Maheen Umar Khitab_Thesis Report_Architecture by Maheen Umar Khitab

National College of Arts, Rawalpindi Department of Architecture

RE-IMAGINATION (IN) ARCHITECTURE: NAVIGATING A CONCEPTUAL AND PERCEPTUAL READING (OF) SPACE

MAHEEN UMAR KHITAB January, 2011

RE-IMAGINATION (IN) ARCHITECTURE: NAVIGATING A CONCEPTUAL AND PERCEPTUAL READING (OF) SPACE

By Maheen Umar Khitab January, 2011

Thesis Report submitted to the Department of Architecture, National College of Arts, Rawalpindi Campus in partial fulfillment of the requirement for the degree of B.Arch

Advisors: Dr. Shakeel Ahmed Qureshi Ar. Naeem Pasha Ar. Salman Mansoor Prof. (Asst.) Ali Ahmed Shah

This thesis would not have been possible without the lifelong input from every one of my teachers. It is through them that I am capable. And if this thesis means anything, it is the reflection of their hard work through me.

This report is dedicated to everyone who struggles in the name of architecture.

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[Table of Contents] [Acknowledgements] .................................................................................... Error! Bookmark not defined. [Dedication].................................................................................................. Error! Bookmark not defined. [Table of Contents] ................................................................................................................................ iv [List of Figures]..................................................................................................................................... vii [Abstract] ............................................................................................................................................. viii [Fascinations] .......................................................................................................................................... 1 [Intentions] .............................................................................................................................................. 4 [Motivations] ........................................................................................................................................... 5 [Investigations]........................................................................................................................................ 8 [Affiliations of Paradigm/Contextualization] ....................................................................................... 10 Theoretical Framework: Contemporary Architectural Thought ........................................................... 10 Theoretical parallels for this thesis ..................................................................................................... 11 [Grounds for Inquiry/ Research Questions] ......................................................................................... 12 [Aspect One: Dissections] ..................................................................................................................... 13 1.

Reading Architecture: A Perceptual Exercise ........................................................................ 14

Reading Architecture: As a Conceptual Exercise ................................................................... 23

Directions for Design Generating Dialogues: Contextualizing Eisenmansâ&#x20AC;&#x; Tools ................... 24

[Aspect two: Configurations] ................................................................................................................ 26 Theoretical Framework: Hilliersâ&#x20AC;&#x; Configurational Theory............................................................... 27 4.

Using Configuration as a Tool for Spatial Organization ......................................................... 32

Directions for Design ............................................................................................................ 37

[Aspect three: Navigation of Meaning]................................................................................................. 41 1.

Psarra‟s idea of Narrative sequence and Meaning .................................................................. 42

Zumthor‟s Narrative Journeys ............................................................................................... 44

[Aspect four: Re-imaginations]............................................................................................................. 46 1.

Re-inventing Core Ideas ....................................................................................................... 47

Koolhaas‟ methods of Re-inventing Core Ideas ..................................................................... 48

Core Ideas to Re-imagine in the Existing Building ................................................................ 50

[Directions for Design ] ......................................................................................................................... 53 Reading Architecture: Objectively ...................................................................................................... 54 Reading Architecture: Subjectively ..................................................................................................... 55 Definitions of the three main themes .................................................................................................... 55 [Reading Existing Text through New Paradigm] ................................................................................. 56 [Scope of work ] .................................................................................................................................... 57 [Understandings] .................................................................................................................................. 58 [Directions for Design Logic] ................................................................................................................ 60 Conceiving architecture, processes of….............................................................................................. 60 [Clients’ Brief] ...................................................................................................................................... 61 [Design Criteria/Architects’ Brief] ....................................................................................................... 62 Dissections......................................................................................................................................... 63 Configurations- .................................................................................................................................. 63 Re-imaginations ................................................................................................................................. 63 Navigations ........................................................................................................................................ 63 [Translating Ideas into Design] ............................................................................................................ 64 Quantitative Values ............................................................................................................................ 65 Qualitative Values .............................................................................................................................. 65

First Tool for Spatial Organization: Configuration ................................................................. 65

Tool for retaining the sequence of memory ........................................................................... 66

Guidelines for the lines of the new layout .............................................................................. 66

Second Guideline for Spatial Organization: Re-interpretation of the Free Plan ....................... 66

[Design Navigations] ............................................................................................................................. 67 1.

Reading: Conceptually.......................................................................................................... 67

Reading: Configurationally ................................................................................................... 67

Reading: Metaphorically ....................................................................................................... 70

Reading: Perceptually ........................................................................................................... 70

[Directions for the future] ..................................................................................................................... 71 Bibliography ......................................................................................................................................... 73

[List of Figures] Figure 1 Part of the Buildingsâ&#x20AC;&#x; Conceptual Evolution .................................................... 21 Figure 2 Readings of the Building ................................................................................. 25 Figure 3. Configuration (Source: Space is the machine) ................................................. 30 Figure 4 First Floor Plan ................................................................................................ 31 Figure 5 Configuration shown through a J-graph ........................................................... 31 Figure 6 Manipulation of Existing Text ......................................................................... 33 Figure 7 Mutations of Layout ........................................................................................ 35 Figure 8 Existing Building Plans.................................................................................... 39 Figure 9 Configuration of the Existing Building = Device for the Organization of Space. ...................................................................................................................................... 40 Figure 10 Cretan labyrinth (left) Mies van der Rohe, Brick Country House (right) ......... 42 Figure 11 Conceiving architecture, processes of ............................................................ 59 Figure 12 Planning the configuration in section ............................................................. 69

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[Abstract]

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[Fascinations]

This thesis began with a fascination with an idea… …an idea that came, when a question in my mind was left unanswered.

How could I change this building and yet be able to say it was the same?

The building being referred to is one that I have used for five years. And when I asked myself that question, I was fascinated by the possibility of there being a way, in architecture, to do that. I did not look for the answer in the „why‟. Instead I overlooked the „why‟ in favor of the belief that architecture itself could provide meaningful directions in search of an answer.

The idea of Re-imagination as a process in architecture. The idea of Narrative as a structuring device in architecture and The idea of Memory of a Building as one of its essences. And an interplay of these ideas in the making of architecture.

These ideas came from two places. One was a growing personal interest in the methods of architectural conception and a few themes that had inspired me in my four years of architectural education. The other was a theoretical question of whether it would be possible to conceive of new spaces within an existing building, in the contemporary architectural paradigm, without compromising on its‟ essence? As a first investigative step, the validity of the three aforementioned ideas, in the production of architecture was ascertained. When these ideas prompted new ways of thinking about architecture, it meant that they could be used as viable vehicles in the production of architecture. Any meaningful architectural exercise needs to establish a world view for itself within the greater body of architectural thought. As a second investigative step, these ideas were contextualized within the framework of the contemporary architectural

paradigm and related to recurring themes that were fundamental to architecture. They not only prompted a dialogue of what making architecture meant today but offered directions to explore a meaningful process towards design. To test these ideas for a bachelor thesis, I required a building that I had known of intimately, experiencing a part of its history and that offered enough room for experimentation in terms of spatial variety. Hence, the choice of the existing campus as my building under investigation.

[Intentions] In the thesis, half my [objectives] concerned architectural theory, while half had to do with pure architecture.

Theoretically, I was concerned with:  The ideas of re-imagination, narrative and memory, in architecture;  Investigating their viability in contemporary architectural thought;  Contextualizing a combination of them in my building,  Through the conception of this building, in my thesis, initiate a new direction of thinking about architecture: a world view. That, on a personal and holistic level contextualized this project within architecture, in Pakistan. Stepping back and reassessing the way we perceive architecture (conceptually and visually) and how that perception molds the way we think about architecture. What are the ideas we should be thinking about architecture with? And how do they maintain their connection with the ideas that have gone by?

Regarding architectural translation, I required processes:  To develop an approach with which to re-imagine the building through this combination of ideas;  Decide upon the status of the existing building within the paradigm of my thesis when affected by these ideas; make the existing building recognizable in the re-imagined one.  To embed these ideas into the re-imagined state of the building so that they are read and experienced by the user.  And the notion of making an Existing Building respond to a process of re-imagination keeping the narrative of the building intact.

