Melodie Yashar M.Arch Portfolio 2011-2014 by Melodie Yashar

MELODIE YASHAR

Master of Architecture, 2014 Columbia University GSAPP

CONTENTS Sensory & Affectual Poetics 1 Urbanities, Rationally Developed 129 The Field & the Array 175 Building Technology 253 Texts 321

ot long ago I thought my lack of architectural training might prove a weakness. But I’ve since come to see that architecture, in many respects, is itself interdisciplinary. My work, both as an undergraduate and afterward, has repeatedly challenged and dealt with the confines of discipline. My trajectory of interests through areas of academia and design is the best testament to this fact. There is meaning to be made across the board, in all fields, and there is no reason to think that one should solve its own problems self-reflexively— safe and insulated from the threat of conceptual contamination and artistic cross-pollination. I’ve come to see that the concerns and challenges of architecture—as a discipline, a theoretical discourse, and a professional practice—are manifold and its approaches are pluralistic. For this I find no other field as exciting in the present moment. I know of no other profession to comprehensively tackle the various elements of a design problem with equal fearlessness, professional

responsibility and intellectual breadth; the architect is at once theorist, artist, scientist, businessperson, fabricator and innovator. In the following works, my hope is that the reader witness how the authorial and creative process is of utmost importance to me. In addition to completing a project with its traditional bearings and representative means (drawings, renderings, etc.), I hope the reader will see evidence for how I have claimed ownership of my ideas as my own, and negotiated their validity and relevance before committing to them; or alternatively, have accosted the innately paradoxical nature of the challenge I would inevitably juggle. If nothing else, I hope the reader might witness not only my interest in the built object, the architectural artifact, but in the methodology, the authoring process, and the decisions which the practice of architecture hinges upon—a continued process of self-diagnosis, critique and revision—the beginnings of which are documented in what follows.

AND AFFE P O ET I CS

S E N SO RY ECT UA L

SENSORY AND AFFECTUAL POETICS

he notion of a poetics of space sets language to architecture, and grants it the freedom to author the text of its own origins. Guided by instinctual and perhaps involuntary impulses, poetics manage to devise not a solution to a design problem, but introduces a system of aggregated micro-responses. Poetics strives to brush the surface of what we might refer to as the intangible quality of sensuous images.

t the core of sense and affect is the truth and authenticity of lived experience. The unique and intricate specificities of sensory perception, retention, and affectual response are (in the true manner of the paradoxical) the most-subjectively felt phenomenon per the individual, and yet seem to introduce critical responses which quite transparently, without a hint of ambiguity, validate or invalidate an investigative strain of architecture. In a poetics of affect, there is nothing more real than the sensorial phenomenon we inhabit, mediate and feel a connection with.

ADVANCED STUDIO VI

EXTRUDED LUMINANCE, PART I LANGUAGE, STRUCTURE & LIGHT Studio Critic Steven Holl Dimitra Tschariella Date Spring 2014 Collaboration Martin Lodman

In the first iteration of “Extruded Light, Extruded Structure,” an analysis of James Stirling’s Leicester University, Department of Engineering Building (1963) served as a precedent for the implementation of a volumetric language and composition of forms. Of particular note were the extruded glass prisms composing the roof of the engineering school’s workshop areas, an open plan area intended for collaboration and mixed use among the university’s departments. The prisms, not perfectly square extrusions, are oriented specifically for optimal northern light, but the repetition of forms so unique to Stirling presented interesting implications for the quality of light on the interior. Zaha Hadid’s MAXXI Museum of Contemporary Arts served as a project precedent for its intensely curated and striking quality of light on the interior of the building. The stylistic and aesthetic qualities of Stirling and Hadid’s architecture could not (at first glance) be more diametrically opposed. A central tenet of the studio was the conception and implementation of a newly crafted architectural language of form, which could simultaneously address and acknowledge the lineage of the precedent studies, but also formulate new syntactical arrangements of architecture—it would adopt the language of the precedents in order to subtly transform, apply, or depart from their underlying architectural language.

The minimal volumetric language in Stirling’s Leicester University project became an instigator for a series of studies on volume, mass and the interplay of light and shadow. Stirling’s assemblage of forms integrates a massing strategy with a structural understanding of his assembled volumes, and the integration of volume and structure became a primary emphasis for our project. Here, transparency signifies absence—and is only activated by the presence of the other, a reflection or refraction, the indication of a visitor, or the environment, a landscape—it is mutually interdependent to not only the architecture but to the conditions which construct our perception of the space, and our orientation and perspective within it. Despite this ‘absence’, light as a material activates the transparency of the glass prisms, occupies it, and reifies what is essentially a volumetric condition. Through projected light we are able to capitalize and construct relationships of solid and void, which simultaneously obscure and enrich the qualities inherent in the glass transparency. Our light studies examined the relationship of line to volume, obscuring assumed qualities of flatness and depth, and reifying the dynamism and perceptually dependent qualities of the projection (imposed artificial light).

Advanced Studio VI | Extruded Luminance | 2014 |

ADVANCED STUDIO V I

EXTRUDED LUMINANCE, PART II AN EXPERIMENTAL ARTS VENUE Studio Critic Steven Holl Dimitra Tschariella Date Spring 2014 Site Universidad Nacional Bogota, Colombia Program Arts & Research Institute Collaboration Martin Lodman

The final iteration of “Extruded Light, Extruded Structure” presents a series of programmatic extrusions that extend to the boundaries of its site—the Universidad Nacional in Bogota, Colombia—connecting multiple axes of the campus to the project’s central core, an experimental media arts and projection studio. The outer forms of the structure emanate from the central core and demonstrate the language of conceptual (which is to say dynamic) and geometric (formally monumental and fixed) extruded form. In a state of frozen dissonance these protruding elements function as vectors with independent trajectories, expressing Corbusian rectilinearity and directional movement. While the outer programmatic spaces represent protrusion through space, the core demonstrates an interior condition that subverts the expectation for knotted volumetric mess—rather than functioning as a point of intersection or confrontation, the core is a space of openness and fluidity—its materiality and figural presence is that of light and air. The core is composed of self-enveloping tectonic shells; they wrap and adjoin into a state of structural equilibrium, forming the

stunning simplicity of a cube. Rather than revealing the origins of the outer extruded forms within the cube’s interior, the core reverses the expectation that the extrusions would meet one another on the inside by rendering extruded light as voided space. Cutting short the volumetric linearity of the extrusions, the cube subverts the anticipation for an Inside-outside dichotomy by presenting a spatial condition that is neither volumetric nor linear. In this implosion of presence (extruded form) and absence (enveloping voids), the central atrium of the media arts and projection studio light becomes the principal material of transformation. The core receives programmatic flow from the extended arms of the structure, directing visitors of the institution (users as diverse as students, administrative staff, institutional faculty, as well as the general public) to a shared space of visionary artistic thinking and practice. Circulation within the core is dependent upon intimate yet brilliant mezzanine levels designed to shred the luminosity of the space. The plates dissolve the harsh volumetric nature of the outer extrusions into a delicate play of light and alternating form.

