Fucigna portfolio 2015 by Nicola Fucigna

Nicola Fucigna - Design Portfolio

Nicola Fucigna M.Arch, June 2015 University of Oregon, Eugene, OR

Community Music Institute Fluid Creativity Maker Space

Guests, Hosts, and Richard Neutraâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Kaufmann Desert House Article Group Projects

Some Like It Hot ECS I Case Study

Shading Device Student Recreation Center Rock Wall Human Context Case Study

Community Music Institute

Design Studio: Arch 682, Intro Graduate Design, Winter 2015 Professors: Don Corner and Jenny Young Site: University of Oregon, 18th Avenue and Alder Street, Eugene, OR Project Description: The CMI has three hearts: the center of ethnomusicology, the history of music, and the Suzuki school. These three users intersect in the entrance atrium with its central fountain, social stair, and high visibility from each floor. Another connection between users is the spirit of play central to the study and practice of music. At the southern end of the building, informal and formal play meet in the form of a playground crowning the recital hall.

Social Stairs

Rythymic Corridor Small Door, Big Door

Architectural Play

3-Hearted Fountain

Secret Window

Informal and Formal Play

First Floor

Second Floor

Third Floor

A. N-S Section

East Elevation

B. E-W Section / Recital Hall

Maker Space Design Studio: Arch 681, Intro Graduate Design, Fall 2014

Professor: Philip Speranza

Site: Portland, OR

Project Description: In order to foster creativity, this maker space allows for both privacy and collaboration, for a combination of introverted and extroverted behavior. This fluid creativity has several components: degrees of fluidity, visibility, and interaction of gatherers. Spatially, this spectrum of public to private is created through different overall zones of interaction and fluid 3rd spaces centered around a social stair and atrium.

Wooden Parti and 3-D Printed Social Stair

Inspirations

Stair Morphology

Social Stair

Making Light

A performative light system enlivens the atrium of the maker space. The overall affect is one of versatility. Light traveling through the various radii and densities of the circle (the basic unit) produces a shifting spectrum of light and dark according to the time and particular weather patterns of the day and the positioning of the viewer.

Imagine the changing intensities and shafts of light, the play of light and shadow on different materials (wood, clothing, and skin), the slight temperature differentials. Depending on the conditions and their moods, makers might do anything from bask in the sun to read a book. The space allows for human and environmental variability.

Atrium Light Screen on Social Stairs

Light Screen

Grasshopper Script

The light system unites the space and high-tech makers through its overall image of hands typing on a computer screen, abstracted into circles. Ultimately, this image inspires group membership.

3rd Space/Stairs Semi-Private Studio Open Studio Private Studio Public Space Green Roof Atrium

A’

Open Studio

Reception

SE DIVISION ST

Semi-Private Studio

S-P. Studio

Open Studio

B’

P. Studio

Semi-Private Lab

Open Lab

Gallery S-P. Studio

12th AVENUE

Studio

SECOND FLOOR

FIRST FLOOR 0

Open Studio Private

Screening Room

Cafe

Semi-Private Studio

Private Studio

Roof Garden

THIRD FLOOR

FOURTH FLOOR

FIFTH FLOOR

ble, entitled guest and Penelope as the moody, flirtatious hostess.

Fish and guests stink after three days. —Benjamin Franklin Most of us have been on both sides of the drama of bad guestand-host relationships. Though sometimes of epic proportions, these dramas are often quite petty. At night in the one bathroom, we have wondered if it is ruder to flush or not to flush the toilet. We have groaned at the snoring from down the hall, and we have snored. The scenarios are endless. The drama of guest-host relationships is part of our culture. It plays out—often in extreme ways—in our fairytales and myths. No, don’t enter that little gingerbread house, the witch inside will try to bake you. That hobo might be a god in disguise, ready to punish or reward you for the quality of your air mattress, the taste of your meal. Take The Odyssey. In a way, it can be read as a catalogue of good and bad hosts and guests. Focusing on the bad ones (more interesting), we have hosts who won’t let their guests leave (Circe) or try to eat them (Cyclops), and we have guests who overstay their welcome and want the house and its wife for themselves (the suitors). Of course, if you interviewed all of these bad hosts and guests, they would have their own diatribe on Odysseus as a terri

Whether he had this cultural baggage in some recess of his mind or he knew from personal experience, architect Richard Neutra designed the perfect house for maintaining good relations between guests and hosts. In the mid-1940s, Edgar and Liliane Kaufmann, the owners of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater, approached Neutra to design a desert house in Palm Springs, CA. Their kids were grown; they were millionaires (made rich by their chain of department stores on the East coast); this house would be one of several: so the Kaufmanns were able to specify that they wanted a “vacation house” for a two-to-three-month stay each winter where they could entertain guests. Neutra, quite the socialite himself, realized having both communal and private space would be essential. In order for hosts and guests to not eventually drive each other insane, both parties would need control over enjoying and retreating from each other’s company. Neutra solved this paradoxical need through using a pinwheel design for the house.1

This “four-courter plan” afforded different occupants their own private spaces: to the north, lies the guest wing (with its own privacy within its overall privacy, two separate bathrooms and personal patios); to the west, the staff ’s wing; and to the east, the hosts’ wing. The south wing provides a prolonged covered walkway, divided between front and service entrances.