[Motivations] Why it was important for me to do this project… evolutionary steps I have always been interested in doing a project where there was an already established context which I could juxtapose with another one and deal with the contradiction of ideas. I need a starting point against which to design. Like some designers start with a set of lines in a grid, I wanted to chose a more complex set of lines to design against. And work within a dialogue between old and new. I have been fascinated with the idea of meaning and how it is influenced by a contextual change. I am inspired by existing structures. I am fascinated by the way you can change their meaning through design. The idea of adaptive re-use has always interested me. But what does adaptive re-use mean when you have a different set of design values? Where „use‟ is not the dominant factor of design. How does the concept of adaptive re-use fit in the contemporary context? I wanted to develop a project using several parallel themes. The projects that inspire me are the ones that are deny categorization. Prompt an inquiry. I hate being incapable, as an architect, to create something out of a building as ordinary as this building. It required me to reassess the process I had so far employed in addressing architecture and forced me to look at new lenses through which the buildings‟ assumed meanings could be suspended in favor of new ones. And answer the question that had nagged me throughout of how could conceive of this building as something else? How could I shake the notion of this building, and make it respond to a different set of design values? In order to test these ideas I had to pick a building that I had experienced intimately over a certain period of time. A building that was memorable for me, had narrative potential, and could be read by a society of perceptive individuals in real time. The building I came to chose was the current campus building of the NCA in Rawalpindi. Since I have experienced the building for five years myself and have been witness to its evolution, it contained the seeds to explore the idea of narrative memory, the buildings‟

own evolutionary narrative, and most importantly the narrative of ideas within the larger body of architecture and how these ideas come to reside in buildings through vehicles of conception. The building becomes a manifestation of the process of architectural conception which, in every age is influenced by the prevailing zeitgeist 1. There was no apparent architectural interest in the building. The fact that people wanted it torn down, made me want to investigate what could be salvaged. If it had to be torn down, was there a way to retain the important things about the building? The subjective memories? Some notion of connection with the greater body of architecture? This was not an exceptional building, but it raised questions for architecture. If the building was allowing the production of professionals in the fields of art and architecture, it is functioning, albeit in an ad-hoc manner. But that is not the issue for my thesis. The issue for my thesis is concerned with the possibility of being able to alter the meaning of the building without compromising on the buildings‟ essence. Of being able to retain the building through processes of architecture, while simultaneously changing the perception of the building. The issue was of being able to call two buildings fundamentally identical, despite the fact that they don‟t look the same. In the paradigm that I have contextualized this thesis, i.e. the contemporary architectural context, there is a categorical denial of the validity of a building based on the premise of functional and symbolic rationale. Refer to the article by Peter Eisenman, attached as Appendix etc. Did the building contain, however weak, some kind of trace or idea of architecture that could help understand what this building was. If there was, could it point towards something that had to do with architecture fundamentally?

German for „spirit of the age‟. The prevailing ethos or sensibility of the era, the general mood of the

people, the tenor of public discourse, the intellectual inclinations and biases that underlie human endeavor. The current zeitgeist is an inclination to hold that truth is relative or impossible to know.

This leads to the framing of my [ Hypothesis] which states that:

In the context of an existing building, meaningful architecture can be produced through a notion of re-imagination, narrative and memory.

[Investigations]

“Now let us, throw a stone into the water... by a flight of the imagination, suppose that... in order to get...to a place, you have to... hold it apart, taking it out of itself, and find the seeds of the new. Sand swirls up and settles again. Rome is not a human habitation but a psychical entity, its’ relationship with other works of architecture and with a similarly long and copious past... The stir was necessary. Space is the machine - an entity that gives its own answers to the questions of our time. At the moment of its’ creation, is to reflect the spirit of its inventor...say configuration exists when relations between two spaces are changed according to how we relate one or other to at least one other space, in which nothing that has once come into existence say adjacency or permeability- between two spaces will have passed away… This I have seen before and all the earlier phases of development, bound to the present in a very special way… its‟ implicit „potential for reframing‟… continue to exist alongside the latest one… must make us see what already exists in a new light. The stone has found its place. But the pond is no longer the same.”

[Affiliations of Paradigm/Contextualization] Theoretical Framework: Contemporary Architectural Thought Mies van der Rohe_ Modernist „We know no forms, only building problems. Form is not the goal but the result of our work … Form as goal is formalism; that we reject. Nor do we strive for a style. Even the will to style is formalism. We have other worries. It is our specifi c concern to liberate building activity from aesthetic speculators and make building again what alone it should be, namely BUILDING [BAUEN].‟ Mies van der Rohe, L. Second issue of G, September 1923.1

Peter Eisenman describes the new paradigm, “In structuralism and formalism, structure is the dominant idea. In postmodernism, the fragment becomes a textual integer. Architecture will always be presence, and therefore the assumption of its metaphysic. In order to question the status of presence, the foundation of much of architecture‟s basis since the Renaissance, it is necessary to displace concepts which have become conventionalized, such as place, meaning, function, and the like. This questioning is the essence of criticality.” Peter Eisenman, Profiles of Text.

The binary relationships of space and use, function and meaning, aesthetic and form are not binding for the design process. In current architectural thought, these binaries are disassociated from each other. There is a displacing of values and a detachment of meaning. This does not in any way mean that the essential ingredients of architecture are to be compromised. It means that a different set of design values will determine the design. The building will function and will have meaning but it won‟t rely on function to determine its meaning. The destination is the same, but with a different method. So the building has to be judged on the basis of its approach.

Post structuralist thought. In the words of Peter Eisenman, â&#x20AC;&#x153;Post-structuralism offered methods of analysis and composition as a new lens through which to understand complex phenomena; in certain cases, these phenomena defy a clear reading altogether, and instead represent a condition of what can be now called undecidability.â&#x20AC;?

Theoretical parallels for this thesis My theoretical context is the one defined through context with the work of Eisenman, Hillier, Koolhaas and Zumthor. This unique combination was necessary to address the concerns of my project.

Definitions I began with Re-imagination: to imagine again or anew in a fundamentally different way. Narrative: the story of the building, Memory: the personal memories in the building The Existing Building: Potential.

[Grounds for Inquiry/ Research Questions] 

Defining the ideas of re-imagination, narrative, memory and an existing building in the contemporary architectural context.

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Then, how can the interplay of these ideas be used as vehicles for producing meaningful architecture in the context of an existing building?

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What was a building today, in context of current architectural thought?

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Deriving the essence of the building, in order to develop the foundations of a reimagination.

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Recognizing the design values to inscribe the new building with.

[Aspect One: Dissections]

to dissect the art of cutting into pieces in order to ascertain the structure of its parts.

A text is a web; a narrative is a string - Eisenman

Reading Architecture: A Perceptual Exercise

Every building is built with a motivation; a set of intentions. Those intentions may be programmatic, functional, symbolic etc. Some intentions are the ones that are not discussed, but they are the real reasons behind why a building is a certain way. Those are the ideas that the building is designed with. In order to reach that motivation the need to read the building arose. That motivation will be part of the buildings‟ essence.

1.1 Conceptual Framework Reading in the Work of Peter Eisenman: Architectural Text Architect and theorist, Peter Eisenman looks at architecture „as just one more manifestation of language theory‟ (Moneo 148). He argues for a syntactic position for architecture with the intention of reading architecture as text through the relationships of its formal structure through analytical methods. Eisenman believes that architecture has inherent structural laws that explain its evolution, just like a language. This assumption was based on Noam Chomsky‟s 2 theory of „deep structures’ in language. Eisenmans‟ effort as a theoretician of architecture was to find „structures, laws or principles that would explain the appearance of form.‟ (Moneo) Eisenman was interested in the „deeper aspects that are not perceived sensorially, such as frontality, obliquity, setbacks, elongations, compressions and shifts, which we perceive with the mind‟ rather than the „superficial aspects‟ of architecture. His emphasis is on the formal principles of architecture and how an architectural language can be decoded by understanding relationships between its pure elements. This text, when understood, as a language can be transformed through diagrammatic processes. 2

Noam Chomsky is an American linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, and political activist. Chomsky

is considered as one of the fathers of modern linguistics. In 1957‟s Syntactic Structures, he proposed that each sentence in a language has two levels of representation - a deep structure and a surface structure. (Chomsky)

Eisenmansâ&#x20AC;&#x; intention in his design process is to make his process readable through the form of the building. He believes that the reader is aware of the act of reading on a subconscious level. Eisenmansâ&#x20AC;&#x; translation of the ideas of text into architecture expands into processes of analysis, distinguished as formal and textual. He describes the distinction between the two ideas as,

The fundamental difference between a formal analysis and a textual analysis in architecture lies in the idea of the metaphysics of presence. Formal analysis assumes as a truth the premise that architecture is the locus of the metaphysics of presence, while a textual analysis begins to question this assumption, going beyond the dialectics of form/function, figure/ground, public/private, which is grounded in such a metaphysics.( Molinari 67)

These concepts define the methods of analysis opted for this thesis.

