CASA GRANDE. generation home MArch Year 5. Kent School of Architecture
The project is called Casa Grande, or also known as generation house. It is based closely on the novel One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marques. In short, the novel is about a family settlement that has no contact with outside world except for gypsies with their inventions and magic tricks that is transformed into a small town over a period of 100 years. Meanwhile, the project is a settlement, a dwelling for conceptually over a period of hundred years. It is located in Helgoland. Helgoland is an island off Germany coastline, with a beautiful red cliff overlooking the blue sea. Helgoland has two main islands which is the Helgoland and Dune.
task 1 - shelter for fictional characters
fictional characters of Rickmer Rickmers and wife
100 years of solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
The project started with the first task of the final year, the students were required to choose a fictional character that were stranded on the island and has to build a shelter. The protagonist that is chosen is a young couple who owned a ship making company. They were stranded on the island after their main transportation; a ship has crashed beyond repair after a heavy storm. Parts of the boats and ships were scattered around the island. The protagonist took his boat making skill to a full advantage to build a shelter for them to stay overnight just until he fixed the boat to escape the island. The whole design concept revolves around the husband building the shelter from broken piece of timber boats and repairing the boat for them to escape. While doing so, he kept upgrading the shelter to accommodate other needs. From just being a shelter, he started on making other spaces, for the sake of giving his wife a comfort of a home.
site plan
ground floor plan
first floor plan
1. Thermal Insulation, Mineral Wool 2. M-12 Wall Molding 3. Accoustical Ceiling Panel, Main Tee 4. 12- Gauge Hanger Wire 5. Aluminium With Zinc Finish 6. Copper Gutter, Copper Lining 7. Roof flashing, metal gravel stop and fascia 8. Wall Plate 9. Sealed and Insulated Fibre Board Duct 10. Upvc Flexible Duct 11. One-Way Joist Pre Cast Concrete Slab 12. Tensile Reinforcement 13. 150mm X 50mm Timber Wall Stud 14. Exposed Tie End 15. Panel Anchor 16. In Situ Reinforced Concrete Wall 130mm thick 17. Vertical Reinforcement 18. Self- furring Metal Lath 19. Polymer Bitumen Sealing Sheet 20. Cement Plaster Coat 21. Horizontal Bars Extend Into Side Wall 22. Fibreglass Batt Insulation 23. Concrete Beam 24. Concrete Block 25. 150mm X 50mm Timber Beam 26. Drain Strainer 27. Drain Bwol 28. Polythylene Film 29. Tongue and Groove Wood Flooring 30. Treated Wood Sleepers Set 31. Vapor Barrier for Slabs on Grade 32. Steel Reinforcing Rods 33. Gravel 34. Reinforced Concrete Footing
section of the boat workshop
sectional across the workshop, house and hall
1. 120mm X 420mm Timber Ridge Beam 2. Aluminium Substructure / Ventilation Gap 150mm 3. Glued Laminated Timber Arch Beam, 400mm 4. Copper Gutter, Copper Lining, 18mm Plywood, Zinc Gutter Eaves Flashing, 5. Roof Flashing, Metal Gravel Stop and Fascia, Zinc Capping Pierce, Standing Seam Zinc 6. Window : 3+1 Glazing (Single Glazing + Venetian Blind + Triple Glazing), Aluminium Frame, Gas Fill, Timber Jamb, Weatherstripping, Sash Engineered Timber 7. Glazing Bead, Performed Ribbon of Synthetic Rubber 8. In Situ Reinforced Concrete Wall 200mm Thick 9. Exposed Tie End 10. Vertical Steel Reinforcement 11. Panel Anchor 12. Loose Fill Insulation 13. Self Furring Metal Lath 14. Reinforced Concrete Pier, 1000mm deep 15. Raised Access Floor, Gypsum Fibreboard, 100mm 16. Trench Heater 17. Steel c-beam 18. Raised Access Pedestal, 500mm 19. Concrete Column 20. Continuous Vertical Steel Bar Hooked into Foundation and Beam 21. Lateral Reinforcement 22. Steel Dowels Anchor Column to Footing 23. Reinforcement Concrete Column Footing
section of the hall