Advanced Studio VI | Extruded Luminance | 2014 |

SOCIAL

FORUM 2000 SF

AUDITORIUM 1 3000 SF

GALLERY 2700 SF

CAFE 2400 SF

AUDITORIUM 2 4000 SF

GREEN ROOM 800 SF

COLLABORATIVE ROOMS 1000 SF EACH

INTERFACULTY

RESEARCH/ SEMINAR ROOMS 600 SF EACH

PRESENTATION/ CONFERENCE ROOMS 650 SF EACH

TUTORIAL / CLASS ROOMS 1300 SF EACH

INDIVIDUAL STUDY AREA 2200 SF

COMPUTER LABS 1200 SF

ADMIN / STAFF OFFICES 110 SF EACH

EXTRUSION TYPOLOGY

SERRA

MONDRIAN

ZAHA

ESCALATION

EXPANDED EXTRUSION

STAIR

ZAHA 4-SIDES

CROSS-CUT

INSCRIBED CIRCLE

COPPER

SIZE

MATERIALITY / FINISH

HORIZONTAL

VERTICAL

PLATE AS SWITCH / THRESHOLD AS SWITCH

Advanced Studio VI | Extruded Luminance | 2014 |

STAGE

ACCESS TO SCULPTURE PARK

KEY A AUDITORIUM B CAFE C EXHIBITIONS D MEDIA & EQUIPMENT ROOM

EXPERIMENTAL ARTS & MEDIA CENTER

ADMINISTRATION / OFFICES

C D

KEY A BALCONY B

EXHIBITION MEZZANINE

EXPERIMENTAL ARTS & MEDIA CENTER

ACCESS TO PUBLIC EVENTS / PERFORMANCE AREA

Advanced Studio VI | Extruded Luminance | 2014 |

B C

KEY A CLASSROOMS & STUDY AREA B STUDENT STUDIO

EVENT SPACE / PERFORMANCE AREA

RESEARCH & COLLABORATIVE ROOMS

B KEY A CLASSROOMS & STUDY AREA B RESEARCH & COLLABORATIVE ROOMS

Advanced Studio VI | Extruded Luminance | 2014 |

From “ T he Phenomenon of P lace” Architectural Association Quarterly 8, no. 4. Christian Norberg-Schulz 1976

he concomprehensive crete things phenomenon. In which congeneral we may stitute our given say that some world are inter- phenomena form related in com- an “environment” plex and perhaps to others. A concontradictory crete term for ways. Some of environment is the phenomena place. It is commay for instance mon usage co comprise others. say that acts and The forest con- occurrences take sists of trees, place. In fact it and the town is meaningless is made up of to imagine any houses. “Landhappening withscape” is such a

out reference to a locality. Place is evidently an integral part of existence. What, then, do we mean with the word “place?” Obviously we mean something more than abstract location. We mean a totality made up of concrete things having material substance, shape, texture, and colour. Together these things determine an “environmen-

tal character,” which is the essence of place. In general a place is given as such a character or “atmosphere.” A place is therefore a qualitative, “total” phenomenon, which we cannot reduce to any of its properties, such as spatial relationships, without losing its concrete nature out of sight. Everyday experience moreover tells us that different actions

need different environments to take place in a satisfactory way. As a consequence, towns and houses consist of a multitude of particular places. This fact is of course taken into consideration by current theory of planning and architecture, but so far the problem has been treated in a too abstract way. “Taking place” is usually under-

stood in a quantitative, “functional” sense, with implications such as spatial distribution and dimensioning. Bur arc not “functions” inter-human and similar everywhere? Evidently not. “Similar” functions, even the most basic ones such as sleeping and eating, take place in very different ways, and demand places with different properties, in ac-

cordance with different cultural traditions and different environmental conditions. The functional approach therefore left out the place as a concrete “here” having its particular identity.

ple science “abstracts” from the given to arrive at neutral, “objective” knowledge. What is lost, however, is the everyday life-world, which ought to be the real concern of man in general and planners and archieing qualitatects in particutive totalities lar. Fortunately of a complex na- a way out of the ture, places canimpasse exists, not be described that is, the methby means of anod known as alytic, “scientific” phenomenology. concepts. As a Phenomenology matter of princiwas conceived

as a “return to contain any dithings,” as oprect reference to posed to abstracarchitecture. A tions and mental phenomenology constructions. of architecture So far phenomis therefore urenologists have gently needed. been mainly concerned with ome of the ontology, psyphilosophers chology, ethics, who have apand to some exproached this tent aesthetics, problem of our and have given life-world, have relatively little used language attention to the and literature as phenomenology sources of “inforof the daily envimation.” Poetry ronment. A few in fact is able to pioneer works concretize those however exist totalities which bur they hardly elude science,

and may therefore suggest how we might proceed to obtain the needed understanding.

ur introductory remarks give several indications about the structure of places. A final and particularly important step is taken with the concept of “character.” Character is determined by how things arc, and gives our investigation a

basis in the concrete phenomena of our everyday life-world. Only in this way we may fully grasp the genius loci; the “spirit of place” which the ancients recognized as that “opposite” man has to come to terms with, to be able to dwell. The concept of genius loci denotes the essence of place.

From “Hearing Spaces: Architecture and Acoustic Experience in Modernist German Literature.” Modernism / Modernity Volume 17, No. 4, pp 799-818. Johns Hopkins UP. Kata Gellen 2011

ell before the great nineteenth-century scientist Hermann von Helmholtz (1821–1894) published On

the Sensations of Tone

(1860), a groundbreaking work on the physical and physiological basis of musical effects, ac-

ousticians had proven that the perception of sound requires a medium. Whether conceived as particles or waves, sound is material, and thus must be borne by a physical element, such as air or water. Helmholtz radicalized

this point in the opening pages of his work: since a stimulus causes particles of air (Lufttheilchen) to vibrate, and those vibrations produce a sensation in our ears (a musical tone or noise), the individual particles of air are themselves what we call sound. The medium is literally the message. The study of

physical acoustics, which would later come to include architectural acoustics, deals with the external space in which acts of hearing take place, as opposed to physiological acoustics, which is concerned more intimately with the ear and the nerve sensations it receives, and psychological acoustics, which examines the men-

tal process of transforming an auditory sensation into an image or concept. The medium connects the vibrating body and the ear, and the mind transforms these auditory sensations (Gehรถrempfindungen) into perceptions (Vorstellungen). To ignore the space of hearing is to ignore the sounds themselves, since they are

not only conditioned by, but consist in the space in which they are heard.

he process of generating sounds involves the subtle alteration of spatial composition; these transformations are what we perceive when we hear. Such slight changes to spatial configuration are invisible and usually

intangible— though certain loud and deep sounds, such as a bass line, can generate palpable vibrations in the whole body—but they are sensible to the ear. At a limit, audition could be defined as the perception of otherwise insensible transformations of space. On the Sensations of Tone was essential to scientific and musical re-

search on sense perception, not least because it was one of the earliest treatises on sound and space. Helmholtz also broke ground by trying to establish the scientific principles behind possibly the most abstract form of art, music. In this too he must be considered a precursor to Sabine, who designed Boston’s celebrated Symphony Hall,

which opened in 1900. This was the first building designed according to acoustical laws and with the help of mathematical formulas for such phenomena as reverberation and the transmission of sound through walls (SM, 4, 13â&#x20AC;&#x201C; 57). If for Sabine the shape, size, and material of building were of paramount concern, for Helmholtz it

was above all human physiology that determined auditory processes. Together, their work can be understood to stand for a thorough reimagining of the relationship between sound and spaceâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;both bodily and architecturalâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

elmholtz’s work on acoustics immediately preceded the invention of numerous electro-acoustic devices, such as the loudspeaker (Siemens, 1874), the telephone (Bell, 1876) and the phonograph (Edison, 1877), and Sabine’s work coincided with the rise of radio broadcasting (c. 1920) and the invention of

sound film (mid1920s), not to mention the widespread use of the devices invented at the end of the previous century. People were experiencing sound in radically new ways at a time when the scientific, musical, and architectural discourses of sound were redefining the way it was conceived—most broadly and pervasively, in its

relationship to space. In modernity, then, sound became space. Whether one calls space a context, a medium, a channel or a circuit, the point remains the same: sound without space is not only inaudible, it is unthinkable.

