KATARINA KUSHIN
3RD YEAR ARCHITECTURE
CALIFORNIA STATE POLYTECHNIC UNIVERSITY, POMONA KMKUSHIN@CPP.EDU
(909) 373 - 6738
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PASADENA HOUSING STUDIO WINTER 2014 NADIM ITANI
O’NEIL OBSERVATION FACILITY FALL 2014 ALEXANDER PANG
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BALDY BATHHOUSE
SPRING 2013 ALEXANDER ORTENBERG
NOGUCHI MUSEUM WINTER 2014 ALEXANDER PANG
PASADENA HOUSING STUDIO 14 UNIT RESIDENTIAL: 9 Two Bedroom, 5 One Bedroom 196 S. Oakland Ave Pasadena, CA 91101
O’NEIL OBSERVATION FACILITY Given the proximities of the reserve, the project is powered by the approach of the visitors from three different views points. Upon following this site condition, it furthermore focuses on materiality over form in order to achieve a semi-transparent association with the reserve. The project explores the densities that can be achieved by layering perforated steel screens and the result of super-imposed planes angled forty-five degrees from each other resulting in the moirÊ effect. The visitors play an additional factor, acting as a moving object in context to the screen shell both inside and outside, distant and intimate, narrowed and stretched. This dynamic relationship between the space and its visitor is not meant to overpower the reserve but offer an additional area for exploration. The ultimate objective was to explore the phenomenology of space using materials and their fundamental qualities.
MT. BALDY BATHHOUSE The bathhouse project insinuates holistic space, which should encompass internally and externally the physical interpretation of peace and tranquility. The building should envelope the universal senses of its surrounding environment and immerse the people into a transparent territory, one were they truly feel solitary with nature. My way of interpreting this space is to execute Colin Rowe and Robert Slutzky’s definition of phenomenal transparency by treating both the horizontal and vertical spaces (the groundwork, internal spaces and façade) as fluctuating optical figure and ground extractions. I am attempting to attain a dual reading of the space that inflicts double perception to the visitors. From every view the visitor is allowed to see, they experience a different reading of the space. Rowe and Slutzky describe dynamics such as this, one that engages the eye in a direct oscillation, which insinuates that there is a more intricate definition of transparency, one that withholds many more abstract theories. Each reading that the visitor witnesses, be it from the south or the east, juxtaposes and dichotomizes their perception between land and space.
NOGUCHI MUSEUM The artist Isamu Noguchi was one of the few sculptors that had the ability to command positive and negative forms, one who could communicate with the indigenous nature of materials, and one who could capture movement, light and time. His fascination with the archaic style of materiality and marriage of Eastern and Western art values allowed him to develop a distinct medium in sculptures. Noguchi himself stated, “Art endures when it has its own identity.� Keeping these fundamentals in mind while designing, I chose to curate a select few pieces into a narrative. The exaggeration of spaces within the design gives each piece its own identity in context to the narrative and enhances its significance within its prose. The dim, dark spaces arrest the visitor’s movement, forcing them to stop and pause at the foot of the sculptures. The open, grandeur, and brightly lit space force the visitor to perceive scale between themselves, the objects, and the building. Rather than the pieces serving to the building, the building serves itself to the pieces.