degree project
Material Contraction M.Arch Rhode Island School of Design Spring 2012 Laura Boyle
Architecture functions as a system founded on order answering to the basic human necessity of shelter. One could say it quite literally grounds itself. Thus far architecture has flourished due to the expansion of populations. It has failed us, however, in its principles of reduction. In the present American landscape, these larger implications of growth and decay are critical as we envision our future working within the systematic principles of architecture; the problems traverse both urban and rural fabrics. Architecture has left us with an order that does not deconstruct itself as systematically as it was materialized. Instead it falls to ruin which is inherently wasteful at the scale of entire landscapes. Locating my ideologies in the current economic climate, I would like to propose that a work of architecture can still function as a complete and balanced whole while at the same time constituting an open product on account of its vulnerability to the environment in which it stands. This is not a call to return to the way things were, to nostalgically reminisce about how good and simple things used to be. It is a way to move forward in any climate through the balance of the cyclical nature of values over time. Shrinking towns and cities are a growing concern across the American landscape. It questions the fundamental architectural principle satisfying the need to create space as these decaying spaces have now become unnecessary.
material life cycle diagram
marking experiment
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material life cycle diagram
water + concrete + poplar, varying degrees of finish + steel piano hinge
The life of building materials is one of reflectance. It resonates the culture of its in habitants while aging with them. Weathering denotes age like a wrinkle to a face. Materials contain and retain characteristics that give it a sense of place. The way in which one marks the other is dependent on the environment in which it inhabits. The aesthetic of weathering is accepted based on cultural value of maintenance. Many people view the uninhabited structure which have fallen into ruin as an eye sore. Left uninhabited, the structure exists in its most honest state of being. The quality construction and craftsmanship is revealed as materials bare themselves to weather. It is through materials that the architect can choreograph time.
“Within the architectural ruin, fragments are isolated, positioned against uncluttered backgrounds remaining separate from other fragments. This presentation and categorization of the past eclipses its strangeness, replacing it with valuable ways of remembering akin to the display of commodities. But the removal of clutter disguises the abundance of matter and meaning. The United States has almost no intentionally preserved architectural ruins. European settlers eradicated nearly all native settlements or moved them to a different area thus forming a nation based solely movement westward and imperialistic growth. The value of the ruin is something Americans have never really known. Within the same decade the Declaration of Independence was drawn up, Giovanni Battista Piranesi was vigorously etching--depicting his desire to combine nature and architecture in the form of an evolutionary visual narrative and began to romanticize history in the climate of economic depression. In this context, ruin imagery draws nostalgic parallels between present and past and brings to question the future. The visual power of the ruin lies in its juxtaposition: contextual evidence of failure/contemporary thought against its surroundings, a lost sense of interior, and the most obvious, new against the old, such as fading colored surfaces to the dramatic fall of light. Inside ruins fragments fall out of their contexts to recombine like elements in dreams, a random re-ordering which is decided according to where things land, and how they tumble down from their assigned places to mingle1. It is a visual sense that automatically constructs a narrative with its surfaces and artifacts offering an escape from excessive order.�
gouache, graphite, ink, and watercolor on paper
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Endesor, page 9
“America’s obsession with order has also established a firm relationship to objects on which we are socially and culturally dependent. Material culture establishes a solid framework for consumerism realized with the construction of shopping malls becoming the new social arenas as the lines between consumption and entertainment become increasingly blurred2. The evolution of the American life is reflected in the materials we own, not the structures we inhabit. The evolution of the American dwelling is more reflective of technological advances in the construction industry, average income, and quality of life. We live in an economy of means dictated by means of economy. Material objects matter because they are complex, symbolic bundles of social, cultural, and individual meanings fused onto something we can touch, see, and own. That very quality is the reason that social values can so quickly penetrate into and evaporate out of common objects. Three important notions frame the success of American consumerism: the way material goods mark or confer position in a social hierarchy, the role of fashion and demand in spurring economic growth and changing manufactures, and the ways in which people can construct their own meanings for objects produced by themselves or others3... For most families, the acquisition of consumer goods is a lifetime process. The evolution of the American house reflects these objects in its increase of basic dimensions also responding to technological advances in the construction industry.� This point in the research led to the creation of imagery that became much more specific to the American house. Utilizing the vast archive of amateur photos on flickr.com, a series photographic collages were made of domestic interiors. The next layer of collage architectural drawings were distilled from the perspectival photographs
expansion/contraction diagram
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Martin, page 141 Martin, page 142
The entry of the house is one of great importance, architecturally and otherwise. Terms such as curb appeal emerge adding or subtracting value of a property. The driveway is an ammenity that interests me in particular. Despite attempts made to enhance curb appeal, the driveway still serves as the place to park and wash the car, not to mention the enormousness of the garage door fronting the property.
mixed media photographic collage
The kitchen sustains the inhabitants of the house. It is where food is stored and prepared; where the family gathers to share a meal. The kitchen has evolved in its location within the house beginning as the only room in the house, then moving to the back out of sight of guests, then reemerged as the central social space combined desireably with dining and living spaces.
The bedroom, the most private room in the house, maintains the primary place for rest. There is an interesting relationship in the desire of light within this space; it is either welcomed or shunned.
The dining table is more than just a piece of furniture on which food is consumed, it is where discussions are had and homework is done. It is a rich surface that endures the where and tear of many years.