he aim of this essay is to explore the literary implications

of this linking of sound and space in modernity. By examining works by three major German modernist authorsâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;Robert Musil, Rainer Maria Rilke, and Franz Kafkaâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;this essay will first of all demonstrate the interconnected discourses of sound and space in their texts. In their works hearing defines or is defined by the physical structures in which

it takes place. Whether architecture or the ear occupies the position of mastery is an open question: sound can appear as a product of architectural space, or it can reveal or even generate that space. It is not, however, the case that Kafka, Musil, and Rilke learned the lessons of modern acoustical research and in-

corporated them into their writing in the hopes of achieving a new kind of scientific realism. To claim this would be to underestimate their radical attempts to reinterpret human sensation through aesthetic means, and to overestimate their scientific knowledge. Still, their techniques of representation align so neatly with scientific notions of

the spatial constitution of auditory experience, that some explanation of this parallel discovery in science and art is required. How is it that modern physics and modernist literature both arrived at the conclusion that when we hear, we hear space? This essay aims to specify this link in order to demonstrate how these writers engaged the question

of acoustic experience in modernityâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;and, in particular, in the spaces of modernity. Moreover, it seeks to uncover a logic of sensory experience, derived from the relationship of sound and space, that informs a significant strand of modernist writing. Kafka, Rilke, and Musil collectively develop a theory of literary pro-

duction based on sensory imbalance: the condition of possibility of writing is a deficit or excess of perceptual stimuli, often in the auditory realm. Inadequate and unsuccessful acts of hearing, the consequence of listening in enclosed spaces, generate problems for figural representation and narrative development.

The thin walls, flimsy doors, and porous concrete buildings of modernity and modernism transmit either a jarring acoustic mĂŠlange or an isolated indecipherable tone. Consequently, these authors are forced to write against such noises: to explain, rationalize, silence, or aestheticize them. Musil, Rilke, and Kafka do not re-

solve the problem of noise, but find ways to represent it through a spatialized discourse of sound.

his essay is part of a growing trend to revaluate noise: rather than view it as a disruption, a distraction, and a disturbance, scholars from a variety of disciplines have come to see noise as a highly productive, if

not entirely positive, force. This trend began in the late 1970s with such works as Jacques Attaliâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Noise (1977) and Michel Serresâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s The Parasite (1980). Challenging the conventional opposition of music and noise, Attali argued that music is nothing more than the organization of noise; both acoustic phenomena

should be considered as markers and predictors of social and political life. To ignore or suppress noise is to be blindâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; or deafâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;to the economy of power it both reflects and governs. In a related move, Serres sought to overturn the signal-noise dichotomy upon which theories of communication are generally based. The goal

of communication cannot be the elimination of noise, since this would require dissolving the medium or channel through which messages are sent and with it the very act of communication.

ADVANCED STUDIO V

SOUND SPACE

AN INSTITUTE OF SPATIAL PERCEPTION Studio Critic Marc Tsurumaki Date Fall 2013 Site Flatiron District, New York City Program Arts & Research Institute

Aural Arts & Research Institute Sound Space, a center for aural arts and perception, demonstrates an architecture committed to enabling meaningful listening. In striving to answer the question of whether there is (or what the limits are) of objective, communicative potential in noise, sound and music, the institution explores sound as a mechanism for spatial perception. The primary research agenda is to encourage the development of auditory-spatial awareness as a skill, a sensory tool, and then heightening that awareness through a series of aural and sonic experiments. The institution strives to recognize or suggest a difference between noise and sound, particularly in everyday contexts, and how an enhanced or evolved understanding of ambient noise can impact how we actively listen—and ultimately enhance our spatial awareness and understanding. Space & Sonic Experience Aural experiences of space and architecture are fleeting, and we lack a means or an appreciation for sharing the experiential dimension of our collective responses (emotional, affective, neurological, sensory, etc.) particularly in regards to the communal and shared significance or impact of these experiences. The language for describing sound

(let alone noise) is weak and inadequate, and there is little value or appreciation implicit in the art of auditory spatial perception. New York: The Public Soundscape The city itself is the host of an unmistakable Soundscape with public and proprietary sonic arenas that inflect and occasionally appropriate one another. The institution must therefore address the Soundscape of the city and what would otherwise be considered ‘noise pollution’ as either a desirable asset (a perceptual result of listening closely), or whether environmental sound is regulated, selectively curated, or ignored altogether. More broadly the research agenda of the institution is intended to test and experiment with the notion of an explicit semiology of sound, and question how (or whether?) sound and ultimately music may be evaluated from a semantic perspective. The intention is to evaluate the communicative potential of noise (particularly within the urban environment), to quantify its communicative ability in terms of mood and affect, then through fMRI visualizations and neuro-scientific methods validate how we (culturally, anthropologically, and societally) register and interpret what we hear.

Advanced Studio V | SoundSpace | 2013 |

SONIC EVENT WALKING, FOOTSTEPS

SONIC PERCEPTION HEARING OUR OWN FOOTSTEPS IN AN ECHO

INTENSITY AREA OF THE WALL

E RE ANC D IS T Y B E F O A DEL

AR THE

R IVA

L OF

THE

ECH

FREQUENCY INDEX MATERIAL OF THE WALL

Advanced Studio V | SoundSpace | 2013 |

4' 6"

277.18

233.08 207.65

164.81

174.61

196.00

220.00

246.94

261.63

185.00

146.83

155.56

138.59 123.47

130.81

110.00

116.54 97.999

103.83 87.307

92.499

27.500

30.863

32.703

35.708

41.203

43.654

48.999

55.000

61.735

65.406

82.417

C 73.416

B B

77.782 69.269

58.270

A B

G A

F G

E F

D E

C D C A

18' 51.913 46.249

38.891 34.648

29.135

250

200

160

125

100

31.5

224

178

141

11.2

89.1

70.8

56.2

44.7

35.5

28.2

250 Hz

125 Hz

63 Hz

31.5 Hz

20 Hz

16 Hz

FREQUENCY (Hz)

36'

71'

MODAL FREQUENCY IN PHYSICAL SPACE

VOWELS

HEARING RANGE

BASS

3 3/8"

6 3/4"

3729.3 3322.4 290.0

2489.0 2217.5

1864.7 1661.2 1480.0

1244.5 1108.7

587.33

659.26

698.46

783.99

880.00

987.77

1046.5

1174.7

1318.5

1396.9

1568.0

1760.0

1975.5

2093.0

2349.3

2637.0

2793.0

3136.0

3520.0

3951.1

932.33 A A

ALTO TENOR

830.61

G G

739.99 F F

293.66

329.63

349.23

392.00

440.00

493.88

523.25

E E

622.25 554.37

466.16 415.30 369.99

311.13

D C D

1' 1 1/2"

2' 3"

CONVERSATIONAL SPEECH

SOPRANO

CONSONANTS

BASS

BARITONE

4000

3150

2500

2000

1600

1250

1000

800

630

500

400

315

3548

2818

2239

1778

1413

1122

891

708

562

447

355

282

TREBLE MID-RANGE

8K Hz

4K Hz

2K Hz

1K Hz

500 Hz

Advanced Studio V | SoundSpace | 2013 |

PROGRAMMATIC TYPOLOGIES

core & satellite rooms open plan

loop linear chain

Advanced Studio V | SoundSpace | 2013 |

THE ACOUSTIC ENVIORNMENT

TIME THE ACOUSTIC ENVIORNMENT

PARTICLE MOVEMENT THE ACOUSTIC ENVIORNMENT

PRESSURE

1 SECOND

4 Hz

TIME

0 TIME

-THE ACOUSTIC ENVIORNMENT

TIME

PARTICLE MOVEMENT

1 Hz

FREQUENCIES 1 SECOND

TIME

PRESSURE PRESSURE

PARTICLE MOVEMENT

+ 0 + 0

4 Hz

1 SECOND 4 Hz TIME 1 Hz

FREQUENCIES

TIME

PARTICLE MOVEMENT

1 Hz

PRESSURE

1 SECOND

+ 0

S TIME

1 Hz

FREQUENCIES

4 Hz

Advanced Studio V | SoundSpace | 2013 |

SOUND DISSEMINATION BY ROOM TYPE

Advanced Studio V | SoundSpace | 2013 |

SONIC TYPOLOGIES

MODAL ROOM FREQUENCIES / COLORATION

DIFFUSION

ORIGINAL WAVE

100

+ ACOUSTIC PRESSURE

REFLECTING WALLS

REFLECTED WAVE

AXIAL ROOM MODE

TANGENTIAL ROOM MODE

OBLIQUE ROOM MODE

100

0 100

-100 0

-100

FLUTTER ECHO

-100

ANECHOIC

PHENOMENOLOGY OF AURAL EXPERIENCE EMOTION & AFFECT

LISTENING

PERCEPTION

THE RAW SENSATION COGNITIVE,

COMMUNICATION

PSYCHOLOGICAL INVOLVEMENT?