A formal analysis pretends to begin from an internal logic that is linear and narrative, beginning from an initial idea or diagram. Textual analysis suspends narrative and hierarchy. In a text, there is not one truth but many truths; not one diagram, but a series of diagrams. A formal analysis is basically a narrative; a text is a tissue of traces that denies narrative. A text is a web; a narrative is a string. A textual analysis attempts to look at material without saying here is any particular truth, or any particular value, to one thread more than the other. (Molinari, 67)

In the critical analysis of Luigi Moretti‟s Casa “Il Girasole”, Peter Eisenman identifies the point in history „that an idea of what might be considered a text in architecture might be introduced.‟(Lourie, 28)

The term formal describes conditions in architecture that can be read not necessarily in terms of meaning or aesthetics, but in terms of their own internal consistency. This internal coherence involves strategies that have nothing to do with the primary optical aspects of the aesthetic (proportion, shape, color, texture, materiality) but rather have to do with the internal structure governing their interrelation. Formal analysis looks at architecture outside of its necessarily historical, programmatic, and symbolic context.(Lourie 28)

He goes on to describe what is meant by a textual reading of architecture.

The term textual can be defined in relationship to one of poststructuralism‟s key concepts in the Derridian idea of text. Derrida suggests that a text is not a single linear narrative, but a web or a tissue of traces. While a narrative is unitary, continuous, and directional, a text is multivalent, discontinuous, and nondirectional. In the context of this book, the idea of a text, like the idea of a diagram, helps to initiate a change from the idea of reading a work as a unitary entity to understanding a work as an undecidable result of varying forces. (Lourie 28-29)

The distinction described above provides a post-structuralist definition of narrative, the idea of architecture in being the source of such a narrative if read in terms

of its textual identity. These understandings will be essential to the analysis of the building in purely objective, architectural terms.

1.1.1 Deep Structures For the purpose of reading the existing building, I looked at Eisenman‟s readings off the work of Frank Lloyd Wright, Andrea Palladio and Luigi Moretti. In these readings he ascertains the structure they follow, the ordering that they establish and the canons of architecture that they subscribe to in their work. This „close reading‟3 analysis helped him contextualize the buildings within the evolution of architectural thought. This self-explanatory language can only be found and perceived if it is not associated with another meaning. Sign and signified should have no relationship. The reader takes on a leading role, and the work, or text, becomes secondary. Hence, there are as many realities as there are readers‟ (Moneo 182-183). This is indicative that Eisenmans‟ work requires the autonomy of the individual reader for further readings of his text.

1.1.2 Repressed Text „Any site contains not only presences, the memory of previous presences and the immanence‟s of possible presence‟ – Eisenman.

A term Eisenman uses to refer to what the mind sees – the visual, as opposed to what the eye sees – the

optical. „Seeing with the mind‟ or „close reading‟.

For Eisenman, the inherent formal vocabulary of the building is of fundamental importance. Like a true post-structuralist, his intention is to bring to the surface these hidden and repressed texts. In the context of my building, the interest was to excavate, through the analytical tools Eisenman provided, some form of essence in terms of ideas, systems of ordering, concepts. These essences could provide grounds for the re-imagination of the building. According to the idea of reading, these ideas existed within the lines of the building. A close reading of the building through its drawings was done between the lines.

1.2 Reading the Existing Buildings’ Text

The methods of formal and textual analysis were applied to the building in order to dissect from it any kind of essence.

1.2.1 Ascertaining the History of the Building

Reverse Imagineering of the Buildings‟ Conception: as the first stage in the reading of the building. As a user. As an archaeologist seeking traces to use. The following describes the sequence of ideas that could be traced back: 1. A square site was provided in the vicinity of the Liaquat Hall (a modernist influence that was hard to ignore). 2. Possible accesses to the site began to define the way the buildings‟ entry/exit points were ascertained, further dictating frontage, elevations and circulation. 3. It seems hard to believe that the buildings‟ front façade faced an important axis, visual or functional, as the plot adjacent to it on the north western front does not allow for any such axis. It might have been that the building was conceived off in an office not on the actual site. 18

4. The access points translate into the buildings‟ major and minor axis. That go on to describe the way the building connects with the outside and how it is connected on the inside. 5. The reading of the column versus planning shows that the structure was applied after the planning stage. And there seems to have been a dialogue in the form of a compromise between the structural engineer and the planner. The resultant spaces seem to narrate that dialogue in plan. Show a diagram of the dialogue through inconsistencies in the grid and the planned spaces. 6. The shape of the building was perhaps arrived through the need for a central open space. The rectangular main body of the building is attached to two smaller rectangular wings that show through construction joints with the main body that the building was constructed in stages. 7. The central open void in the building seems to be a residual space left over from dominating decisions such as the symmetry of façade articulation, the bridge that cuts through the void makes readable the major axis of the building and makes its importance readable. 8. The purity of the shape comes from the economy and conservatism of the planning. Perhaps programmatic requirements of the Income Tax Building enabled the spaces to be planned out in a certain way. Hillier and Psarra talk about the way spaces are planned out to unconsciously to reinforce a particular building type. Since this building was commissioned by the bureaucracy, it reflects the institutional social structure. It is reflected in the linear circulation spaces connecting multiple terminating spaces on either side. Very few instances of spaces leading through into other spaces. The circulation is very controlled in that way. 9. The structural grid lends an aesthetic for the designer to work with. In terms of the articulation of the façade. The articulation of the columns in the façade as an element is at once a traditional intention as well as a modernist one where the structure of the building is exposed. But here the structure is exposed perhaps due

to the innate desire to centre the 41/2 inch wall between the grid of the columns. There are no beams in the façade. 10. Instead of using the column-beam structure as a liberating device of design like Le Corbusier, here the structure is dealt with in a dual sense. Inside the buildings‟ corridors the partition walls are placed flush along the length of the corridors to give more space inside the rooms on either side. The walls defining the corridors can be read as load bearing walls, until you walk into one of the rooms and find the walls ending under beams. 11. It is important to note at this stage how the intention of the designer can be read in the physicality of the building. If you aware of the act of reading. 12. One of the staircases reveals another intention. Where the line was extended and chamfered at a 45 degree angle to create space for a landing. Once done the designers‟ innate sense of symmetry compelled him to repeat the chamfered detail on the other side of the line of symmetry. This gave him further impetus to define the entrance of building throughout the front façade by articulating that detail in length.

13. The projection above the windows on the facade reflects the decision to repeat the detail of the hollow concrete volume everywhere that particular window existed. The devotion to uniformity is reflected in the way the projections are retained even along the facades that don‟t face the sun. Although in one of the facades that is south facing, there are windows that do not have projections. Here the windows are not the same size as the rest and they

14. The added projections on the wall might have been to further articulate the façade, in addition to creating space on the inside for closets that in many cases concealed pipes. Maybe the intention for the closets came first, then the idea to project it outwards to articulate. Or the need to have niches on the inside. Even if all of these were true for particular places in the building, it was decided to apply the idea in its totality to all the facades to satisfy the sense of uniformity and

symmetry. The elements were used as a decorative element in the traditional sense. The façade was composed.

15. Reflects the functional belief that the shortest distance between two points is a straight line. Although articulating the façade in that manner might not be the best functional or economic idea.

16. The configurational analysis of the building shows that over time the buildings‟ configuration has been changing. However because the other physical identities of the building have not been affected, which it is why hard to identify the difference.

