THEKLA ARCH 3411 Pavilion 2013-14
Architecture MArch Leicester School of Architecture DeMontfort University
Module 3411 - Pavilion
Autumn 2013
Spring 2013
2013-14
Tutor:
Amr Ameri Matthew Bate Oliver Cowan Alexandra Ewart Yuma Ishida Christos Kakouris Gareth Pletts Douglas Sibley Matthew Webb
Maria Chalikiopoulos Harrison Dunn Marinos Karantonis Nick Pocock Antonis Skitsas
Ben Cowd
THEKLA from the chapter
‘Cities in the Sky’ by
Italo Calvino “Those who arrive at Thekla can see little of the city, beyond the plank fences, the sackcloth screens, the scaffoldings, the metal armatures, the wooden catwalks hanging from ropes or supported by sawhorses, the ladders, the trestles. If you ask ‘Why is Thekla’s construction taking such a long time?’ the inhabitants continue hoisting sacks, lowering leaded strings, moving long brushes up and down, as they answer ‘So that its destruction cannot begin.’ And if asked whether they fear that, once the scaffoldings are removed, the city may begin to crumble and fall to pieces, they add hastily, in a whisper, ‘Not only the city.’ If, dissatisfied with the answers, someone puts his eye to a crack in a fence, he sees cranes pulling up other cranes, scaffoldings that embrace other scaffoldings, beams that prop up other beams. ‘What meaning does your construction have?’ he asks. ‘What is the aim of a city under construction unless it is a city? Where is the plan you are following, the blueprint?’ ‘We will show it to you as soon as the working day is over; we cannot interrupt our work now,’ they answer. Work stops at sunset. Darkness falls over the building site. The sky is filled with stars. ‘There is the blueprint,’ they say.”
Introduction [ ASTROLOGICAL INVESTIGATIONS ] Among Indo-European peoples, astrology has been dated to the third millennium BCE, with roots in calendrical systems used to predict seasonal shifts and to interpret celestial cycles as signs of divine communications. At the end of the 17th century, new scientific concepts in astronomy and physics (such as heliocentrism and Newtonian mechanics) called astrology into question, and subsequent controlled studies failed to confirm its predictive value. Astrology thus lost its academic and theoretical standing, and common belief in astrology has largely declined. The word astrology comes from the early Latin word astrologia, deriving from the Greek noun ἀστρολογία, ‘account of the stars’. They are also considered by their placement in houses (spatial divisions of the sky). Astrology’s modern representation in western popular media is usually reduced to sun sign astrology, which considers only the zodiac sign of the Sun at an individual’s date of birth, and represents only 1/12 of the total chart. The names of the zodiac correspond to the names of the constellations originally within the respective segment and are in Latin.
[ HELIOCENTRISM -HELIOCENTRIC ] Historically, astronomy only comprised the observation and predictions of the motions of objects visible to the naked eye. In some locations, such as Stonehenge, early cultures assembled massive artifacts that had astronomical purpose. In addition to their ceremonial uses, these observatories could be employed to determine the seasons, an important factor in knowing when to plant crops, as well as in understanding the length of the year. A particularly important early development was the beginning of mathematical and scientific astronomy, which began among the Babylonians, who laid the foundations for the later astronomical traditions that developed in many other civilizations. The Babylonians discovered that lunar eclipses recurred in a repeating cycle known as a saros.
Heliocentrism - Heliocentric, is the astronomical model in which the Earth and planets revolve around a relatively stationary Sun at the center of the Solar System. The word comes from the Greek (ἥλιος helios “sun” and κέντρον kentron “center”).
Historically, heliocentrism was opposed to geocentrism, which placed the Earth at the center. The notion that the Earth revolves around the Sun had been proposed as early as the 3rd century BC by Aristarchus of Samos. Dreyer argues Aristarchus’s heliocentrism appears to have attracted little attention until Copernicus revived and elaborated it. Lucio Russo, however, argues that this is a misleading impression resulting from the loss of scientific works of the Hellenistic Era. Using indirect evidence he argues that a heliocentic view was expounded in Hipparchus’s work on gravity.