physical acoustics architectural acoustics

aural aesthetics

sensory sociology sensory anthropology

Advanced Studio V | SoundSpace | 2013 |

100

-100

100

0 100

0 -100

B_DIFFUSION + 73

Advanced Studio V | SoundSpace | 2013 |

ORIGINAL WAVE

REFLECTING WALLS

ACOUSTIC PRESSURE

REFLECTED WAVE

AXIAL ROOM MODE

TANGENTIAL ROOM MODE

OBLIQUE ROOM MODE

A_MODAL ROOM FREQUENCIES / COLORATION + 37

D_ANECHOIC + 127

Advanced Studio V | SoundSpace | 2013 |

C_FLUTTER ECHO + 100

A_MODAL ROOM FREQUENCIES / COLORATION + 37

+ 00

Advanced Studio V | SoundSpace | 2013 |

Research Concentrations Brain Localization Representations of spoken and musical sounds do not occupy the same regions of the auditory cortex. Linguistic Sound Systems The creation of a language-specific framework for sound perception phonetics: the science of speech sounds, the acoustic structure of speech. Signification & Meaning Sound and verbal description or association. Sound Sequences Pitch intervals as learned sound categories in Western music. Pitch variation and emotion. Sound Timbre Evaluating sound quality when pitch, loudness, and duration are identical. The temporal and spectral profile of a sound.

Advanced Studio V | SoundSpace | 2013 |

A_MODAL ROOM FREQUENCIES / COLORATION

INTERFERENECE

SOUND TYPOLOGY

Advanced Studio V | SoundSpace | 2013 |

100

D_ANECHOIC

C_FLUTTER ECHO

B_DIFFUSION

101

Advanced Studio V | SoundSpace | 2013 |

102

103

1’ = 3/32”

Advanced Studio V | SoundSpace | 2013 |

104

ADVANCED STUDIO IV

MAPPING THE HUMAN BRAIN

A NEUROLOGICAL CENTER IN M.E.O. Studio Critic Michael Morris Kelsey Lents Date Spring 2013 Site Medium Earth Orbit Program Space Station Catered to Human Health & Well-Being

One Hundred Billion Neurons Just this past year President Obama and the European Union have each proposed efforts to map the brain’s activity in unprecedented detail; Obama asked Congress to spend $100 million next year to start a project that will explore details of the brain, which contains 100 billion cells and trillions of connections. The project is a space station in geostationary orbit dedicated as a research and client-based service assisting in efforts to map the human brain. At the micro-cellular scale, understanding the brain’s neurological structure has proven problematic. It is simply an issue of data collection, and organizing information within a real-time digital model of unprecedented scale and proportion. But does it have to be virtual? My proposition is that space is large enough, and therefore, an appropriate global venue for a 3-dimensional, tangible, perceivable, and internationally conceived working model of the human brain to exist. The Neuron-Satellite The basic principle of the human brain mapping initiative is for satellite constellations to map the geographic architecture and connectivity of the brain. Attached to the space station via

105

space tether, the space station is the root of a network of small, micro-electric satellites, each representative of a single neuron within the brain, and responsible for communicating all data generated on the neuron back to earth. As years progress into decades, the project will eventually host constellations of satellites representative of the neural connectivity of the brain’s functional lobes, and more generally the sum of research generated on the human brain. Structure & Installation The mechanism for the installation of the neural networks is for each client (a space tourist) to the space station to be responsible for the installation of neuron-satellites in space via a space pod - a pneumatic fuel-propelled vessel surrounding the periphery of the space station. The structure is a dynamically updated representation of the brain’s neurological makeup, constantly updated and expanding according to the research findings of the neurological institution, as well as the functional MRI imaging scans constantly undergone by the clients and inhabitants of the space station.

Advanced Studio IV | Neurological Brain Mapping | 2013 |

106

Composite Floor Panels

Flourescent Lights only (GLA) Sleep Wall Utility Wall

Back Wall

Bump Out (detached)

chest breadth hip breadth

Interior walls covered with acoustic blankets (Gore-tex)

.09 m3 of personal items,

generally stowed at the bottom of CQ to maximize head and armroom

UHMWPE (Polyethelene) Panels for Radiation Protection

, all, usedfor moutning a light, computer workstation, etc. d to follow the module hull ks and loops. Has 2 speaker boxes for alarms

Aluminum Rack Exoskeleton

at lived on the ISS include requests for an improved living ity of use - the ability to tailor the layout and use of their

Composite Utility Wall (Computer and personal items) CREW QUARTERS

CQ envelope: limited to a standard rack volume 1) Sleep Wall: designated as sleeping /resting, 2) Utility wall: directly across from the sleep wall, usedfor moutning a light, computer workstation, etc. 3) Back wall: (opposite the entrance) is curved to follow the module hull Provides stowage with bungees, hooks and loops. Has 2 speakerFloor boxesPanels for alarms Composite Finally feedback from the expedition crews that lived on the ISS include requests for an improved living environment; and more importantly, for flexibility of use - the ability to tailor the layout and use of their private environment

Flourescent Lights only (GLA) Sleep Wall Utility Wall

Back Wall

Bump Out (detached)

chest breadth hip breadth

Interior walls covered with acoustic blankets (Gore-tex)

.09 m3 of personal items,

generally stowed at the bottom of CQ to maximize head and armroom

upper torso vs. lower body space; flexibility and access

2.1 m3 of interior volume 107

chest breadth hip breadth

.09 m3 of personal items,

generally stowed at the bottom of CQ to maximize head and armroom

Quadrant / four-post arrangement of the ISS pressurized elements

FOUR-STANDOFF CONCEPT

INTEGRATION STRUCTURE

OVERHEAD

FORWARD

AFT

INTEGRATION STRUCTURE EQUIPMENT VOLUME LIMITATIONS

OVERHEAD

FORWARD

FOUR-STANDOFF CONCEPT RACKS (ISPR - International Standard Payload Racks

AFT

RACKS (ISPR - International Standard Payload Racks

DECK

EQUIPMENT VOLUME LIMITATIONS COMMON MODULE ECSS, POWER, DATA MANAGEMENT RUNS

DECK

COMMON MODULE ECSS, POWER, DATA MANAGEMENT RUNS

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Architecture of the Brain Principle of the Localization of Function in the Brainâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Functional Lobes

FRONTAL LOBE (L) Linguistic: Speaking, Reading, Writing Motor Elaboration

FRONTAL LOBE (R) Nonverbal: Music, Art, Face, Pattern & Melody Recognition

Logical Analysis: Analytical, Step-by-step Processing, Sequencing, Memory for habits & Motor Activities

Synthetic Analysis: Holistic Problem Solving ,Control of Emotional Response, Expressive Language TEMPORAL LOBE (R) Smelling, Memory Acquistion, Recognizing Faces, Visual Memory, Sense of Identity, Behavior & Emotions Including Fear

TEMPORAL LOBE (L) Hearing, Perceptual Judgment, Auditory Association Categorization of Objects, Intellect

parietaL LOBE (R) Integration of Senses Allowing for Understanding a Single Concept

parietaL LOBE (L) Visual Attention, Touch Perception, Manipulation of Objects

CEREBELLUM Coordination of Movement, Posture, Balance OCCIPITIAL LOBES Vision, Visual Association BRAIN STEM Breathing, Heart Rate, Swallowing, Sweating, Blood Pressure, Level of Alertness, Ability to Sleep, Sense of Balance

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Projected Phases for Installation of the Tethered Neuron-Satellite Network Phase I Installation by Think-Space Pod A micro-electric â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;neuronâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; satellite is installed by a client from his or her think-space pod via robotic arms and rocket propulsion. Phase II Tether Networks and Tether Meshes Constellations of neuron-satellites are installed simultaneously. Instead of rigid tethers they are flexible to be easily networked with other bundles. Phase III Electrodynamic Tethers Conductive tethers carry a current generating thrust or drag from a planetary magnetic field. Eventually these could be used to propel the station, reducing overall energy consumption.

