WOVEN ARCHITECTURE K AT E O ’ C O N N O R SPRING 2013
Thank you to my parents, Christine and Anthony, my colleagues Becca, Rob, Chris and Rachel, and my thesis professor Paola Zellner-Bassett, who introduced me to the freedom that comes with understanding that I am not special and never to expect applause.
FOREWORD To weave is to dance – under, over, under, under, over – and through the dance a weaver learns to partner with their material. The repetition becomes muscle memory, second nature, and with it comes the ability to determine formal outcomes. The weaving dance begins to appear elsewhere in unexpected moments of a weaver’s world. The motions parallel the rhythms of the city – the in and out, conceal and reveal, open and void, left and right – a symbiotic balance that holds a place together. This thesis considers weaving in architecture. We are in an age of parametric making. Software quickly generates “smart” fields – scripts for massive planes (like skyscraper facades) that attempt to find ideal sunlight and shading conditions. By comparison, the speed and intelligence of paper weaving appears glacial. Yet, there are some quieter surface considerations lost in a digital model. Physically woven intentions of pattern have formal consequence; variations in density cause the weave to depart from a flat plane and pucker or dome. A weaver is acutely aware of the friction holding the paper’s fibers in place. She learns the point at which a surface no longer has enough density to fight gravity. She understands her surface, although small, in a real, tangible way. The process allows for imagining new kinds of space. The weaves diagram and iterate warped planes and enclosures and, although the surfaces are rarely planar, they grid and map themselves by their regular parts. Questions arise about permeability, rigidity, flexibility, warp, ground and facade. A new method of thinking and seeing becomes available to the maker. This thesis tests the woven process as a method for making and generating architecture. The trial for the thesis weave is an infrastructure
proposal
connecting
Houston’s
underground,
surface, and skywalk network. The idea of an “Architectural weave” is explored both conceptually and literally at different points throughout the project and at different scales. The dance – under, over – becomes a source of information to translate and build.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS FOREWORD
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SECTION 1 : RESEARCH 1.1 WOVEN STUDIES SURFACE FORM STRUCTURE 1.2 WOVEN CITY HOUSTON LAYERED CITY NETWORKS SITE
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SECTION 2 : PROJECT 2.1 INTERVENTION CONCEPT NATURAL DIRECTION CONSTRUCTIONS OF CONTEXT WOVEN DIAGRAMMING TRANSLATIONS 2.2 WOVEN CONSTRUCTION BOAT HOUSE + LOOKOUT POINT
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SECTION 1 : RESEARCH
1.1 WOVEN STUDIES
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SURFACE
To disassemble a flat plane and remake it thorough weave generates questions about porosity, elasticity, and form. The process and result have architectural implications - varying density in a weave controls the apertures in surface and folding or merging woven parts while making can create a departure from the plane able to hold its form. These model-textiles begin at 1/8� wide strips of drawing paper and, through trial and intuition, become complex surfaces and faceted forms. The nature of the weaves requires time for careful thought, often about the aesthetic but also about the architectural potential at different scales. The studies give focus and information – they are simultaneously diagrams, study models, full-scale building details, objects and art.
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Study Textile 1, side 1
Study Textile 1, side 2
# Warp Under
Warp Over
Second layer Weft
Move piece up along
departs first
weft to affect density
Second layer Weft follows first
NOTE: “Warp” is fixed in the vertical direction and “Weft” is laced through in the horizontal direction
Study Textile 1, Weave Diagram
Study Textile 2, side 1
Study Textile 2, Weave Diagram
Study Textile 2, side 2
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FORM 1.
2.
3. Exploring form began by mapping objects through weave. The hand model above (image 2) studies the curvatures and connections of fingers to palm. The woven negotiations of complex moments bore a method for constructing intricate rectilinear forms. Image 3 is an exploration of merged cubic weaves. The form is a series of woven surfaces, folded during their making to generate a sharp corner. Other moments are “pockets” – two surfaces constructed on top of each other and then pulled apart and frozen through weave in a new direction (see drawing in image 1).
