FINAL PORTFOLIO
ARCH 1110 Fundamental Architectural Representation Instructor: Michael J Smith Fall Semester 2013
Sarah Milberger
CHRONOLOGY
i. CUBE ii. LEARNING SPACE AT THE CARPENTER CENTER iii. PAVILION AT THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE CENTER iv. MUSEUM STAIR
CUBE
LEARNING SPACE AT THE CARPENTER CENTER The assignment was to design a learning space at the rear of Le Corbusier’s Carpenter Center. The learning space should accomodate the needs of students and have the ability to cater to large groups, small groups, and individuals. My design was intended to be a highly function piece of abstract art. The design is two ramps, each composed of a petaling of planes downward. The two ramps divide the space into four parts accomodating different masses of students depending on their needs. The ramps allow for movement around the space that is a natural transition from the movement within the building--one of the ramps takes you from the building’s basement door to the interior of the pit, while the other takes you from the bottom of the Carpenter Center ramp to an elevated viewing area. Furthermore, with each petaling of planes, the planes taper off down to a center point allowing for a unique pattern of light to eluminate the interior space.
CARPENTER CENTER STUDIES
LEARNING SPACE AT THE CARPENTER CENTER
LEARNING SPACE AT THE CARPENTER CENTER
SECTION A
SECTION B
LEARNING SPACE AT THE CARPENTER CENTER
PAVILION AT THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE CENTER Our assignment was to create a pavilion located at the Christian Science Center that utilizes the concept of aperture to change the experience of the site. We also had to incorporate two statues--Appeal to the Great Spirit by Cyris Dallin and the untitled piece by Joel Shapiro--into our design. My pavilion aims to emphasize the natural elements available at the site and to create apertures to portray them as infinite. Through my aperture studies I found that by covering the horizon line from the viewer’s eye, you can make the water in the reflecting pool look as though it goes on forever. I found this illusion to be both powerful and beautiful so this concept infinity became the backbone of the pavilion. The pavilion is made up of a series of walkways that double as ramps and a center platform--though you do not reach it until the end. As you are walking at the site a statue stops you near the entrance to the pavilion. As you enter the pavilion you are distantly across from another statue and once you begin receeding on the first ramp, your eye contant with the statue directs your eye gaze up to the sky. Once you have walked the length of the first ramp, you are deep into the ground with tall walls on either side of you that hinder your view of all of the buildings at the site. The elimation of the individual’s surroundings gives them no other option than to view the sky and to appreciate it and its vast, inconceivable qualites. As the ramps continues you make a turn and slowly the walls change from sloping outward to sloping inward, closing above your head. You begin walking back upward and the walkway becomes much darker. Just as you are completely closed in you turn a final sharp corner and are exposed to a breathtaking sight of endless water lain out in front of you. The pavilion is also supposed to act also as a labyrinth, full of ups, downs, and turns to consfuse the viewer as to where they are and to lose their understanding of where they are in reference to the site. This, along with the focus on elements not idenfiable to the site, takes the individual out of the setting of the Christian Science Center altogether.
PAVILION AT THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE CENTER
PAVILION AT THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE CENTER
MUSEUM STAIR The assignment was to design a stair that would connect two levels of rooms and to display two paintings--St. Luke Drawing A Portrait of the Virgin Mary by Rogier van der Weyden and The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit by John Singer Sargent--somewhere within the rooms. I decided to create a ramp for I feared that on stairs people are too focused on where they are headed towards rather than where they are in each given moment and I wanted my design to be about the experience of the ramp and all of the various special moments that are found along the way. Also, a ramp creates a slower more gradual pace, one that can be acted out with ease. This liesurly pace is the pace that i believe most individuals aspire to have when coming to a gallery. I wanted my ramp to permeate the walls and barriers of the space given rather than be restricted by them. Therefore, the ramp plays with positive and negative space. This positive and negative also creates a juxtaposition of light where the negative is fairly dark and enclosed adn the positive is light and open. The two paintings are displayed in two separate rooms that are seemingly empty other than the paintings themselves. Individuals must step off of the ramp’s path to view the paintings at a comfortable distance which causes the individual to pause the gradual movement of the ramp. The rooms are not large and are meant to draw the viewer to the painting without distraction, while allowing them enough room to approach each painting and move around them as they desire. At the top of the ramp the individual is found at a small skylite room with a taller ceiling. This room has an alternate exit that leads the individual back onto the ramp without backtracking to allow for fluidity of movent, along with disguising the fact that it is indeed the same ramp that led them to the top in the first place. However, though the ramp is the same, the sensations of walking downard, along with the viewer’s change in perspective serves for a very different experience on the way down.
RAMP SECTION STUDIES
C
A D B
PLAN 1
SECTION A
SECTION B
C
A D B
PLAN 2 SECTION C
SECTION D
MUSEUM STAIR
C B
A
C
D B
A
D
C
D
B
A
PLANS 1, 2, & 3
MUSEUM STAIR
SECTION A
SECTION B
MUSEUM STAIR
SECTION C
SECTION D
MUSEUM STAIR
MUSEUM STAIR Aerial view of drawing layout:
MUSEUM STAIR