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U R BA N I T I E R AT I O N D E

ES, N A L LY E V E LO P E D

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URBANITIES, RATIONALLY DEVELOPED

ccasionally, we may fool ourselves into thinking that urban space is designed exclusively with the best-interests of the end-user in mind. But the values informing architectural decisionmaking are rarely so even-handed; a delicate balance exists between being guided by a sense of social conscience, realizing a project allotted finite time and means, and pursuing a singular architectural vision.

rchitectural construction is an intensely resource- and cost-intensive operation; being tied to the building and fabrication industries, architecture is inherently interwoven in the ebb and flow of the global economic market, and the predicated schemes of capitalist enterprises. It is within this discourse that the “risks” of an architectural investment overshadow the transformative potential of design; conceptual ambitions demand legitimization according to an objective measure of anticipated gains (profit) from a given investment. What ensues is an architecture of intense and forthright pragmatism—a ruthless implementation of rational and deductive logics.

hose vision leaves the most lasting mark on contemporary society—the architect, or the developer? Need there be this harsh distinction between the two roles; need they be oppositional? Who, numerically-speaking, will build more buildings in the future? Whose idea of our future cities will most likely become an impressionable reality?

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CORE STUDIO I I I

HARLEM HOUSING

A MEDICAL MANUFACTURING FACILITY Studio Critic Douglas Gauthier Date Fall 2012 Site 131st Street & Park, New York NY Program Public Housing Collaboration Della Krantz

At the core of prosperity within a low-income community is the question of its economic sustainability; this was the conflict addressed by the proposition for a live-work manufacturing facility in Harlem. There are currently 16,000 individuals employed by the health care industry in East Harlem. Surrounded by many major hospitals such as Harlem Hospital, Columbia Presbyterian, Mt. Sinai, the Bronx Veterans Hospital, as well as many independent research and rehabilitation centers, East Harlem is entangled in the medical industry by virtue of its location and infrastructure. Proposal of M15-R8 We adopted M15-R8 mixed use zoning from the Bronx in order to instigate a wave of subsequent diversified zoning projects within the neighborhood, and effectively activate the future activities of the neighborhood. The diversified zoning program creates a network of associated programs and institutions that would enable people to not only have a home but be employed by the larger health care network and the research organizations that drive innovation in the field. Our zoning proposal entails that the present mixed-use manufacturing district in Mott Haven across the river to our site be adapted

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to create a diversified live-work community for medical manufacturing. By introducing mixed zoning to our site, M15-R3, our program is diversified to include residences, manufacturing, labs, and public space. Medical / Soft-Manufacturing Facility The medical manufacturing facility provides economic and social opportunities for employees in a way that transcends the traditional notion of a low income housing project as a â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;gift.â&#x20AC;&#x2122; Instead we are providing the means for the development of new economic opportunities and intra-personal experiences for residents and people of the community. With manufacturing being the organizational and programmatic core of the institution, 289 convertible single to double-height units surround the periphery of the building. The combination of research, manufacturing, and implementation with the Harlem medical network creates a sustainable microeconomy that transforms the institution into an incubator for innovation for the healthcare community. Our project focuses on the potential for housing to function as a live-work community that stimulates the East Harlem neighborhood both socially and economically.

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MINIMUM SQUARE FOOTAGE: M15-R8

MAXIMUM SQUARE FOOTAGE: M15-R8 RESIDENTAL: 364,079 SF

RESIDENTAL: 200,000 SF

COMMERCIAL / MANUFACTURING: 302,375 SF

MANUFACTURING: 200,000 SF

COMMUNITY (LABS): 393,087 SF

COMMUNITY (LABS): 200,000 SF

R8 HEIGHT FACTOR

COMMERCIAL: 50,000 SF

R8 COMMUNITY FACILITY

R8 HEIGHT FACTOR

TOWER IN THE PARK

DUAL PROGRAM

R8 HEIGHT FACTOR

DUAL PROGRAM

INTERDISCIPLINARY

R8 COMMUNITY FACILITY

ORIGINAL ZONING OPTIONS

R8 M1-2 - M2-1 COMMERCIAL M3-1 R8 COMMUNITY FACILITY

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R8 QUALITY HOUSING

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The Framework of a New Institutional Model Elements Housing Manufacturing Lab Structure Members: Lab Coordinators: Hire Manufacturers: Build Hospital Intermediaries Non-Residents Functional Model of Sustained Earning & Sustained Living

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COMMUNITY SPACE

COMMERCIAL SPACE

RESIDENCES

LIVE-WORK

recruiters / leasers

COORDINATORS

TECHIES

LABORERS

OFFICES

MANUFACURING STUDIO/ TECHNOLOGY DRIVEN RESEARCH

TRANSPORT & DELIVERY

LAB / RESEARCH STUDIO STRUCTURE

COMMUNITY SPACE

COMMERCIAL SPACE

HOSPITAL NETWORK

RESIDENCES

INTERSTITIAL SPACES: MOMENTS OF INTERACTION

LAB COORDINATORS

RESEARCHERS / DESIGN-BUILD TECHIES

HOSPITAL - LAB INTERMEDIARIES

MANUFACTURERS, BUILDERS

LIVE-WORK

PROJECT TIMELINE TIMEFRAME: WEEKS - YEARS RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT: PROJECT INITIATED, RELEVANT PARTIES HIRED

RESEARCH NEEDS & WANTS OF THE MEDICAL FIELD / PROFESSION RELATING TO THE TOPIC

IDEAS FOR SCOPE OF PROJECT: REPAIRED / RESTORED MACHINERY, NEWTECHNOLOGICAL PROTOTYPE, NEW BIOCHEM TECHNOLOGY AND COMMUNICATIONS SYSTEMS

DESIGN DEVELOPMENT

PROTOTYPE TESTING, PRODUCED REVIEW STUDIO/ TECHNOLOGY

DRIVEN RESEARCH

OFFICES

REVISIONS, REDESIGN

MANUFACURING

CORRESPONDENCE WITH HOSPITALS BEGINS

TRAINING AND PREPARATION FOR MANUFACTURING

MANUFACTURING

IMPLEMENTATION WITHIN HOSPITALS, MANUFACTURING OR EXPORT TO CONTINUES ALTERNATE FACILITIES

LAB / RESEARCH STUDIO STRUCTURE

TRANSPORT & DELIVERY

HOSPITAL NETWORK

user experiences:

program & CIRCULATION robotics

prosthetics LAB COORDINATORS / recruiters / leasers

HOSPITAL - LAB INTERMEDIARIES / COORDINATORS

testing / lab work

RESEARCHERS / DESIGN-BUILD TECHIES

MANUFACTURERS,

biochemistry BUILDERS,

radiology

LABORERS

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BORROWING FROM THE BRONX: M15-R8 ZONING BOUNDARY FOR PROPOSED DIVERSIFIED ZONING PROPOSED MIXED M15-R8 ZONING CURRENT R8 ZONING PROPOSED MANUFACTURING ZONING CURRENT COMMERCIAL ZONING CURRENT M3-1 ZONING