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STRUCTURE
1. At this stage, the objects were considered for their architectural potential as both rough massing models and actual woven edifices. Considering structure for the forms and surfaces of the study models began question the potential scale of the project. When imagining the models at the scale of a city or an infrastructure, materiality remained unresolved, but in models with more literal potential at a smaller scale, wood and paper became placeholders for steel and Kevlar.
3.
2. The earliest structural masses tried tensing the paper weaves like tents (image 1 and 2). The iterations later tailored the woven pattern to receive wooden parts into points of overlap or density (see image 3). These connections advanced the relationship between structure and surface and begged the question – what if they not only met but merged? The next iteration built up structure like a basket using a wooden matrix filled in by woven paper surfaces. The wood itself is also “woven,� therefore testing the flexibility of the material. This concept carried the models forward toward an architecture program and project.
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There is significant primal and indigenous precedent for woven architecture. Tribes in the Sugutu valley of Northwest Kenya make their homes through weave – the huts are constructed from brush through a system that capitalizes on particular pieces preforming to the best of their abilities. The pattern merges larger, structural wood into a surface shell of smaller parts (image 2). Baskets from the same region merge two materials into a similar pattern. Fabric and Duom Palm (a local tree) structure the spiraling “hut baskets� of the northeast Lake Turkana region (image 3).
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Images courtesy of http://www.bamboulaltd.com/ http://www.makindu.org/ and Google Earth
The properties of Kevlar - its flexible yet directional surface and its ribs that behave similarly to the frictional qualities of paper - made it a candidate for a full-scale exploration. The next question became, what modern program would benefit from a woven architecture? Part of the beauty of the tribal weaves is that they make use of local, prevalent materials. The utilitarian heritage of woven architecture informed the search for a thesis program. A direction took shape: The architecture could mirror a storage place full of Kevlar gear; a place that promised adventure. It would invite intrigue from its home on the edge of a steel and concrete jungle. It would weave the wild with the ordered, both in material and site. The building would be a kayak boathouse and launch; A water site for a paper exploration.
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Weaves rely on density to retain form. Their structural strength is overlap, their weaknesses; opening. No line is superfluous or dies before finding its edge Threads weave Plane and planes weave Direction, to twist and ramp and branch. And remember their loom or engulf it. Cities relies on density to grow their section; to snake underground and to scrape the sky. People borrow space and move in paths. Constructs, parented by context lines from other constructs, eventually expire, make space for new growth from the construction lines the site retains.
SECTION 1 : RESEARCH
1.2 WOVEN CITY
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2.
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3. 4.
Photo 1 by Michael Davis. Photos 3 and 4 courtesy of the Buffalo Bayou Partnership
HOUSTON Downtown Houston, Texas is a commuter city with limited public transit infrastructure. Residents enter the city in their cars on the street grid, move up or down to park in the abundance of parking garages, and then get to their office buildings using a network of underground tunnels to escape the southwest heat. The city once relied on its waterfront for transit and goods, but the bayou was rendered obsolete when cargo ships became too big for the shallow river. Houston therefore developed inward and buildings and infrastructure by the water spent nearly 100 years deteriorating and becoming overgrown. As a demand for commuter infrastructure grew, the city chose to lace highways over the water rather than disturb adjacent developments (see image 1). A new initiative by the Buffalo Bayou Partnership has begun to redevelop the space of the river with the addition of biking and running paths (see image 2). The result is an incredible reinterpretation of residual space, but the water and the downtown corridor remain fragmented and disconnected.
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LAYERED CITY Houston is the fifth largest metropolitan area in the united states. It comprises some 653.6 square miles and more than 6 million people. The downtown area of the city exists in districts and layers. The map at left looks at the skywalks, tunnels, and building programs.