Figure 1 Part of the Buildings’ Conceptual Evolution

1.2.2 Ascertaining the Conception of the Building by Reading the building in relation to its Zeitgeist, context. Through the close reading of the building, it could be deduced what ideas the building was designed with. In terms of modernist ideals: 21

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The trace of the Domino House can be assumed in the adoption of it as a structural system.

The traditional/classical ideas present in the plan: 

Order in terms of hierarchy.

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Symmetry.

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Single Axiality.

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Articulation of the Façade (in the projections, sunshades, definition of windows and columns).

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Solid-void relationship is mutually defining.

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Origins of the form are a pure square.

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Stratified floors – describes the relationship of the way space is distributed vertically.

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Partition walls are treated in some places to look like load bearing walls.

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Function seems to dictate the shape and form of the spaces.

Reading Architecture: As a Conceptual Exercise

2.1 Making a Building Readable: Eisenmans’ Formal Methods

My intention is to make this text readable in the design so the user can understand the ordering of the building. When this is achieved, any subsequent change in the building can be brought about in accordance with its inherent order. A constantly evolving dialogue. According to Eisenman, the norms and behaviour of the architectural language was something self-explanatory. If this is considered to be true, it has implications on the way buildings are experienced conceptually as well as perceptually. And the use of the existing building over time, the subsequent changes made in it are all testaments to the ordering that imposes on the decisions made. In his critical analysis of the Casa “Il Girasole”, Eisenman talks about the textual nature of materiality. He identifies the way in which material “is used rhetorically,…,as material in and of itself” as opposed to material “for its purely phenomenological value, as in Peter Zumthor‟s use of stone or wood. Rather, material functions here as notation, articulating difference…that obeys no structural or compositional logic. No dominant material system can be discerned, and there is no 23

governing color palette. The use of material is both notational and didactic, to call attention to the possibility of material as text. material elements refer back and forth to one another, yet they do not represent anything other than the mere fact of their existence…in their refusal to refer to any external systems of material meaning, the materials function textually.”(Lourie, 33-34) 2.2 Manipulation of the Existing Buildings’ Text As a text the building does respond to the act of reading. It is elaborated on the following page.

Directions for Design Generating Dialogues: Contextualizing Eisenmans’ Tools The building through Eisenmans‟ lens becomes potential for re-imagination.

When the building is regarded as a text, it opens up multiple interpretations. And that is the ideal state for the building to be in so that as a reader I can impose my interpretations on the text. The nature of the interpretation depends on the postmodern design values I subscribe to.

25 Figure 2 Readings of the Building

[Aspect two: Configurations]

configure arranging elements relative to each other in an organized whole. â&#x20AC;&#x17E;The book and the labyrinth are one and the sameâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;- Luis Borges

Theoretical Framework: Hilliers’ Configurational Theory.

1.1 Configuration as a Tool for Analysis and Design

„A house is a machine for living in…‟ Le Corbusier (1923) „But I thought that all that functional stuff had been refuted. Buildings aren‟t machines.‟ Student „You haven‟t understood. The building isn‟t the machine. Space is the machine.‟ Nick Dalton, Computer Programmer at University College London (1994)

(Source: Space is the machine, inner page)

Bill Hillier and his colleagues at the University College London have evolved the concept of „spatial configuration‟ --- “meaning relations which take account of other relations in a complex.” Their research focuses on how space features in the form and functioning of buildings and cities, compiled in The social logic of space, 1984. The idea has been developed into techniques and applied for a wide range of architectural and urban problems.„The success of configurational ideas in bringing to light the spatial logic of buildings and cities suggests that it might be possible to extend these ideas to other areas of the human sciences where problems of configuration and pattern are critical.‟

For the purpose of this thesis the concept of spatial configuration is used to illicit another objective reading of the building in terms of the definition of configuration provided by the work of Hillier. The reading of the existing building in terms of its configuration gives a new lens to look at a building purely in terms of its objective connections. According to Hillier, these connections are symbolic of a building type. Sophia Psarra‟s interpretation of Hilliers‟ work gives a new direction in considering configuration to be a viable vehicle for the formation of meaning in space. She draws parallels between architecture and the literary narrative to explain how these two disciplines share similarities, the understanding of which can inspire new techniques of structuring building experiences as well as the experiential quality of literature. The idea of using configuration as a tool that carries the symbolic meaning of the existing building came from Psarra‟s comparisons between architecture and narrative. A tool that can be consciously used to structure the experience of a user/reader in a building. The implications of Psarra‟s interpretation on the development of this thesis is discussed under the next chapter Navigation of Meaning. The translation of configuration for the purpose of design is done keeping both the interpretations of Hillier and Psarra in mind. Since the concerns of this thesis are regarding both conception and perception of architectural space, both points of view are valuable in opening possibilities for design.

1.2

Understanding Space as Configurational

My process for this aspect of my thesis involves experimentation and analysis, as methods to understand my definiton of how to „re-imagine‟ the college builidng. It was realized that this re-imagination or eventual change in the building must come on a fundamental level. The unit for this change in the context of Hilliers‟ configurational theory was understood as „configuration‟.

According to Hilliers definition, „a set of relationships among things all of which are interdependant on an overall structure of some kind‟. Which means that ideas are understood as a complex whole rather than in isolation. Meaning that just like we cannot understand a space without its function, a space cannot be understood without the social organizations and relationships that are contained within it. He understands that „buildings operate socially in two ways: they constitute the social organization of everyday life as the spatial configurations of space in which we live and move, and represent social organization as physical configurations of forms and elements we see‟ (Hillier). This shows that he considers social organization as reducible to spatial and physical configurations that can be measured. 

Through their spatial properties buildings are embodiments of social information, specifying what must happen and where.

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It is through the realm of space and the variable of configuration that the relationship between architecture and society passes.

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Hillier believes that this flexibility is a local change that has global consequences for configuration.

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According to Hillier, configuration is „the non-discursive spatial and social relations society uses, unconsciously, to operate in space, like rules in a language‟.

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He says that these rules cannot be described but people can understand complex spatial patterns intuitively. Like in speaking a language you do not think about the syntax and formal rules of the language, but you intuitively refer to it while speaking. This establishes the relation between the user and how the space is operated within.

1.3 Plans as J-Graphs

Figure 3. Configuration (Source: Space is the machine) J-graphs (Justified graphs) are a manner of representing space configurationally. This allows us to analyze space on the basis of its relationships, distances between them and the point of view of the viewer. By changing the point of reference and drawing a jgraph from that point, the j-graph changes, reflecting how coherence of an organization is dependent on the point of view and the interrelationship of spaces. Hillier categorizes spaces on the basis of type to help develop j-graphs to show their connections. 

Type „a‟: is a space where there is no through movement. It is a terminating space where movement is to and from the space;

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Type „b‟: is a space where there is control in the possibility of movement. The movement through it is unique, in that it doesn‟t offer multiple possibilities of movement;

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Type „c‟: there is a possibility of through movement. And there is no one journey. Constrains through the sequence of space; 30

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Type„d‟: permits movement and does not control the choice of routes in anyway. Allows the most freedom.

Figure 4 First Floor Plan

Figure 5 Configuration shown through a J-graph

Above is shown the First Floor of the Existing Building and its J-Graph. It clearly shows how the different spaces in the building are connected in a specific hierarchy. And if this relationship is maintained, the configuration is intact.

Using Configuration as a Tool for Spatial Organization

Topological Change: A branch of geometry concerned with those properties of a figure which remain unchanged even when the figure is bent, stretched, etc. Its essence remains the same. 2.1 Manipulation of Existing Layout w.r.t Configuration The building plans were analysed on the basis of the Space Syntax Method of JGraphs that describe the relationship of spaces with each other. For the first floor of the college building an experiment was carried out to alter the geometric identity of the building, keeping the formal identity (grid) and the configurational identity (J-Graph) immutable. The result is an altered design but one that inherently stays the same, in terms of its formal and configurational identities. The envelope of volumes has altered, but has not changed fundamentally. Fundamentally, it is still the same floor. Just a different layout. The process is explained through diagrams on the opposite page in Figure 6.

Figure 7 elaborates on the translation of a single J-graph into endless permutations of layout.