[ DESIGN BRIEF ] Thekla’s concept was derived from the passage written by Italo Calvino from Invisible Cities. The passage was then adapted into an astronomy-inspired narrative reflecting the essence of sidereal architecture. The narrative advocates a city under eternal construction to avoid destruction, its architecture rooted in the firmament of nature: the alignment of stars in the night sky. The duality of constant renewal and the universal allure of the stars are the guiding themes. The project aims to create a unique space based upon star alignment as exist over Leicester, despite the reality of the stars’ visibility being limited by the city’s light-polluted environment. Our response, to which is a pavilion, aims to evoke a longing sense of Leicester’s forgotten starlight. However, a variety of sentiments may be elicited by our theme; the dynamic web of passing constellations serve as a blueprint for the architecture that embodies the rhythm of nightly recurring lights, an on-going process mirroring the “city eternally under construction”.
(Above) Diagrams of Leicester’s climatic conditions, a sun path diagram and sunrise-sunset graph, and the axial tilt andles of the Earth
Perinthia and the position of the Stars “Summoned to lay down the rules for the foundation of Perinthia, the astronomers established the place and the day according to the position of the stars; they drew the intersecting lines of the decumanus and the cardo, the first oriented to the passage of the sun and the other like the axis on which the heavens turn. They divided the map according to the twelve houses of the zodiac so that each temple and each neighbourhood would receive the proper influence of the favouring constellations; they fixed the point in the walls where gates should be cut, foreseeing how each would frame an eclipse of the moon in the next thousand years. Perinthia – they guaranteed – would reflect the harmony of the firmament; nature’s reason and the gods’ benevolence would shape the inhabitants destinies. Following the astronomers’ calculations precisely, Perinthia was constructed; various peoples came to populate it; the first generation born in Perinthia began to grow within its walls; and these citizens reached the age to marry and have children. In Perinthia’s streets and square today you encounter cripples, dwarves, hunchbacks, obese men, bearded women. But the worst cannot be seen; guttural howls are heard from cellars and lofts, where families hide children with three heads or with six legs. Perinthia’s astronomers are faced with a difficult choice. Either they must admit that all their calculations were wrong and their figures are unable to describe the heavens, or else they must reveal that the order of the gods is reflected exactly in the city of monsters.”
Star Magnitudes The invention of the magnitude system has been attributed to the Greek astronomer Hipparchus in the 2nd Century BC. The magnitude system is an organisation of star brightness, typically arranged into six different classes. 1st magnitude stars are brightest, with 6th magnitude stars being the faintest the naked eye is able to see. The longitudes, latitudes and magnitudes of 1022 fixed stars are divided into 48 constellations and a handful of nebulae, with the magnitude of each catalogued. With the invention of the telescope in 1608, many more stars fainter than 6th magnitude were observed and the system was eventually extended with higher values. The Polaris presents a magnitude of 2.5, with the Sun being -26.8.
Constellation Hourly Rotation
Earth rotation angle at 13º per hour Polaris (North Star)
22:00 23:00 00:00 01:00 02:00 03:00 04:00 LATE JUNE
ASTROLOGICAL INVESTIGATIONS [ ZODIAC EXPERIMENTATION ] In both astrology and historical astronomy, the zodiac is a circle of twelve 30° divisions of celestial longitude that are centered upon the ecliptic: the apparent path of the Sun across the celestial sphere over the course of the year. The paths of the Moon and visible planets also remain close to the ecliptic, within the belt of the zodiac, which extends 8-9° north or south of the ecliptic, as measured in celestial latitude. Historically, these twelve divisions are called signs. The term zodiac derives from Latin zōdiacus, which in its turn comes from the Greek ζῳδιακὸς κύκλος (zōidiakos kuklos), meaning “circle of animals”, derived from ζῴδιον (zōidion), the diminutive of ζῷον (zōion) “animal”. The name is motivated by the fact that half of the signs of the classical Greek zodiac are represented as animals (besides two mythological hybrids). Although the zodiac remains the basis of the ecliptic coordinate system in use in astronomy besides the equatorial one, the term and the names of the twelve signs are today mostly associated with horoscopic astrology. The term “zodiac” may also refer to the region of the celestial sphere encompassing the paths of the planets corresponding to the band of about eight arc degrees above and below the ecliptic.
Constellation Alignment Model
The view of the sky at night was registered from a point measured in Leicester’s context, with 360° views of the stars and constellations surrounding it.
Lofting model tracing the astronomical map
Utilising the framework of the astronomical chart, planes were lofted to begin planning ideas of how to create a landscape that represented the oscillations of Thekla’s construction with the eternal qualities of the stars.