1. 50mm X 100mm Wood Nailer 2. Ridge Unit Cover 3. Wooden Beam 300mm X 600mm 4. Accoustical Ceiling Panel, Main Tee 5. Wood Nailer 6. Sheet Metal Bracket with Flange Edges 7. 50mm X 100mm Timber Roof Batten 8. Wood Nailer 200mm X 100mm 9. Metal Eave Starter Flashing 10. Steel Gutter 11. Timber Subflooring 12. Heating Pipes Clipped to Ply 13. Structural Joist 50mm X 200mm 14. Ceramic Tiles 15. Window : 3+1 Glazing (Single Glazing + Venetian Blind + Triple Glazing), Wooden Frame, Gas Fill, Timber Jamb, Weatherstripping, Sash Engineered Timber 16. Natural Anodised Aluminium Sheet Window Flashing, Insulated Cavity 17. Fibreglass Batt Insulation 18. Reinforced Concrete Foundation 19. Expanded Polystyrene to be filled inside Concrete Foundation 20. Polymer Bitumen Sealing Sheet
section of the individual house
sectional across the workshop, house and hall
“We comfort ourselves by reliving memories of protection. Something closed must retain our memories, while leaving them their original value as images. Memories of the outside world will never have the same tonality as those of home and, by recalling these memories, we add to our store of dreams; we are never real historians, but always near poets, and our emotion is perhaps nothing but an expression of a poetry that was lost.� -- Gaston Bachelard, The Poetics of Space
view outside the spaces
He collected scraps from the broken ships, elements and pieces from the island and decorated the interior of the shelter to brighten up the wife and the shelter. So after some time both of them fell in love with the island, they decided to stay. After years living there alone, wanderers and gypsies came to the island and settled down. This creates the whole ideation of the project, a generation home over a period of 100 years. The spaces in the project were built using broken timber form work and were recycled to create another space, conceptually. With that broken piece, the protagonists started mixing sand and aggregates to cast over the timber frame. The internal walls are decorated with interesting sea shells, broken glasses, dried flowers, and other things that can be found around the island. When the concrete cast is dried, the formworks are taken out and the timber frame is recycled to create another part of the house. The concept of the growing multi generation settlement over a period of 100 years. With the first brief, the shelter being the main space. The protagonists started on the island where the community grew into few branches as educational, health centre, workshop then moved to another part of the island to accommodate accordingly.
view inside the bedroom with scanned ornaments
100 years of development
The one I was focusing on is the 60th years where the Casa Grande revolves around the boat making workshop. The idea was derived from the protagonist being able to deal with bit and part of the boats. It is situated on the pier of Helgoland, facing the north. Due to its location, the beach is sheltered from the storm coming from south west. The water depth surround the pier starts with 5 m deep and increases become deeper. Building on pier it gives advantages of having three different conditions, permanent structure on concrete pier, permanent elevated buildings connected to the land and floating buildings. The long section of the buildings being built on three different site conditions. Conceptually, the space planning is summarized in a way that public space belong on permanent structure, privates spaces on floating structures. This gives indirect sense of security to the homes with the fact that it is not easily accessible. The section illustrates the journey of protagonist through from home to their workspace.
view towards the house
scanned data using ASUS hand scanner and Skanect
The pier creates a vista towards the sea from the south side of the island, making the workshop as the entrance to Casa Grande. The entrance to the workshop from the view of floating houses frames the view of the sea and the cliff. The services cores are situated by the road accessible by vehicle. The timber and other goods are transported to the first floor using service lift. The process of building boat that includes designing the boat, building the frame, and storage are situated on the first floor, and the final assembly is done on the ground floor. The final boats are discharged to the water by the slipway. The workshop main material is concrete. Relating back to the first task for the term, the idea of coating on top of formwork, the concept is the same for the workshop. Untreated timbers are used as a formwork for insitu concrete.