33 Figure 6 Manipulation of Existing Text

35 Figure 7 Mutations of Layout

2.2

Subjectivity and the Grid When drawing on the grid without programmatic restrictions, the grid in itself

imposed itself as a restriction. The grid ordered the conceptual thinking as it was coming onto the paper. These restrictions reduced the number of configurational possibilities. The resultant design was a product of that grid. Could it be traced back to its formal identity (ie the grid)? The grid offered a genotype, which contained the possible phenotypes for a particular subjectivity. Subjective conception determined the phenotype. Is it possible to impose a different phenotype on this genotype and be able to trace back and find some relationship? And a further step, of those relationships containing meaning? Despite the disharmonies? Are these the disharmonies inherent for a closed system where we were trying to create predictable scenarios that evolved over time? Multiple phenotype possibilities inherent within the genotype.

Does that mean that a particular genotype contains enough evolutionary flexibility and adaptability to â&#x20AC;&#x17E;co-existâ&#x20AC;&#x; with a product of a different genotype? There will be some points of constructive and alternatively destructive interference. Even within multiple phenotypes from a common genotype.

Can these interferences produce meaning? When designing, I will be imposing my „subjective will‟ conceiving a new spatial configuration within an existing one.

2.3

Flexibility of the Grid Considering the fact that the grid has infinite potential and hidden possibility,

exercises were done to test the flexibility of the grid. This was done by conceiving design within the constraints and freedoms of the grid as well as outside of it. It was tested to see whether this grid resolved configurations that had evolved out of other grids, out of other formal identities. I tried to test the limit of the grid. How much adaptability does the grid have in terms of containing a different configuration? Explorations were attempted by juxtaposing different and similar geometries, formal identities, configurations. Attempting to generate meaningful patterns within this/ due to this juxtaposition. If that is possible, then this grid is truly adaptable. Through resolvable and conflicting elements. Elements/Configurations that are independently harmonious will overlap/collide and might create new relationships that will be a set of harmonies and disharmonies. Spaces created as a result of this, to be analyzed for meaning.

Directions for Design

Change can be caused configurationally. All other change that doesn‟t affect the deep structure is „surface change‟. If the configuration of the deep structure is realized then the building can be altered. The J-Graphs of building revealed it to be a configuration for a building with a generic function requiring isolated vs. interactive space. This was kept constant, as well as the specific floor‟s program. A new geometric identity was conceived

within the same formal identity as well as keeping the configuration intact. A change was affected on a superficial level.Visual relationships (surface change) could change but the inherent relationship/ configuration hasn‟t. The formal identity remains the same. The diagram was also the college. Inherently. On the basis of formal identity. According to Borges,„The book and the labyrinth are one and the same’. Out of the „Subjectivity and the Grid‟ exercise… a meaningful diagram of architecture in visual terms was achieved. It was a possibility that was allowed by the grid. It was a combined product of possible subjective conception and inherent formal potential. The process of creating the diagram, one thing was developed in relation to the other. Maybe a visually meaningful relationship is architecture. Or an architectural narrative. From a purely narrative point of view meaning can be generated in this. According to Hillier, out of the infinite possibilities inherent within a configuration/grid etc, it is not enough to know all the possible configurations. That would be useless. It is more important to know the rules of how a certain configuration, which serves the purpose, can be structured. When creating sentences, the rules of sentence structure are not as important as their configuration. Sentences may follow the rules of sentence structure but that is not enough to give them meaning. It is the specific relationship between the words that is of value. The essential relationship that exists between words produces meaningful sentences. The following pages show the plans of the existing building followed by the configuration of the building.

Figure 8 Existing Building Plans

40 Figure 9 Configuration of the Existing Building = Device for the Organization of Space.

[Aspect three: Navigation of Meaning] If a straight line is the shortest distance between two fated and inevitable points, digressions will lengthen it; and if these digressions become so complex, so tangled and tortuous, so rapid as to hide their own tracks, who knows â&#x20AC;&#x201C; perhaps death may not find us, perhaps time will lose its way, and perhaps we ourselves can remain concealed in our shifting hiding places. â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Carlo Levi, quoted by Calvino, I. (1996), Six Memos for the Next Millennium, London: Vintage, p. 47.

Psarra’s idea of Narrative sequence and Meaning

Figure 10 Cretan labyrinth (left) Mies van der Rohe, Brick Country House (right) (Source: Cover page, Architecture and Narrative) The hypothesis was that if configuration was used as a tool to structure the buildings‟ narrative, then the sequence of spaces and events would carry the essential connections, the symbolic memories of the original building despite the alteration in layout. Psarra talks about the way narrative and architecture affect each others‟ processes. According to her, “architecture carries content through the arrangement of spaces, materials, social relationships and the cultural purposes with which it is invested. It is underpinned by agencies and the systems of thought that are involved in its production.‟ In comparison, “Narrative is often seen as a form of representation bound with sequence, space and time (Cobley 2001: 3). But it is also regarded „as structure, a particular way of combining parts to make a whole‟ or as narration, as the process or „the activity of selecting, arranging and rendering story material in order to achieve specific time bound effects on a perceiver‟ (Bordwell 1985: xi). A narrative requires a narrator 42

and a reader in the same way in which architecture requires an architect and a viewer. A narrative, therefore, is not only the content of the story that is narrated, or the way in which it is interpreted by readers, but also the way in which it is structured and presented to an audience by an authorial entity, a writer, a film-maker, an architect…”

Narrative enters architecture in many ways, from the conceptual „messages‟ it is made to stand for to the illustration of a design through models, drawings and other representational forms.1 This aspect of architectural expression, what the design speaks of, is relevant to narrative as representation. It concerns the semantic meanings of buildings and places, and the contribution of architecture to the expression of social and cultural messages. But architecture does not only express meaning. It also participates in the construction of meaning through the ordering of spaces and social relationships. Architects respond to this ordering by orchestrating relations independently of a viewer‟s perception, and visualizing space as a perceptual condition, from the hypothetical viewpoint of a spatially situated observer. Relating visualizations of three-dimensional spaces and abstract frameworks of rules, architects arrange conceptual and perceptual layers of order. (Psarra 18)

1.4 Understanding the Construction of Meaning in Architecture: through Narrative Structures When we come to describing meaning, architecture is also about creating meaningful spaces through relationships. When we try and understand what that meaning is and how to go about creating it, we arrive at the divide between conception and perception. Conceptual space being what the architect conceives on paper and perceptual space is what the inhabitant understands of the space through the senses.

The research for this aspect began with an attempt to read and understand the building on a subjective level. This was to follow the objective study of the building in the first aspect. The subjective study includes understanding of the configurations and patterns of perceptual experience within the building. Here the perceptual experience refers to the memories and associations of the user with the building, on a personal (fictional) as well as a collective level. This will be done using a survey through interviews with students, a collection of descriptions of memory and associations. All this will be done to determine the kind of space this becomes, seen through different eyes. There would be a collective memory as well as a personal memory associated with the building. This will help in understanding the way memory gives certain meanings to space. And how the perception of the user is affected by the space they are in. When architects refer to design they cast it as a mental activity that is concerned with arranging forms, spaces, programme and materials. When they speak about a building they often describe it as narrative invoking a hypothetical viewer and a journey through space. Thus while design is portrayed as an activity of the mind, a building is seen as something to be experienced. This experience follows a route and unfolds in time. For some architects spatial narrative is central not only to the way in which they describe buildings but also to way in which they design. From Le Corbusier‟s notion of „promenade architecturale‟ to Daniel Libeskinds‟ Jewish Museum in Berlin, vistas are shortened or lengthened and routes are twisted or layered to achieve spatial drama and heighten suspense.

Zumthor’s Narrative Journeys

Throw a stone into the water... Sand swirls up and settles again. The stir was necessary. The stone has found its place.

But the pond is no longer the sameâ&#x20AC;Ś

In his book Thinking Architecture, Peter Zumthor talks about kitchens, door knobs and the sound of closing doors. These are not just any kitchen, door knob or door that he is referring to, but the particular ones that he has grown up with. The ones that have left an indelible mark on his mind of what these entities mean, connecting him with the physical world around him through specific qualities. Once the memory of these objects are executed in all their loving nostalgic detail, they become part of the tangible world, and affect us with their uniqueness as if those entities are just as valuable to us. This is the way Zumthor designs. By reaching in to the essentials that design can manifest in an object and by imbibing a specific meaning in it, he creates the particular awareness of the object. Here the narratives are personal but they affect us because they tap into a consciousness that is collective. The study of Zumthorsâ&#x20AC;&#x; work is influential for this thesis in the understanding of how to translate the personal affiliations of space into design. A method is required for the translation of my memories of the building into the new one that reminds the reader of the presence of the old building in the new one. It is intended that this will initiate a dialogue of sorts between the two buildings by engaging the reader in experiences that are particular to the memory of the building. Zumthor uses materials, particular qualities of light, physical presences of time to recall the desired spatial qualities, moods and memories. In the thesis a similar method will be adopted to give the new building an experiential quality that refers to the memory of the old.