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CIRCULATION BETWEEN MANUFACTURING & LABS HOUSING CIRCULATION

Housing Circulation

Manufacturing Circulation MANUFACTURING CIRCULATION

Circulation between Manufacturing and Labs

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Single Unit

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Double Unit Convertible Live-Work

Triple Unit Convertible Live-Work

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Floor 9 |

HOUSING

Floor 8 |

HOUSING

Floor 7 |

LABS / HOUSING

Floor 6 |

MEZZANINE

Floor 5 |

MANUFACTURING

Transition between Housing Units and Labs

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From Design and Crime, and Other Diat ribes Par t I Architecture and Desig n New York: Verso. pp 23-26 Hal Foster 2002

he remaking the point where not only comof space in modity and sign the image of the commodity appear as one, but often so do is a prime story commodity and of capitalist mospace: in actual dernity) as told and virtual malls by Georg Simthe two arc meldmel, Siegfried ed through deKracauer, Benjamin, the Situa- sign. Bruce Mau Design is in the tionists, and radvanguard here. ical geographers since (e.g., David Of one â&#x20AC;&#x153;identity programâ&#x20AC;? for a Harvey, Saskia Toronto bookSassen). Today store chain, Mau it has reached

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writes of a “retail environment ... in which the brand identity, signage systems, interiors, and architecture would be totally integrated.” And of his graphic support for the new Seattle Public Library designed by Koolhaas, he states: “The central proposition involves erasing the boundaries between architecture and information, the real and the virtual.”

This integration, that erasure, is a deterritorializing of image and space that depends on a digitizing of the photograph, its loosening from old referential ties (perhaps the development of Photoshop will one day be seen as a world- historical event), and on a computing of architecture, its loosening from old structural principles (in ar-

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chitecture today sights into mealmost anything dia of Marshall can be designed McLuhan, but because almost like his countryanything can man he seems be built: hence confused in his all the arbitrary role—is he a curves and biocultural critic, a morphic blobs futurist guru, or designed by Geh- a corporate conry and followers sultant? In media - see Chapter futurology a crit3). As Deleuze ical term today and Guattari, can become a let alone Marx, catchy phrase taught us long tomorrow, and a ago, this deterri- cliche (or brand) torializing “is the the next. In a wry path of capital.” move Koolhaas now copyrights au develops his catchy phrasthe old ines, as if to ac-

M 161

knowledge this commercial curding of critical concepts on the page (see Chapter 4). Yet for all the Situationist lingo of contemporary designers like Mau, they don’t “detourn” much; more than critics of spectacle, they are its surfers (which is indeed a favorite figure in their discourse), with “the status of the artist [and] the pay- check of the business-

man.” “So where does my work fit in?” Mau asks. “What is my relationship to this happy, smiling monster? Where is the freedom in this regime? Do I follow Timothy Leary and ‘tune in, turn on, drop out?’ What actions can I commit that cannot be absorbed? Can I outperform the system? Can I win?” Is he kidding?

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ontemporary design is part of a greater revenge of capitalism on postmodernismâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;a recouping of its crossings of arts and disciplines, a routinization of its transgressions. Autonomy may be an illusion or, better, a fiction; but periodically it is useful, even necessary, as it was for Loos and co. a hundred years ago. Periodically, too, this fiction

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can become repressive, even deadening, as it was when postmodernism was first advanced as an opening out of a petrified modernism. But this is no longer our situation. Perhaps it is time to recapture a sense of the political situatedness of both autonomy and its transgression, a sense of the historical dialectic of disciplinarity and its contest-

tion—to attempt again “to provide culture with running-room.” Often we are told, that design can give “style” to our “character”—that it can point the way to such semi-autonomy—but clearly it is also an agent that folds us back into the system of contemporary consumerism. Design is all about desire, but strangely this desire seems almost subject-less

today; that is, design seems to advance a new kind of narcissism, one that is all image and no interiority—an apotheosis of the subject that is also its potential disappearance. Poor little rich man; he is “precluded from all future living and striving, developing and desiring” in the neo-Art Nouveau world of total design and Internet plenitude.

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DEVELOPMENT CASE STUDIES

TYPOLOGIES OF THE MARKETPLACE

A MEDIATION WITH DEVELOPMENT STRATEGY Studio Critic Abby Hamlin Date Spring 2014 Site Brooklyn, New York Santa Monica, California Program Housing, Mixed-Use Commercial Development

The following two projects were completed in collaboration with students in the Masters in Real Estate Development program, wherein the objective of the course was to present a development strategy complete with a financial proposal, marketing goals and aims, in addition to an architectural proposal which could reasonably be built within seven to nine months of land acquisition. I anticipated the conflicted relationship between the obvious motive to generate a profit from the project developers with a supposedly sincere interest in urban growth, expansion and regeneration. Nonetheless I interpreted the project briefs as design problems first and foremost, as they presented a financial means for architecture to be built as well as a client (usually an investment corporation) to bear in mind. I was able to remain sympathetic to some but certainly not all of the development industry’s production and work values. There is no denying that architecture and construction are extremely cost- and resource-intensive operations, and I do find that it is part of the architect’s duty as a professional practitioner to remain accountable for the realization of a project within the limits of cost, time-frame, and means of production. The results of the collaboration were far less revelatory. In the end, it all came down to the numbers: (“show us the numbers” was an all-too-frequent first-reply in reviews and presentations) including total build area, floor-

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area ratio, ten-year-plan, cost per square foot. These became the evaluative concepts for project analysis. Occasionally, an impressive rendering contributed to the credibility of the overall product—which was not surprising to me, as the ubiquity of photo-realistic renderings have become images of consumption rather than appreciation, or use as a means for ‘entering’ the project experientially, or beginning to understand the nature of the project’s architectural values. The collaborative nature of the project modules led to design schema (again, this is “design-by-numbers”) which I do not readily subscribe to in their entirety. The ambitions of the course to construct a meaningful dialogue between architects and developers is all-too-relevant today, for the truth is that large-scale development schemes have a swift and totalizing impact on the character, use and functionality of future neighborhoods and urban spaces. These projects require a critical eye to ensure that these urban monstrosities, where-ever they are built and for whom-ever they profit, are designed with sensitivity to the site and the people who rely on and are affected by that space; and thus the power of architecture to affect change on the built environment must not restrict itself to the insular practice of the individual within his or her studio, but it must be part of a larger dialectic on the nature of urban development, design, and future cities.

THIRD ST

MODULE 1: RENTAL DEVELOPMENT 108 BERGEN STREET, BROOKLYN, NEW YORK

BERGEN ST

LOT 10

LOT 5

LOT 7

GROUND / FLOOR 1 REAR YARD - 6'

SOULCYCLE 2359 SF

GROCER 2590 SF

LAUNDRY 2089 SF

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BASEMENT

FLOORS 2 - 6

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STUDIO 671 SF

STUDIO 615 SF

1 BDRM 677 SF

1 BDRM 752 SF

2 BDRM 1219 SF

2 BDRM 1330 SF

2 BDRM 1197 SF

2 BDROM 1354 SF

PARKING 36 SPOTS

GYM 2740 SF

ZIPCAR 2893 SF

FLOOR 7

2 BDRM 1215 SF

1 BDRM 879 SF

1 BDRM 737 SF

1 BDRM 918 SF

2 BDRM 1148 SF

2 BDRM 1123 SF

FLOOR 8

2 BDRM 1215 SF

1 BDRM 879 SF

1 BDRM 737 SF

1 BDRM 918 SF

2 BDRM 1148 SF

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MODULE 2: MIXED-USE RETAIL DEVELOPMENT 203 COLORADO AVENUE, SANTA MONICA, CALIFORNIA

Santa Monicaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Sears Landmarked Building The site is adjacent to the future Esplanade on Colorado Avenue and the Expo Station on 4th Ave, which will for the first time connect downtown Santa Monica with the rest of the greater Los Angeles area. The building is one of the largest sites in downtown Santa Monica, enabling the opportunity to design key transit-oriented development that would not impact residences as it is adjacent to the freeway. The site can accommodate ocean views, preservation of the historic Sears facade, and hosts potential for additional circulation improvements by expanding the roadway grid with a new street or a bridge across the freeway.

