.archdaily.com/99698/ad-classics-rietveld-schroder- house-gerrit-rietveld/ 7 “Le Corbusier’s Color Concepts.” Uniquely Pigmented Colors

Kt.COLOR. N.p., n.d. http://www.ktcolor.ch/product/pdf-Forschungsberichte/ ktCOLOR_Le%20Corbusier%27s%20Color%20Concepts.pdf 8 “Luis Barragán House and Studio.” Wikipedia. Wikimedia

Foundation, 19 Nov. 2014.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luis_Barrag%C3%A1n_House_and_ Studio 9 http://www.archdaily.com/48454/water-filtration-plant-cs- associati/

14

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von. Theory of Colours. Cambridge, MA: M.I.T., 1970. Print.

15 Map of Bellefontaine Cemetery, St. Louis (1875) http://www.bigmapblog.com/2012/map-of-bellefontaine- cemetery-st-louis-1875/ 16 Golders Green Crematorium London, UK http://www.thelondoncremation.co.uk/golders-green- crematorium/the-columbaria/

17 The Missouri Crematory http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missouri_Crematory 18

Sulawesi Funeral’ Traditional tau tau (effigies) at the Tampangallo burial cave. Some families keep tau tau in their homes for fear of their theft in open burial caves.

http://travel.cnn.com/funeral-tourism-sulawesi-it-ethical-warning- graphic-073021 19 A Balinese cremation ceremony http://www.steveshannoncollection.com/blog/funeral-traditions-around- world/

20 Suspended Burials http://io9.com/5960343/10-bizarre-death-rituals-from-around-the-world 21 Military Funeral http://thefuneralsource.org/trad14.html 22

Eggener, Keith. Cemeteries. New York: W.W. Norton, 2010. Print.

23

Bachelor, Philip. Sorrow and Solace: The Social World of the Cemetery.

Amityville, NY: Baywood, 2005. Print.

10 http://www.unstudio.com/projects/la-defense-offices 11 Olafur Eliasson Ted Talk http://www.ted.com/search?q=LIGHT

24 http://www.theamazingpics.com/amazing-underground-house/ 12

Sinnreich, Ursula, and James Turrell. James Turrell - Geometrie Des Lichts, Geometry of Light. Ostfildern, Deutschland: Hatje Cantz, 2009. Print.

13

Plummer, Henry, and Le Corbusier. Cosmos of Light: The Sacred Architecture of Le Corbusier. N.p.: n.p., n.d. Print.

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25 https://blog.thedpages.com/silent-night-remembering-the-past-as-we-

move-to-the-future 26 http://www.big.dk/#projects-tam