[Aspect four: Re-imaginations] re-imagine to imagine again or anew in a fundamentally different way.

Re-inventing Core Ideas

Between Modernism and now there exists a gulf of re-interpretations that reflect the design values of the time. For a true re-imagination of this building, it is important to know what the original imagination was. Modernist ideas of space, as exemplified in the work of the masters like Le Corbusier and Mies, contained infinite potential for exploring space according to a particular system of thought. A constant re-working of these ideas, in every generation, produced mutations that kept the debate on the fundamental debates in architecture valid by shedding new light on them. Debates regarding the aspects of form/function, materiality, symbolism, context, conceptual methods etc. Ideas such as the Renaissances perspective, the Cartesian grids‟ endless continuum, Le Corbusiers‟ Domino Structure and 5 Points of Architecture etc have influenced the way architects in that generation thought about space. And only after another more powerful reality took its place, did these ideas get reevaluated. The way the Modernists thought of and conceived of space is different from how we look at architecture now. There has been a shift in the zeitgeist that forces us to look at the familiar with new eyes. The question is how we should be conceiving of space today, knowing all that has gone before us and all that we predict to be the future? My thesis attempts to address this question by understanding the reality we live in today. In the context of ideas architecture is being thought about now. How the buildings we have been left with, along with the ideas that were considered to be absolute, are related to this evolution of thought. Which values are pertinent to retain, and which are allowed to mutate. My concern was that how those ideas could be reconceived in today‟s zeitgeist, with the new understandings of Hilliers‟ configuration, Eisenmans‟ text etc? My theoretical context is the contemporary one defined by the work of Eisenman, Hillier, Koolhaas and Zumthor. This unique combination was necessary to address the concerns of my project.

A design logic tells us how to organize space, how to articulate windows and place furniture, what the walls should mean etc.To form a new conception of my building, I had to be able to understand what ideas this building had been designed with. The principles that could be read in the building referred to a notion of what Modernism was. The translation of the notion was done in a traditional manner so to speak in a way that answered my questions about the buildings‟ potential to give us directions to design with.

Koolhaas’ methods of Re-inventing Core Ideas

For the contextualizing design values for the motivations of the age, cues were taken from the work of Rem Koolhaas. The analysis of Peter Eisenman below, describes the way in which Rem re-imagined ideas in his work, Much of Rem Koolhaas‟s earliest work explores the diagram as a symbolic form; for example, the New York Athletic Club becomes symbolic of a discontinuous formal diagram….It can be argued that Koolhaas‟s 1992 project for the Jussieu Libraries takes a position between these two types of diagrams --- that is, that it marks an inflection point in Koolhaas‟s shift from a symbolic to an iconic diagram, and that this movement is registered through a critique of the diagrams of Le Corbusier and Mies van der Rohe. Le Corbusier‟s Palais des Congres-Strasbourg will be seen to be an important precedent for Jussieu, because in section the project implies a continuity between the ground and the roof. This sectional continuity denies the ground as a datum by suggesting that the ground is conceived as a malleable fabric, capable of being pulled up to meet the roof. In seeking to produce a diagram that is differentiated from that of Le Corbusier without resorting to classical poche‟, Koolhaas uses the

void, which is conceived as an inversion of poche‟, as a conceptual armature in a series of projects leading up to the Jussieu Libraries. (Lourie, 199)

2.1 Functional discontiguity In both the New York Athletic Club and the Parc de La Villette competition entry, Rem presents a critique on conventional ideas regarding functional adjacency. The New York Athletic Club is presented as a model that, according to Eisenman, “..is not a traditional diagram of function, but is rather a diagram symbolic of the dismantling of the traditional physical contiguity of part-to-whole relationships” (Lourie, 203). The conventional assumption that similar functions should be zoned adjacent to each other was inverted with the use of the elevator in cutting across stacks of physically adjacent, functionally discontinuous relationships in a high rise building. The reflection of this subversion can be seen in the Parc de La Villette entry. Rem divided the park up into programmatic strips, placing functions together that did not require to be physically close so as to encourage a new approach towards urbanism, the definition of a park, the definition of functions in relation to each other.

This precedent can be indicative of the way conventional relationships that are no longer reinforced in today‟s‟ reality, can be subverted. With the result that it prompts new insights into the ideas we design with, where they come from and how they shape the way we think and live. It gave another lens for me to look at design decisions regarding functional organization, placement etc and guide me in establishing the relationships of the architecture of my building in itself and with the site.

2.2 Denial of the Ground as Datum Eisenman terms Koolhaas‟s analysis of the New York Athletic Club as “contiguous discontinuity…where functional layers happen to be physically contiguous, yet there is neither functional need nor meaning need nor meaning in their physical contiguity” (Lourie, 203). In his project for the Tres Grande Bibliotheque, 1993, Rem develops this idea in section and conceives of the library as “a vertical stacking of differentiated horizontal planes that do not share a contiguity of program from one level to the other.” (Lourie 203). This gives rise to multiple possibilities for the re-imagination of the building by denying the conventional meanings attached to relationships of architecture.

Core Ideas to Re-imagine in the Existing Building

What is a free plan, re-imagined? Previously, the idea of a free plan was one that was free from the restriction of load bearing walls, allowing a new kind of spatial possibility within the plan and the organization of spaces and society. For my re-imagination, a free plan is one that is…

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Freed from the restrictions of shape and form.

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Freed from the restrictions of inside/outside

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Floors freed from the restriction of the slab. 50

ii.

What is a floor, re-imagined? Previously (in the memory of the building) a floor was known as an extension of the horizontal continuum at a particular height in vertical space. For my re-imagination, a floor is

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Displaced from its association with horizontal continuity in space.

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A floor is a continuous connection of a sequence of spaces. These spaces follow a logical connection that has to do with pure configuration.

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A floor defies categorization to a particular floor level, shape or functional association.

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Floors are not stacked one on top of the other, but overlap to blur the visual distinction between floors.

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Although the floors do not interact at points other than those dictated by configuration, but they open up the possibility for there to be more connections.

iii.

What is a connection, re-imagined? Previously understood in the building as distinct horizontal or vertical links between spaces, like in the case of vertical stairs and horizontal bridges etc. In the re-imagination of the building, a connection is…

 A space itself can be a connection.  The pure connections are the essence to be retained in the building. A liberty of layout, morphology, shape etc allows for new possibilities to seep into the building.

iv.

What is inside? What is outside? The buildings‟ inside and outside mutually define each other through their identifiable boundaries. The relationship is predictable. 51

For the re-imagined building, 

The distinction between inside and outside is blurred due to the fragmented nature of the plan. It is hard to define and predict the sequence and relationship of inside to outside.

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A metaphorical reading of space gives new meanings to the conventional notion of inside and outside. And opens up a visual dialogue of what is inside and what is outside

What is the solid-void relationship, re-imagined? The U-shape of the building encloses a square volume of void, with one side opening up to the endless continuum. The solid-void relationship is mutually definitive.

In the new building, 

The floors are solid while the spaces of the in between form voided areas

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Voids are a result of the manipulation of configuration along the lines of the free plan. In essence they are left over spaces, similar to the original buildings‟ central void.

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These voided spaces are given meaning through metaphorical readings, and in areas where they give a functional advantage to the space, they are exploited.

vi. What is a free façade, re-imagined? The free façade acted like a light membrane. In the re-imagined building, the free façade… 

Is a porous filter which does not define strictly the inside from the outside.

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Reveals the inside of the building.