Images courtesy of Google Earth
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NETWORKS The urban planning for downtown Houston is disjointed. Activity categories cluster into districts with very little overlap. The map sets at right explain the fragmented nature of Houston’s downtown. The networks are organized into “weekday” and “weekend” activities and neither system has a strong connection to the waterfront. The webs look at pedestrian movement on the surface of the city. The diagram also notes that some attractions require that they be reached by car.
Weekday Pedestrian Movement
Weekend Pedestrian Movement
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SITE
The map pullout at right identifies a site where the corporate and tourist “networks� outlined on the previous page could interact and become the focus of a thesis exploration. The site comprises two city blocks, currently dedicated to parking lots, and one block containing a parking garage. The area has the potential to connect the water to the end of the tunnel system.
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Architecture can’t force people to connect, it can only plan the crossing points, remove the barriers, and make the meeting places useful and attractive. – Denise Scott Brown
SECTION 2 : PROJECT
2.1 INTERVENTION
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2.
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3. 5.
4.
Images courtesy of ArchDaily.com
CONCEPT In order to weave together the layers and networks of Houston, the city needs a new infrastructure project large enough to span the different districts and attractive enough to encourage people to cross them. Such an intervention would have to acknowledge the existing paths and directions of pedestrians and seek to merge them through practical and beautiful space. The Houston tunnels and Bayou bike paths are all roughly 20’ below street level but are separated by a quarter mile of underdeveloped “Historic District”. The project suggests that the space spanning that distance become an underground riverwalk able to weave people down from street, up from the tunnels, north from the corporate district and east from the theater district. The city’s downtown could finally connect to its waterfront through new space carved underground. Images 1, 2 and 3 are of a memorial in Nantes, France that utilizes the residual space under a boardwalk to create a pedestrian passage. The concept behind Wodziko Bonder’s subterranean project symbolizes the abolition of slavery, but the intention and qualities of the project are nonetheless relevant. La Dallman’s marsupial bridge in Milwaukee also laces pedestrian access through residual space (Images 4 and 5). The edge of the Houston site also has a highway overpass that could carry a similar hanging bridge. By weaving passage under existing infrastructure, the project would connect not only Houston’s downtown to the water but also to the industrial and residential districts beyond.
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NATURAL DIRECTION Houston’s grid aligns with the intersection of the Buffalo and the White Oak Bayous (see map point A below). The layout was designed to efficiently move goods inland from a harbor that has long since disappeared. The city is in need of a new directional system that utilizes the water for recreation rather than transit and takes into account the rhythms of modern life. The map sets on the opposite page begin to consider lines along which to reopen the city to the water. The map above considers tangency and perpendicularity in the natural curvature of the bayou. Brown lines extend perpendicularly every 200’ along the center of the bayou and grey (pencil) lines run tangent along the shore adjacent to those points. The resulting grid generates questions about the role of direction in new infrastructure; moving people tangently toward a body of water is a more gradual transition a the interruption of a perpendicular cut and intersection. The second map zooms into a triangle of perpendicular lines containing the site (shown in grey). The new layer of white lines contours existing parks and infrastructure to find tangent relationships between the city and the bayou. Points of overlap between the two systems – natural and constructed – became the foundation for the riverwalk’s master plan.
1. A
Perpendicularity and Tangency
2.
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+ Construct Context
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CONSTRUCTIONS OF CONTEXT
BUFFALO BAYOU
SESQUICENTENNIAL PARK
Overlaid on the satellite image at left are select lines tangent to CHASE BANK 100’
the city’s infrastructure (white) and tangent to the bayou (blue)
500’ HOUSTON BALLET
that inform the design of a riverwalk intervention. The project
1” = 128’
would repurpose two city blocks containing parking lots (points
MARKET SQUARE GARAGE
N
A and B), partially open the parking lot of a ballet company as a point of access (point C) and modify a parking garage to MARKET SQUARE PARK
include an elevator for handicap access to the riverwalk (point D). The plan, outlined below, takes into account foundation systems an underground passage through this part of the city 28
0’
might encounter. The brown portion of the plan is walkable HOTEL park space and the blue region proposes a recessed canal ICON
bringing bayou water in close proximity to the skyscrapers of corporate downtown. 31.5 º off grid
31.5º off grid
500’
100’ 1” = 100’
N
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C
B
D A
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Site study model
Exploded perspective of Riverwalk infrastructure.