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RETAIL RESIDENTIAL OFFICE

[ COLORADO AVENUE ]

RIA

T AY EW

GAT

[ 4TH STREET ]

FOOT TRAFFIC FROM 3RD ST PROMENADE AND COLORADO AVE.

VIEW CORRIDOR TO PARK (FROM EXPO STATION)

BRIDGE ACCESS (OVER MAIN STREET)

LOADING DOCK

VEHICLE ACCESS

POTENTIAL ACCESS FOR PEDESTRIAN / BIKE BRIDGE OVER FREEWAY VEHICLE ACCESS

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RESIDENCES: NORT

RESIDENCES: NORTH-WEST BUILDING 173

SCULPTURE PARK

TH-EAST BUILDNIG

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THE FIELD T

AND

H E A R R AY

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THE FIELD & THE ARRAY

he field demonstrates conditions of interdependenceâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;of collective and totalizing presence. The field owes its form to its constituent parts, and yet aggregates into the semblance of a holistic entity. The field does not deny hierarchy, it eschews it. The field is ambiguous yet unmistakably identified. The field professes and embodies a singular condition; it may be polemical, or understated.

he array is bound by an origin, by a set of inputs. As a whole, the array may be quantitatively as multitudinous as the fieldâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;though it is able to regard its constituent elements as separate, independently conceived objects. The array professes systematic order and logic. It represents the generation of sequentially and individually derived forms, rather than a simultaneously rendered condition or arrangement.

ield and array are neither mutually exclusive nor dependent concepts. What is most interesting in my view, as I reflect and consider the implications of the following designs, are not the identification or characterization of a projectâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s process or even aesthetic effect; but what is truly significant in the dichotomy of field v. array are the conditions and reasons why they emerge and exist within the design framework, and the logic which they operate under and find themselves influenced by.

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CORE STUDIO I I

EXTREME BEAUTY

ILLUSIONS OF THE FACADE Studio Critic Christoph A. Kumpusch Date Spring 2012 Site Bond St & Lafayette New York, NY Program Casino as Hedge Fund

A Building ‘Strictly’ Visceral In "Extreme Beauty," crafting visceral, sensual experiences through a ‘dressed’ façade becomes not only an exploration in radical aesthetic form-finding, but the relationship of the interior and the exterior of the building is analyzed in terms of how the visceral nature of the exterior might bleed into or influence the interior of the building. The relationship of interior and exterior were examined through the creation of apertures, within which the facade could pull into the interior. The concept of apertures materialized into a structural diagrid for the building, upon which the facade system is installed, removed, and dynamically altered. The research conducted for the project examined the meaning of putting on "a costume" in the context of the city. With "casino" being the programmatic concept for the project, the exploration centered around the meaning of dressing for an occasion, and the consequences of meaningfully constructing a visceral exterior identity. A New Model of Hedge Fund The bank is a place of public, unregulated and institutionalized gambling, a kind of supercasino for the masses where you can bet against bank, or against other people and other institutions on matters of real life. Thematically the question at hand was: “what does financial

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chaos look like within the city?” and “does it go unnoticed?” Translucent (light-transmitting) concrete was chosen as the material of the building's facade system, and at certain times of day the inner chaos of the building may temporarily become illuminated and revealed. I am interested in the idea of invoking psychological zones within the structure and creating programmatic experiences that are finely attuned with those zones. For example, we might envision a traditional casino as hypnotic, full of rotating wheels, flashing images, happy jingling noises, and maze-like. I envision the body of the structure, the bank’s betting or gambling areas, likewise as a place saturated by media and video screens, with limited natural light, where time is easily forgotten and it becomes easy to be lost or disoriented. We witness this first at the level of the site; the building consumes the entire block in a manner evocative of a Las Vegas hotel/ casino – where in many areas circulating through the building is a requirement in order to reach certain attractions or even parts of Las Vegas Blvd. But more pointedly the form eludes perspectival distortion (in particular, an anamorphism) in the way that it juts outward from what would otherwise be expected to be geometry that is simply stacked and twisted.

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A Meltdown The collapse of two Bear Stearns hedge funds in the summer of 2007 exposed what came to be known as the sub-prime mortgage crisis reintroducing the world to an era of bank failures, a credit crunch, private defaults and massive layoffs. In institutionalizing what is in essence a casino in lower Manhattan we inevitably confront the question, what does financial chaos look like in the city? If exposed, unveiled, and publicized, what would it be or resemble? How would one react to that very demonstration of chaos? Perhaps in the few years following the global economic meltdown, we have been subjected to this very process. Perhaps the strange and threatening facade of the bank is shielding a truth that we already know.

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CORE STUDIO I

SURFACE PERFORMATIVITY MEDIATING LIQUID FORCES Studio Critic Phillip Parker Date Fall 2011 Site 125th Street, New York NY Program Hydroponic Farm

Taming Dynamic Forces Observations of water and liquid forces became an appropriate point of departure for an architectural program that revolves around the flow of liquid through a membrane: a hydroponic farm. Research focused upon an in-depth analysis of how water effects malleable surfaces and the performativity of the affected surface under those conditions. The surface then became a cornerstone of the studio’s focus; its transformational and dynamic attributes became the pivot around which architectural relationships unfolded. Surface, Skin, and Structure The studio expanded upon theories and ideas presented within Andrew Benjamin’s study of the surface in architecture; he explains that the surface is not merely structural nor simply decorative. Rather, we can conceive architecture as an effect of the possibilities and potential inherent in the making of surfaces. The material properties of the surface itself set the conditions for its performativity. Rather than being dictatory or restrictive, the surface’s material properties were ultimately understood as dynamic and

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transformational. A central tenant of the studio was a line of questioning or inquiry into traditional modes of building construction, in favor of relationships found within physicalmodeling techniques and material constraints; in this case, of bristol and piano wire. Achieving meaningful abstraction in architecture is a challenging and perilous task. There is always the risk of surpassing the literal. What I discovered is that the means of representation are as important, if not more important than the ideological concept itself. In many ways, the representation supplants the ideological and becomes the true project itself. Put differently, the representation of the architecture does not project to an imaginary building or to a reality that does not yet exist, but the representative means exist as an architecture unlike any other.

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Beaufort num

Description

Wind speed

Wave height

Sea Conditions

Land Conditions

Calm

< 1 mph

0 ft

Flat

Calm. Smoke rises vertically

Light Air

1-3 mph

0-1 ft

Ripples without crests

Smoke drift indicates wind direction

Light breeze

4-7 mph

1-2 ft

Small wavelets. Crests not breaking.

Wind felt on exposed skin. Leaves rustle.

Gentle Breeze

8-12mph

2-3.5 ft

Large wavelets. Crests begin to break.

Leaves and small twigs constantly moving.

Moderate Breeze 13-17 mph

3.5-6 ft

Small waves with breaking crests.

Dust and loose paper raised. Small branches move.

Fresh Breeze

18-24 mph

6-9 ft

Moderate waves. Small amounts of spray.

Branches of a moderate size move.

Strong Breeze

25-30 mph

9-13 ft

Long waves. White foam crests. Airborne spray. Large branches in motion.

High Wind

31-38 mph

13-19 ft

Sea heaps up.

Gale

39-46 mph

18-25 ft

High waves with breaking crests forming.