The living room is a peculiar place of light and dark. The introduction of the television in American living rooms reduced the desire of a well-lit space, especially in the afternoons. Furniture faces the television instead of each other due to a lower volume of conversations.
To approach the site with a sense of discovery then capture its sense of place through representation, one must creatively involve the hand. Make note of what is lasting and what is barely holding on. Trace your path to recall the memory so that you may locate yourself within the project.
site section
“Americans have never built for permanence. Most dwellings in the US were built of wood. Balloon framing made it easy to alter and expand, yet most American tended not to improve on their old residences but rather move to new residences in search of improvement. This restlessness leaves most dwellings remarkably unchanged and clearly reflective of their place in time, a kind of paradox--permanence in impermanence. In a relatively affluent society with money to spend on new housing, the middle and upper classes aspire to new dwellings and allow old dwellings to filter down the income ladder. We are a highly mobile nation in our ability to change locations with relative ease, reflecting its mobility in its common houses. “
the path of water forms the face of the house
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Jakle, page 197
“Migrations westward toward the Plains and further, many traditional house types survived but were trumped by the fads and fashions promoted by a commercial building industry advocating new forms, materials and building techniques while frequently reflecting the past, particularly in ornamentation. The housing of every small town offers evidence of its community’s roots in time. “As a key element of material culture the single family dwellings of small towns speak with some implicit stability of the American penchant for mobility”4. Nevertheless, local builders appear wonderfully unimaginative with their single story rectangular boxes with gable roofs.”
formal model showing material considerations and thermal envelope
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Jakle, page 197
The systems of the house should be thought of as entropic as well. It decays at a rate separate but dependant upon that of structure and interior finishes. This house’s concrete frame also provide a source of temperature change with the implementation of radiant tubing to heat and cool the interior.
mechanical wall section
site + construction sequence
“Any site has boundaries and limitations, origins and opportunities. The ground supports and accepts the architecture placed within it. It is a mutual relationship that we value implicitly as we too, exist on the ground.�
exploded axonometric + materiality + site
growth/shrinkage plans + site perspective
“Design can consist of making processes of transformation visible and thus can challenge our perceptions of permanence. It is decay that brings time to the surface; building materials endure weathering thus one can design for the poetic potential they inherently produce with a healthy knowledge of material potential and performance and keeping in good spirits with open experimentation. There has been growing interest architecture’s capacity for efficiency due to keeping costs down beginning with the appearance of value engineering in the late 1950s and inventions such as engineered materials and digital programs intended to speed up the design process. These things are supposed to make the architectural profession more efficient. But this inherently leads to complacency and the adaptation of the “typical”. Innovation at the scale of the masses is greatly reduced. How can we move forward with the typical? Design should make things better. It is the adaptation and adaptability of architectural form through and despite time that permits it to carry on. With the rapid evolution of place, site, and project, time becomes the element that enables movement within the process. The ironic fate of the contemporary American suburban house is such that its necessary frame is filled with unnecessary objects. Although architecture answers to a certain necessity, it too loses itself in regards to need. This notion explored architecturally reflects the expansion and contraction of the family in relation to its site using the house as a repeatable type. The house, quite obviously, is a privileged entity for a study of the intimate values of inside space, provided, of course, that we take it in both its unity and its complexity, and endeavor to integrate all the special values in one fundamental value”5.
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Bachelard, page 3
Arnheim, Rudolf. Entropy and Art; an Essay on Disorder and Order. Berkeley: University of California, 1971. Bachelard, Gaston. The Poetics of Space. Boston: Beacon, 1994. Carr, Patrick J and Kefalas, Maria J. Hollowing Out the Middle: The Rural Brain Drain and What is Means for America. Beacon Press: Boston, MA. 2009. Décosterd, Jean-Gilles and Rahm, Philippe. Physiological Architecture. Basel: Birkhäuser, 2002. Endesor, Tim. Industrial Ruins: Spaces , Aesthetics and Materiality. Oxford: Berg, 2005. Eco, Umberto. The Poetics of Open Work. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1989. Gardner, Thomas. Personal interview. 31 Jan. 2012. Gissen, David. Subnature: Architecture’s Other Environments. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2009. Jakle, John A., Bastian, Robert W., and Douglas K. Meyer. Common Houses in America’s Small Towns: The Atlantic Seaboard to the Mississippi Valley. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 1989. Martin, Ann Smart. Makers, Buyers, and Users: Consumerism as a Material Culture Framework. Winterthur Portfolio, vol 28, no 2/3. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1993. Mostafavi, Mohsen and Leatherbarrow, David. On Weathering. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2005. National Home Builders Association, “Housing at the Millennium: Facts, Figures and Trends” , Jan 2000 Smithson, Robert, and Jack D. Flam. Robert Smithson, the Collected Writings. Berkeley: University of California, 1996. Walker, Lester. American Shelter: An Illustrated Encyclopedia of the American Home. The Overlook Press. Woodstock, NY: 1981. U.S. Census Bureau. Statistical Abstract of the United States: No. HS-12. Households by Type and Size: 1900 to 2002. U.S. Washington DC: Census Bureau, June 2003. Zimmermann, Astrid. Constructing Landscape. Basel: Birkhäuser, 2009.