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PARKING GARAGE
LOOKOUT POINT BOATHOUSE
TUNNEL EXTENSION
The program of the Riverwalk evolved to include points of access and interest that weave together the strata of the city. Particular emphasis was put on the design of the southernmost opening; a plaza where many of the discrete site conditions touch. The point where water meets land is marked by an urban kayak launch and boathouse. Where the tunnel opens into outdoor plaza, there is a lookout point. Intermediate platforms and the tangency of a triangular plan gradually transition the city’s grid to the waterfront.
HOUSTON BALLET HIGHWAY OVERPASS PEDESTRIAN BRIDGE
100’
280’
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WOVEN DIAGRAMMING The plaza is a point of connection between underground tunnel and surface, water and land, and park and city. The conditions being connected exist at different depths and require a fluid and connective architecture. The complexity of the site and abundance of new directions recalled qualities of the woven dance; under, over, under, over. Again, the project turned to paper weaving to diagram the layered site and conceive a space of interaction.
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ALLEY THEATER HOTEL ICON
HOUSTON BALLET MARKET SQUARE PARK
In typical textile making, there are two directions of thread. The first, tensed and fixed to a loom, is called the “Warp.” The second direction, which laces in and out of the warp, is called “Weft.” The study model phase of the Riverwalk’s southern plaza design employed a similar system; a “site loom” of existing or necessary pedestrian paths served as a starting point from which to weave surfaces.
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SITE LOOM When put into context, the models began the transition from diagram to architecture. The circulation loom of the site (above) considers moment in three dimensions for the woven models to develop into diagrammatic weaves exploring surface and grid. When put into context, the models began the transition from diagram to architecture.
To test scale, form, and space, the diagrams were photographed and turned into populated renders. The study raised questions about enclosure and exposure and began to acknowledge density as an opportunity for circulation.
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4.
TRANSLATIONS
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3.
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5.
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6. After analyzing the diagrammatic weaves through vignette renders and chipboard models (images 1 and 2), the plaza weave jumped up to a 1� = 20’ scale (images 4 and 5). In the larger weave, moments from the earlier models melded and became more controlled and specific. The weave led to a topographic foam core iteration that turned the contours of the paper textile into rough tiers to better understand the project’s section (image 3). Overlaying and modifying the woven and tiered models informed the final plan of the plaza (next page).
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280’
N PLAZA ROOF PLAN
50’
100’
PLAZA AND UNDERGROUND RIVERWALK PLAN
50’
100’
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LOOKOUT POINT BOATHOUSE
TUNNEL EXTENSION
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100
PARKING GARAGE
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BOATHOUSE
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100
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PARKING / UNLOADING
BOAT LAUNCH
UNDERGROUND PARK + RIVERWALK TUNNEL ACCESS
UPPER PLAZA
50’
100’
Perspective looking south from market square park.
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PART 2 : PROJECT
2.2 WOVEN CONSTRUCTION
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BOAT HOUSE + LOOKOUT POINT Early model iterations of the plaza imagined a cube construction, caught in a layered, woven field, as a place to explore weaving on a smaller architectural scale. These spaces, which evolved into a boathouse and lookout point, connect and control the layers of the intervention. The constructs are woven from Kevlar and steel strips and hung from a tapered steel frame. Their orientation introduces the direction of the city’s grid onto the site and infrastructure. As both storage facility and circulation, the space is simultaneously active and sedentary. The study models in image 1, 2 and 4 explore the duality of that program and the formal possibilities of such a space. As the models refined, the relationship translated into a structural dialogue between the Kevlar and steel.
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1. 3.
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Paper and baswood study of boathouse corner and boat rack.
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Northwest section of Boathouse
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Woven system for boathouse facade and boathouse axonometric drawing.
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