Twigs broken on trees. Cars veer on road.

Strong Gale

47-54 mph

23-32 ft

Crests roll over. Dense foam.

Small trees blow over. Branches break off trees.

Whole trees in motion. Walking against the wind.

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From â&#x20AC;&#x153; Volatile Formationsâ&#x20AC;? Log 25, Reclaim Resi[lience] stance... pp 55-62 Ronald Snooks 2012

olatility is a critical condition for design. Within the intensive processes of formation that underlie complex phenomena, those which self-organize and are capable of catastrophic change, it is the volatile nature of the system that is generative. From these

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far-from-equilibrium conditions new forms of order emerge, generating strange behaviors, characteristics, and traitsâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;conditions potent with architectural possibility. Computation is a necessary accomplice in working with complex sys-

tems, but in the automation architecture of design, marcomputationginalizing risk, al methods and foregroundhave been adopt- ing stability and ed that privilege equilibrium. I certainty over would argue open-ended instead for comprocesses. plex systems of This adoption formation that is based on a operate through set of false asthe volatile intersumptions action of algoregarding the rithmic behaviors pseudo-objective and engage nature of computhe speculatational design. tive potential of These systems computationof parametric al processes. variation and Behavioral foroptimization mation is posited are complicit in as a nonlinear

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algorithmic design methodology that seeds specific architectural intent within the local interactions of multi-agent systems.

essy computation is a nonlinear and inconsistent process of negotiation between generative and explicit procedures. This requires a relentless, iterative torturing of the

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modelâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;editing, extracting, manipulating, and returning the model to the volatile space of algorithmic formation. Messy computation involves constant feedback between algorithmic procedures and direct digital surface modeling, an attempt to maximize and hybridize the potential of each model of design. The generative and the explicit each

inform the other within a manual feedback loop until a coherent or synthetic vocabulary emerges. The constant but inconsistent feedback slowly congeals into a coherent behavior and set of organizational and formal characteristics.

olatile algorithmic design methodologies can be understood as part of a

broader contemporary interest in indeterminacy and nonlinearity that has been emerging since the advent of chaos and complexity theory. However, the argument for volatility is more than a theoretical concern; it is a fundamental concern for the importance of subjectivity and the nature of risk within design.

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ENCODED MATTER

INTERFEROMETRIC MOTION SONIC VECTOR DISTRIBUTION Course Critic Ezio Blasetti Date Fall 2013 Collaboration Maximilian Lauter

Interferometry is the experimental measurement of displacement caused by the construction and deconstruction of waveforms. Indicies of refraction can be gathered from light, such as in holography, as well as from sound. For this project, we aimed to develop a system that would visualize the interfering trajectories of a set grid of points assigned and emitting specific frequencies. As each point affects every other point their new vertices are plotted. For the first iteration of this visualization, a grid of points was fed an increasing frequency from 25 Hz to 2 Khz with a fixed amplitude. Additionally, a scaling factor was introduced to increase the distance between the interference step of each frequency. This was performed for six different intensities: the resulting geometry captured across this spectrum began to demonstrate a consistent geometry, but in the upper ends of the spectrum would dissipate into chaotic and non-resemblant arrangements.

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Later iterations of the visualization system evolved to include a z-factor for the displacement of the waveforms. Using a fixed frequency and amplitude, the steps of intensity for interference were then mapped in threedimensional space. Each generation affects the grid through subtle interactions until the resulting complexity explodes the systems. This is the next step in the development of a visualization system that can map the interacting sonic forces within a pre-defined volume.

points was fed an increasing frequency from 25 Hz to 2 Khz with a fixed amplitude. The resulting geometry captured across this spectrum is displayed below. Additionally, a scaling factor was introduced to increase distance of each interference step of each frequency. This was performed for six different intensities, the first of which is represented in the sequence, while the sixth and more distorted geometry is shown below.

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catalog title: plan

index description: sine sweep 25 Hz to 2 Khz, fixed frequency.

step six

GSAPP, Encoded Matter Fall 2013, instructor: Ezio Blasetti

design team: max lauter / melodie yashar

Encoded Matter | Interferometric Motion | 2013 |

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catalog title: perspective

index description: frequency 100 Hz, amplitude 0.39

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GSAPP, Encoded Matter Fall 2013, instructor: Ezio Blasetti

design team: max lauter / melodie yashar

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catalog title: perspective

index description: frequency 100 Hz, amplitude 0.39

GSAPP, Encoded Matter Fall 2013, instructor: Ezio Blasetti

design team: max lauter / melodie yashar

Encoded Matter | Interferometric Motion | 2013 |

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Encoded Matter | Interferometric Motion | 2013 |

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Encoded Matter | Interferometric Motion | 2013 |

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Encoded Matter | Interferometric Motion | 2013 |

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Encoded Matter | Interferometric Motion | 2013 |

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SEARCH SPACE: ADVANCED ALGORITHMIC DESIGN

VIRTUAL 3D PRINTER

LENDING FORM TO CONTENT ON THE WEB Course Critic Mark Collins Toru Hasegawa Date Spring 2013

The manner in which we perceive content on the web is undoubtedly media-saturated, fastpaced, and constantly updating, but can it be materialized into a tangible form? This project became an exercise in lending form to code on the web, in order to discern aesthetic and formal differences between content inevitably saturated by a variety of media — and ultimately formally represent that content in an abstract, albeit, a concrete and materially perceivable form. The algorithm, written in Processing, detects key words in source code from a given web-page (the content that is HTML, CSS, PHP, JavaScript — including but not limited to <br> tags, the initiation of a CSS style, the inclusion of an image or a hyper-link) and responds to the appearance of these words by “printing” a virtual block on the screen.

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The parameters for the printed element included the 3-dimensional direction the next block would print (that is, forward, back, up, down, or left and right) according to the appearance of key words or tags. The underlying rules of the system include that an initiating block is generated first by the script, and each subsequent block would only print adjacent to a preceding block. The resulting or generated structure comes to symbolically represent the coded structure of the website.

SearchSpace | Virtual 3d Printer | 2013 |

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SearchSpace | Virtual 3d Printer | 2013 |

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APP-ITECTURE

SOUND CITY NYC

A LOG FOR THE URBAN SOUNDSCAPE Course Critic Mark Collins Toru Hasegawa Date Spring 2014

Sound City NYC is a conceptual prototype intended for development as an iPhone App. Using WebEx, we were able to code and test the essential actions and functionality of the application. Sound City is envisioned as an extended research effort to document and analyze the urban soundscape of New York City, which hosts an aural and sonic topography impossible to capture comprehensively or in its totality. The sonic landscape of the city is a rich musicological and socio-historical resource for our present day and age. In regards to the user-experience, Sound City is intended as a sound-sharing platform for capturing and posting samples of ambient noise, public speech or the spoken word, street music and impromptu performances. When documented or recorded, the sound is geo- and time-tagged. The sound is then be visible by other users within the immediate geographical vicinity of the tag. When shared, the audio file is added to a feed of sounds, tagged according to musical or sound category, and made available on the web for download. Finally the App features an algorithm which

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compiles the sound intensity information of a sampling of audio recordings within an geographic vicinity and constructs an Isobel Sound Map of the data (to this day, Isobel maps are drawn by a single person walking around recording sound samples within a particular area for days at a time. Musicians, filmmakers, academics and sound artists alike are only a few examples of the types of users to benefit from and remain fascinated by a constantly expanding database of urban noise. Sound City could likely serve as a platform for users to curate unique sound walks throughout the city. But most importantly the concept of listening closely to our environment fosters an appreciation for auditory spatial awareness, remaining attuned to the sonic character of the natural environment, and to how the spaces we design and inhabit fashion and configure the acoustical makeup of our experiences.

RECORD

soun Proje sound city nyc

sound city nyc

EDIT

sound city nyc EDIT

sound city nyc

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