CAD-CAM manufacturing prototype, utilising Rhino to create a landscape-like set of contours
Contour lofting techniques exhibiting a raised platform to give shelter and the initial ideas of material and form of the pavilion.
The desired form of the base wished to create a sense of continuation in the development of Thekla’s form looking up to the stars, where visitors sit and gaze up towards the sky at night that informs its construction by day.
CONSTELLATION MAP ROOF STRUCTURE
Roof Plan (Scale 1:20 @ A2)
Roof Pattern - 12mm Water Jet-Cut Brass Canopy
Roof Structure - 50mm x 30mm I-Beam Frame
Floor Pattern & Structure - 30mm dia. CHS Tree Columns Anchored with Concrete Bases
Surface - Faceted Plywood Panels
Base Structure - Contour Mesh
Development Model
Roof Structural Support Locations
Chaise Lounge Seating Arrangements
Constellation Arrangement
Darkness falls over the building site. The sky is filled with stars. ‘There is the blueprint,’ they say.
BASE TESTING
Following the experimentation of various working prototypes, the system considered as most feasible to elicit a dynamic landscape came from a series of contours, previously explored to create a firm but fluid form.
1:5 SCALE MODEL
ROOF
ROOF STRUCTURE
COLUMNS
BASE
The sweeping geometry of the dramatic brass roof embodies the rhythm of nightly recurring lights; their language projected in shadow upon the ergonomic hillscape below. The work aims to synthesise the eternal with the ephemeral, and to include this synthesis as part of the visiting experience.
FINAL PROPOSAL
SEATING AREA DIAGRAMS The shape of the pavilion’s base has been mostly determined by the shape of the roof structure, however our primary concern was to make it a comfortable and interactive form.
Entrances The shape of the base is contingent on both the shape of the roof and commodity for users. With a wide main entrance, the pavilion can create lofts around its remaining perimeter, with playful crawl spaces appearing on the other side.
Lofting The lofts roughly define the spaces for sitting in but can be crawled around and over by the users, in constrast to the recessed seating areas. They are pitched to different elevations around the base to compliment the form of the roof structure.
During the incubation stages of the design process, sketching and modelling was first used to find out what forms will enhance and not detract from the overall composition of the pavilion. Scenarios of how to approach and occupy the pavilion were discussed before leading to the computer modelling process of the base. Lofting and recessing areas of the plane created seating and crawling areas to negotiate the user’s experience of the pavilion. Areas that were peripheral and otherwise sculptural were carved to form benches to encourage people who would otherwise not climb of the pavilion to take comfort and sit on the edges of the base.
Contours The contours for the bench are determined by the perpendicular line crossing the main shape of the base plan, with the shorter side preferable to cut across for manufacturing purposes.
Seating Within the plan, a communal space in the centre of the base allows people to lie down or huddle togethe to look up towards the stars, with lofts emerging around the edges of the space. Benches are formed out of the curves in the contour edges.
Structure On the crests of (most) lofts, the columns sink into the base and contain the weight of the above canopy. Tensile cables and beams connecting columns support the system’s dynamic loads.
Secondary Structure Across the columns, beams that weave between different members support the structures laterally and enclose spaces below for crawling underneath. Early stage developments on Rhino were used to understand more complex circulation and massing strategies
ROOF DEVELOPMENT
[ ASTROLOGICAL INVESTIGATIONS ] When studying the night sky, the viewer may at first read it as a ‘blueprint’ as quoted in the narrative of Thekla: a two-dimensional working drawing. But under closer inspection, and balancing the exposure of the stars, more will come into view and focus after looking up into the sky for a longer period of time. With this balance in part with the framing of constellations, the blueprint becomes a three-dimensional drawing, dynamic and in a flux with its ground context, in this case the shape of Thekla’s ground developments. The design of a base platform as a comfortable place to sit and gaze up at the stars also creates a landscape form in which to study and observe the sky in detail, where a complex array of stars informed by the continuing rotation of the stars and their constellations.
An example of the overlaying procedure of the roofscape above the astronomical map to create a map of the stars to be seen in the context of a light-polluted Leicester.
ROOF REFINEMENT STAGES
Traced and overlayed plans experimented with the relationship between the roof and base, and how the stars at night inform Thekla’s shapes as a city.