[Directions for Design]

Reading Architecture: Objectively I started by looked at the building in its pure architectural objectivity. I basically dissected it to find some kind of ordering or structure that belied the system of conception behind it. The design values it was designed with. I dissected its parts to make sense of the original whole and what ingredients the original designer had put into designing this building. This would give me insight into the way the building had been designed and would help me formulate an approach to re-imagine the building (which was my purely architectural objective). The conception of the building represented, in a shallow way, a notion in Pakistan, of what Modernism was. There were reflections, however weak, of ideas that were core principles of Modernist design. But were diluted by the traditional take on those core principles in terms of the aesthetic, geometric and conceptual identities of the building. Such as the column beam structure, the presence of the partition walls treated as load bearing, the articulation of the faĂ§ade, the symmetry and the axiality. Formal readings in terms of architecturesâ&#x20AC;&#x; pure vocabulary. Put image examples. The dissections gave an idea as to where the building was coming from conceptually. And what ideas it was referring to unconsciously. The system of thought behind the building was understood. Needed a quantitative way to look at the building other than functional requirements. The alternative came in the form of the idea of configuration. In search of the buildings essence, a configurational reading of the building (Hillier) was extracted. It was divorced from affiliations of style, vocabulary, layout, geometry and symbolic representation. It became an important filter to look at the building through, as a set of connections that were essence in sequence. It was an important quantitative tool that helped retain the essence of the building in a novel way as well as allowing me to change the building.

Reading Architecture: Subjectively This project gave me the opportunity to re-evaluate the notions of architecture that I have been influenced by (consciously and unconsciously) not only based on a relation to my interests but in response to todayâ&#x20AC;&#x;sâ&#x20AC;&#x; zeitgeist as well. Full stop. A kind of subjective reading went on simultaneously since every decision and line reflected a subjective reading of the building that stemmed from memory or affiliation. Again a set of design values that had very little to do with the functional or formal approaches of architecture. With those two urges subdued, other nuances of architectural process were given dominance. It was hoped that the outcome would be different as well.

Definitions of the three main themes 1.1 Re-imagination The process of adapting a building to new meanings and definitions

1.2 Narrative The configurational and metaphorical sequences of the building. The navigation of the architect through these sequences in making a piece of architecture.

1.3 Memory The physical and metaphysical dialogue of space and place.

[Reading Existing Text through New Paradigm] The Buildings Essence The new readings of the building saw it asâ&#x20AC;Ś. 1. A set of relationships not attached to place and space. As configuration. (Hillier) 2. As a system of thought. That related the building to its context. (Re-inventing Core Concepts) 3. As a formal vocabulary that engaged users in a narrative whereby perceptions and conceptions were exchanged. (Peter Eisenman and the idea of Architecture as Text). 4. As a product of a navigation between a conceptual and perceptual reading of space. (Peter Eisenman). 5. As an entity whose meaning changed under multiple influences.

[Scope of work ] 

Identifying the essence of the building through objective and subjective readings.

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Inventing tools for re-imagination. i.e Using configuration as the tool for spatial organization Instigating the memory of the old building through a dialogue of space and place

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Making the original building readable in its‟ re-imagined state through experiential and physical space-place narratives.

[Understandings] Theoretically, achieved an understanding of the evolution of ideas, connected the conception to the thought that caused it to be. And the modification of meaning as a result. 1. What was a wall originally? 2. What was a wall in the regurgitated sense in the building? 3. What is a wall now?

Then I had to look for the tools and processes to design the new building with. I had to invent some of those tools to design the building within the paradigm I had set, and the expanse of the contemporary zeitgeist. Those tools and processes were arrived at by developing the ideas in the work of Eisenman, Hillier, Zumthor and Koolhaas. For the planning process, used the idea of configuration. For guiding spatial arrangement a combination of subjective tactics, configuration, layering and a free plan variation was used. Koolhaasâ&#x20AC;&#x;s elaboration of core Modernist ideas. Memory was manifested in both quantitative and qualitative manners, contextualizing and modifying the ideas of Eisenman and Zumthor in the building. Furthering the idea of user-building dialogue, space-place dialogue, building-building dialogue, a dialogue of ideas and systems of thought through the concept of readability at the level of perception and conception. User perception and architects conception. A post building assumption that readability happens and it has an affect on the user. A theme of the buildingsâ&#x20AC;&#x; dialogue with its dual states of then and now is kept running.

59 Figure 11 Conceiving architecture, processes of

[Directions for Design Logic] Conceiving architecture, processes ofâ&#x20AC;Ś To begin any design, we need ideas. Some ideas we take for granted, such as a the need for symmetry or not, context or aesthetic, a construction system or a form etc. And some ideas do not exist unless you face a lack of solutions. Or you have a question for which there are no conclusive answers. Some ideas you get from the prevalent zeitgeist, or through your education and some you experience around you. Feeding this pool of ideas is a system of thought that remain true for a few generations. It is possible to trace back to the root of the ideas by reading buildings. As I have attempted for the building. Tracing the roots of ideas embedded in buildings prompts an elaborate reading of architecture in terms of its own vocabulary. Architecture is represented through the diagram, an icon and a symbol. The diagram is the building at its conceptual stage. While the icon and the symbols are a physical manifestation of the diagram? We need to be aware of where these ideas came from. Only then will we be able to reassess their validity and reinterpret the essential for us in our time. By using the same processes and methods of conception (tried and tested methods) we have already limited our possibilities to one of the many â&#x20AC;&#x17E;permutationsâ&#x20AC;&#x; of the original theme. My project and processes that came with it are also a variation of a basic theme, but a variation that has different parameters to answer to. It is hard to shake off influences and personal preferences. That is why a generations design aesthetic is shared. Because the unquestioning acceptance of visuals are retained and ultimately reflected on a blank sheet of paper. The meaning I was interested in giving the building was pertaining the metaphysical and the purely architectural. The intention was to take the meaning of the building to architecture in its own right. Not in relation to function or program or context etc. The buildings meaning should be dominated by the language of architecture, in its walls, columns, planes, presences, absences, materiality etc. instead of labeling the building with a style or a theme. The theme for the building is the expression of its

architecture in its textual sense. It‟s evolving dialogue between existing and re-imagined states.

[Clients’ Brief] The Client: The building. The buildings‟ identities The buildings‟ ESSENCE Its dissections Quantitative Values: Its configurations (spatial and social) Qualitative Values: Memories Core Concepts of Modernism

[Design Criteria/Architectsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; Brief] Every designer, in his moment before a piece of blank paper, with a tool of expression in his hand, brings to existence an imagination. Many times that imagination is loaded with the experience, influences, design biases and cultivation that this medium of architecture educates with. What the building should look like. How the building should function or â&#x20AC;&#x17E;look like it stands upâ&#x20AC;&#x;, look like its function. Be contextually sensitive. Be visually interesting. Thousands of ideas and requirements and considerations that pursue the lines of conception. Questions of function, form, aesthetic, efficiency, style, context etc weigh upon every line. And of course the added pressure of being a certain person molds the way the product eventually turns out. Each line reinforces the beliefs that they are drawn with. The designer resorts to a certain combination of ideas to resolve a design matter at hand. Sometimes it becomes necessary to modify the ideas according to the context of the project. While other times the designer considers all previous knowledge to be the truth and makes no modification. In either case, an imagination is put forth. Such is the case of the existing building. The designer has left the traces of his conception within the lines of the building. It is a reflection of the ideas he designed with. The age he designed in, and the zeitgeist he was influenced by. The difference between the two buildings produced from either scenario would be the difference of approach. And that difference will be apparent in the building. In my thesis, I too have grounded my work on a combination of ideas. Some quantitative and some qualitative values of design. The lines of a previous conception. The site itself loaded with meaning. Further criteria comes in the form of the idea of two buildings being present simultaneously. The deliberations before designing was done systematically.

The design process did not fall strictly into functional and formal approaches, but in a process of in between. The interstitial as Eisenman likes to call it, and appeals to a reading of the architectural space in the terms spelled out by the process. Dissections Original Imaginations- identifying the thought behind conception. Configurations

Used as a tool to guide spatial organization.

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As well as act as a binding relater between the previous and re-imagined states of the building.

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To show how configuration is different from geometry. The difference between geometry and layout. With the same configuration.

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New possibilities arose from the different layout that weren‟t possible in the previous one. Needed to change the layout.

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That this is still the same building at one fundamental level so it really hasn‟t changed.