view towards the workshop
casting process
Exploded and construction sequence detail of the workshop creates a better understanding of the building. It started with the pad foundation resting on concrete pier, timber column, untreated timber as formwork with scaffolding support. Next step is the formwork are removed and left with exposed concrete walls. The interior of the workshop is cladded with scanned data. Other communal spaces as conventional hall, dining hall, public bath, and library are built on stilt permanently on water. The conventional hall building construction and material is similar to the workshop, but without removing the exposed timber frame . Conceptually, it is a semi public space and is only for the community use, therefore the usage of both timber and concrete material. The timber as a private material, concrete as public material and the semi public is a combination of both. This ramp leads to the floating houses. The floating platforms are attached to one another. The public bath and the power house is a permanent elevated structure which locks the floating platforms to land. Houses are moored to the platform so it doesn’t sway away. The houses are accessible by land and by sea. The house is a timber house, floating on reinforced concrete and expanded polystyrene. The houses that were built on water are using the floating concept. I’ve looked into few houses and villages particularly in Netherland that has been dealing with floatation system dues to the rising sea level. The project is using a concrete with expanded polystyrene to keep it afloat. The concrete foundation is heavy on its own that it is able to displace enough water to keep it afloat. The houses are moored to the floating platform which has the same floatation technology. The foundations are then locked to the pemanant structure in the water which is the public space. This is to keep the building from swaying away. So this thing is here installed as a sea defense to reduce the impact of the waves crashing the building. Bitumen sheets are used in between the timber wall and ceramic exterior tiles to make it waterproof. initial conceptual sketch
exploded drawing to illustrate the building process
screenshots of technology report
JOURNEY THROUGH THE THEATRE MArch Year 4. Kent School of Architecture
faro scan of Palazzo Contarini della Porta in Venice meshed with sketches
collage of personal sketches to create conceptual sense of inviting- using stairs as main element
Venice is a maze city- derivation from Italo Calvino’s Invisible City Zobeide
“Unit 5 is interested in architecture’s ability to be complex and ambigious, to be strange and to tell stories. We think architecture is first and foremost a cultural place, capable of representing more than it’s silent self.” Adam Cole and Diana Cochrane, Unit 5 tutors. Back in London our unit projects are stitched into multiple sites throughout Walworth. Similar to the Grand Tour, we went to Venice. The connection between London and Venice is long and profound. Over a period of three hundred years London’s architectural landscape was drastically changed, then changed back, by the transformative power of Venice. In Venice, we studied elements of architecture which includes door, window, corridor, stairs and etc. I picked stairs as my element. The whole ideation of moving from a lower ground to a higher ground as a sense of inviting interest me. The unit focuses on 3d scanning and we used it in our design.
John Soane’s museum- personal sketches meshed together
theatre floor plan
theatre conceptual model
The proposed theatre is to serve as an inspirational space for the local and members of the general public of Elephant and Castle; encouraging their talents to develop further through training in the classics. In fulfillment of these key requirements the concept for this proposed theatre is centre on the idea of a journey. The building is designed to create the feeling of seamless travel from one level of the building to another, thus providing a pedestrian walk through the proposed amphitheatre. The proposed theatre not only serves the purpose of training and performance space but will also serve as a landmark building for Elephant and Castle. The design of the building will allow members of the public to enjoy a panoramic view of the elephant and castle area from the roof top of the proposed main theatre. The amphitheatre acts as a walkway connection from the main road to the railway station. The indoor theatre caters for 400 audiences.
A-A’ section
B-B’ section
theatre stictched inside the Elephant and Castle masterplanning
lighting study for the theatre
physical model 1:100 using software 123D make
CONVERSION OF HOME TO MUSEUM. dissertation for MArch
Private space and public space are two terms that carry clear distinctive meanings behind them. Private spaces are usually associated with indoor space where users gain solitude and are physically confined by walls, while public spaces are outdoor spaces usually where users are exposed to the elements and are used publicly. In architecture, spaces are usually designed according to their programs and uses, and there is a clear distinction between private and public space. This dissertation aims to investigate the success level of converting a private space to a public space. These cases usually include former homes of a public figure being transformed into a museum for the public to see the house. This study was undertaken to achieve a better understanding of the characteristics of public and private spaces and focuses on the possibility for private spaces to work successfully as a public space. The case study chosen for this dissertation is the former home of a famous architect, Sir John Soane, which has been converted into a museum for the public to visit. This specific case study was chosen because of the expertise that Sir John Soane has shown in his work which has been applied in the design of his house. In order to obtain the appropriate results and findings to answer the research question, the methodology used to collect both quantitative and qualitative data are literature-based data for public and private spaces, questionnaire completion for the visitors of the museum, on-site observations on how visitors react to the sizes and spaces in the room and the researcher’s personal experience. This dissertation will help students of architecture understand the importance of being familiar with the programmes of space before designing the aforementioned spaces, and the clear distinctions between private and public space. It will also determine the core factors of variation of public and private spaces.