Sketch models explored the qualities of lightness and delicacy of the roofscape, in permeating light in the day and views up to the stars at night.
DETAILING “he sees cranes pulling up other cranes, scaffoldings that embrace other scaffoldings, beams that prop up other beams...”
Roof System - 4mm Water Jet-Cut Brass Canopy
Secondary Roof Structure - 4mm Water Jet-cut Brass
Column/Beam Structure - 38mm dia. Steel with curved 28mm Steel horizontal beams
Intermediate Base Contours - 10mm Plywood
Base Structure - 28mm Plywood with intersecting 12mm Steel Reinforcement Rods
1:5 SCALE MODEL The structure of the pavilion will engage with the dynamic conversation between the complexities of the roof and base, tied within the narrative of Thekla. The columns sink into the less-accessed parts of the base, around the tops of the peripheral lofts. Lifting the canopy are tensile cables above and supporting beams lifting from below, that weave between the columns to compliment the sinuous edges of the base.
The form of the base to create an experiential enclosure to look up at the stars reflected on notions of the landscape to have a sweeping aesthetic that represented both the longetivity of Thekla’s history, but also its sense of urgency to continue with its construction in fear of its own destruction.
Exploratory structural model testing connections between materials.
The detailed stages of the design process caused the group to make critical decisions in the continued trajectory of the pavilion. The form of the base, which wished to represent the dynamic forces of Thekla’s construction and evolution required its fluidity to also form into a solid state, creating a landscape to relax on and gaze up towards the stars that influence its shape.
Assembled with laser cut sections of mdf and curved acrylic (for encompassing the sunken columns), the base is reinforced with multiple steel rods aligned through holes in the contours. Each piece is lined up with the adjacent and then pushed to connect. Small gaskets bridge the 2mm (10mm @ full scale) gaps between the layers, ensuring the pieces don’t slide or knock into each other once fully assembled, retaining a horizontal structure rigid enough to support the dynamic loads of people moving on top of the base and dead loads from the columns and roofscape.
Base Construction
Roof Construction
FABRICATION PROCESS
DETAILING: COLUMN–ROOF NODES
Details to connect the columns to the roof were chosen to reflect on the lightness of the structure, retaining its porosity. A narrow cable is fed from out of the hollow column, where it is pushed into a narrow, bolted node situated on the edges of the roof plates, to facilitate the different angles in which the facets lie. These are then screwed into place to tighten the connection and distribute the weight down the column and into the base.
View from below of nuts screwed onto the node
Top-down view of the node with bolts feeding into the column neck
V&A Clothworking Centre, London, Haworth Tomkins, 2013 The simplicity in these beams have been well-designed to compliment the retaining historical structure, supporting the lighting system. Connections are made through drilled holes and cornering plates formed at 90째.
DETAILING: ROOF PLATES & HINGES
Facet Hinges
Canopy - Secondary Layer Bridges
1:2 Scale roof plate
BELA (British Exploratory Land Archive), Smout Allen & Geoff Manaugh, 2013 To create hinges on these steel plates, grooves are cut using a water-jet to form a plane in which they are then bent into position.
DETAILING: AXONOMETRIC SECTION
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The assembly of the pavilion is comprised of lateral connections which help support the vertical framework. Horizontal rods reinforce the plywood contours, providing a tension for the precast sinks that support the columns. The roofscape also provides lateral tension through the intermediate layer that frames the entire roof while supporting the constellation map above.
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“he sees cranes pulling up other cranes, scaffoldings that embrace other scaffoldings, beams that prop up other beams...�
Within Thekla, the sky is seen as the blueprint for the city in eternal construction. It was the relationship between the sky and the ground that also played a key role in determining the contrast of these two forms. A blueprint is often perceived as a flat, one dimensional drawing; however the sky at night, when under prolonged observation, continues to unfold and become more clear to the viewer over a longer period of time looking up, representing the oscillating qualities of a three-dimensional model. It was the group’s desire to manipulate the roof into a form that informed the shape of the base, that in essence represented the firmness but also dynamism of a city that still oscillates through its eternal development, where the sky informs Thekla’s progressions. Thekla presents a dictum for architects and designers to create a place that represents both timelessness and ephemerality, which when building a pavilion endears to represent the qualities of both.
Darkness falls over the building site. The sky is filled with stars. ‘There is the blueprint,’ they say.