Re-imaginations Re-interpreting core architectural ideas to help solve new issues of design. Had to reassess the values we design with. New values opted for this project. Not dominated by functional and programmatic criteria instead with configurational and metaphorical criteria.

Navigations Between old and new/ between space and place. The two states of the building informing the others‟ space and place. A dialogue generated between the two buildings guided in the design of their spaces and developed a narrative that could be read by a user of the building.

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The new seeping into the structure of the old, giving its spaces an altered meaning.

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The old re-contextualized spaces being re-read as places.

Blurring the identity between where the old building stops and the new one starts. Simultaneous presence of the two states on site.

Dialogue on site, between Liaquat hall, previous building and new building Dialogue between the two states of the building. Of memory and reality. Greater dialogue, contemporary architecture is trying to initiate by looking at previous building ideas in a new way. Finding new versions of core principles to solve new problems.

[Translating Ideas into Design] 

Retaining the memory of the building through its configurational and experiential translation into the new one. (New context)

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Guidelines for Conception of spatial organization: Re-interpreting core Modernist ideas for a contemporary context. Free slab. Free façade.

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Guidelines for spatial organization : Configuration (Hillier)

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Guidelines for experiential structure: Configuration (Hillier) / Traces (Zumthor)

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Guidelines for articulation: Comes from an other process. Not functional but symbolic (different from Eisenman). But from an interaction of the existing and re-imagined states.

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Guidelines for New Lines: Formal Identity of the building and personal preference. (Invention)

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Integrating the idea of configuration of the building with another existing building that exists. (New context another place in try out the idea of configuration)

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Readable presence of the old building through the new. (New context for Eisenmans‟ readability idea)

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Prompting the reading of the building through the organization as textual signs. (Eisenman)

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Dialogue between space and place (Zumthor)

Quantitative Values Configuration could be translated into a new geometric identity. It would inherently retain sequence, a measure of memory that was the narrative structure of the building. Be the representation of function, sequence, arrangement etc. Qualitative Values Memories. Spatial qualities. Metaphorical readings. Affiliations. Subjective preferences.

First Tool for Spatial Organization: Configuration

Guidelines for the spatial organization of the building came from outside the conventional references of function, programmatic contiguity (nullified in the work of Koolhaas) or symbolic meaning. Configuration gave us a sequence, a system of logic that dictated exactly how two spaces were to be connected, and bound all the spaces within its whole. These were the quantitative advantages of using configuration. And as explored during the configuration aspect, it allowed a freedom in altering the layout yet experimenting with the notions of adjacency, contiguity, inside spaces, outside spaces etc.

Tool for retaining the sequence of memory

The qualitative advantage of using configuration for spatial organization was for the reason that it retained the sequences of space. A percentage of sequential narrative was embedded in the configuration in terms of its openings and connections. It is assumed through the understanding of configuration as a narrative structure in the work of Psarra that this will retain an essence of the building. Through its sequential narrative, the existing programmatic affiliations, in terms of its connective memory, the structure of events, it will collaborate with the original building, irrespective of the new layout of the building. The new layout will share the narrative structure of the original, but in a different body.

Guidelines for the lines of the new layout

The shape of the new body could have been any set of intersecting lines and shapes. The particular geometry that has been achieved through the design process, reflects a mixture of established guidelines and personality.

Second Guideline for Spatial Organization: Re-interpretation of the Free Plan

When the free floating spaces were connected through configuration, they were still organized in stratified horizontal floors. In order to re-invent another core concept ( the conceptual absence of which was read from the building) from the existing building the idea of the free plan was taken in the context of my project. By exploring the definition of the free plan as freedom from the restriction of the slab, and re-imagining the floors as moving through different levels rather than being stacked. The new floors navigate through different levels and interact with the other floors through the buffer of configuration.

[Design Navigations] 1.

Reading: Conceptually

1.1

Readings on Site:

The negation of the idea of a „front façade‟, reinforced by both buildings on site. The acts other than those of architecture that affect the way a building is used. In the way a building relates to the site : Denial of Hierarchy of facades, of connections, of entrances, of access.

1.2 Developing Configurational Narrative on Site The placement of configuration and the relationship of the configuration with the Liaquat Hall.

1.3 Readability: Generating Dialogues of Space and Place: Metaphorical Narrative The dialogue of space and place was generated when the new building was read as the metaphor for the old building. This gave rise to the potential for a dialogue between the idea of the old building and the idea of the new building, dependent on the old.

We have already established, for the purpose of this thesis, that a building is an embodiment of the ideas you think and design with.

Reading: Configurationally

2.3 On site It was important to invent methods of conception in order to shake the meaning of space that was attached to use and use to place, so that new possibilities of layout could be conceived within the existing structure.

Guidelines for the Placement of Configuration 1. Spaces that are read “between the lines”. 2. The building is assumed to be a whole configuration, not a stratified floor space. 3. Emphasis is on the connectivity and sequence of space. 4. The first few spaces were inserted along a line that was developed through the invented datum‟s shown previously.

2.4 In section 1. Space as a fluid entity between floors. 2. Program as a configuration retaining the connections between spaces, much like the functionality between zoning. 3. With the help of these two tools: of configuration and free plan, spaces were planned in section, as shown on the next page.

69 Figure 12 Planning the configuration in section

2.5 In plan Developing plans through configuration and free plan concepts. The particular layout of the buildingsâ&#x20AC;&#x; spaces was guided by the configuration. And it is the way it is due to the conditions of configuration and my definition of the free plan. No other condition outside this dominated the organization of space. The multiple corridors and connections in the form of stairs and ramps were necessary to fulfill these two conditions. The resulting layout created connections, adjacencies, spatial possibilities and even configurational possibilities that could not be imagined or conceived in the original layout. The configurational possibilities were not exploited as that would cause a change in the configuration. Even if a single door is opened, the configuration will fall apart.

Reading: Metaphorically

There were four factors of importance in the metaphorical readings of the buildings: i.

The presence of the original building in the re-imagined state by relating original places in new spaces and in the same space. Much like a deep structure being revealed.

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The altered meaning of the original layout in terms of the new layout

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The relationship of this new building to the modernist context

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Simultaneity of original and altered, spaces and places and their referential dialogue.

Exploring the intangibles like spatial quality and repressed texts in the metaphorical reading of the original buildingsâ&#x20AC;&#x; memory,

Exploring the implications of this dialogue on design polarities such as inside/outside, form/function, space/place, function./meaning,

Reading: Perceptually

The subsequent readings by the users of the building.

[Directions for the future] The design process was a self generating one. That kept answering questions by looking towards a different set of solutions from a different school of thought. Subverted the boundaries between inside and outside. I intentionally pushed the boundaries. The process demanded radical ideas. The metaphorical readings set up contrasting values. Design ideas that would otherwise be considered odd, were in fact essential in setting up the dialogue between space and place. Everything planned is for a reason, not for the sake of design. The process encouraged such a dialogue. The configuration set up the basis for such a dialogue. And the dialogue between the two states set up a value system for design.

Bibliography

Academy Editions. Re:Working Eisenman. London: The Academy Group Ltd, 1993.

Architects, Eisenman. Blurred Zones Peter Eisenman. New York: The Monacelli Press, 2003.

Bill Hillier, Julienne Hanson. The Social Logic of Space. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1984; Reprinted 2003.

Cassara, Silvio. Peter Eisenman Feints. Italy: Skira, 2006.

Chomsky, Noam. Aspects of the Theory of Syntax. MIT Press, 1965.

Hillier, Bill. Space is the machine: a configurational theory of architecture. New York: University of Cambridge, 1996.

Lourie, Ariane. Peter Eisenman Ten Canonical Buildings 1950-2000. New York: Rizzoli, 2008.

Molinari, Luca. Peter Eisenman Feints. Italy: Skira, 2006.

Moneo, Rafael. Theoretical Anxiety and Design Strategies in the work of eight contemporary architects. Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2004.

Psarra, Sophia. Architecture and Narrative : The formation of space and cultural meaning. New York: Routledge, 2009.

Schulz, Christian Norberg. Architecture: Presence, Language, Place. Italy: Skira Editore, 2000. Zumthor, Peter. Thinking Architecture. Basel: Birkhauser, 1998; Reprinted 2006.