These Kaufmann flew in the same masons that Neutra, as one of Frank Lloyd Wright’s assistants, had trained at Fallingwater. These masons were highly skilled in a waning craft. As art historian Barbara Lamprecht writes, “Each stone was chiseled to fit its own asymmetric place.”2 Throughout the house but in the dining room especially, the stone provides a visual and tactile contrast with the smooth finish of the wooden dining room table and ceiling, as well as the polished concrete floors. Where the stone seems to absorb the light, the floors and ceilings reflect it. Done with your food? In Neutra’s design, the staff, whose wing (of the pinwheel) connects to the dining room, could easily serve, then whisk away meals. Feel like a millionaire’s guest yet? Perhaps, it’s time to go see the Picassos and Cézannes in the gallery beyond the hearth, also located in the pinwheel’s center.

These wings join to create what Neutra playfully called the house’s “public square,” the most communal of the spaces, the living room. In place of the piazza’s central fountain is a commanding, ashlar hearth. To add to the intimacy of this hearth, Neutra lowered the white ceiling in the living room by about a foot. Hungry? Adjoining the living room is the dining room. It shares the hearth, but instead of a view of the fire lit within, you have a heightened view of the hearth’s dry-set (mortared from behind) “Utaf buff ” stone.

As avid patrons of the arts, the Kaufmanns needed a place to showcase their art collection. By placing this gallery in this central social space, Neutra invited the guests to view the artwork while also, through positioning the windows and the room itself to the north, keeping the area shielded from the strongest sun. But in a way, the exterior grounds are also a kind of gallery, showcasing an array of desert flora (including a Joshua tree, an organ pipe cactus, an ocotillo, and agaves, among many others) and massive, sculptural boulders. The nearby pool area, accessed through the living room, also becomes a backdrop for more of the Kaufmanns’ art. In photographs of the original house, a bronze sculpture of two fluid interlocking people reflects in the turquoise water during the day and is illuminated by moonlight and buried lights at night. This pool area also easily becomes linked to the central communal area; the plate-glass windows between the southeast corner of the living room and the pool are on sliders and can be whisked away. Where are Gatsby and Daisy, Nick Carraway and Jordan Baker? By day, by night, their likenesses drape themselves around the pool. Neutra circulated ice water on the swimming pool decks to keep the poolside bearable during the hottest parts of the day. And when the temperature drops at night (this is the desert after all radiant heat in the low seating wall keeps the party

going. Inside, Neutra also used radiant heat throughout the flooring of the house. Is it stuffy in here? Another key element to living comfortably—and stylishly—in the desert is good air ventilation. The pinwheel structure allows for optimal cross-ventilation in the central hub area. Shall we get rid of the walls and windows? The sliding plate-glass windows (the size of walls) throughout the house—in the guest bedrooms, the master bedroom, and the living room—speedily remove divisions between indoor and outdoor space. Another aesthetic as well as practical leitmotif of this desert house are the vertical, aluminum louvers that line the western side of the guest patio and “the gloriette,” a rooftop space above the dining and living room. Neutra invented these adjustable louvers so that they could contend with the desert winds and sandstorms, and, on more climactically peaceful days, allow visibility and air circulation. The shaded walkways in all wings of the house also provide some protection from the elements while keeping the space open. The desert is a dramatic place. Sun, wind, sandstorms, extreme temperature drops. In addition to vying with all these natural forces, Neutra had to take into account the winter monsoon. In a typical melding of the technological with the aesthetic, Neutra created southern gutters off of the master bedroom that narrow toward the end, causing the rainwater to flow east onto carefully placed boulders (a common motif in Japanese gardens). Here, as in many places throughout the house, the manmade (gutters) fuses with the natural (boulders). Okay, one more chic feature before I, your virtual host, kick you out of this house. What’s with all the silver? Anyone else pick up on the Stanley Kubrick2001: A Space Odyssey-feel of the place? I know it’s in part from all the plush yellow cushions inside the house and by the pool area in some of the original, iconic 1947 photos by Julius Shulman. But the retro-futuristic feel is also due to the rampant use of silver: silver in the steel fascia, the window framing, and the 37 total feet of aluminum louvers.

Neutra used this silver—along with other elements of his aesthetic: reflection, transparency, and space—to help dematerialize the house. Silver is one of Neutra’s signatures. He often painted wood and metal silver in his buildings. Though this practice may seem “untruthful” and against the Modernist aesthetic, Neutra’s aim was to influence visual perception. As Lamprecht writes in the essay “Silver Paint, the Dutch, and Japan”:

The object of his deceit was the human eye itself. His agenda was physiological: since silver reflected and diffused light, it reduced an element’s visual impact so the eye was less likely to be deflected from its trajectory out to nature, to landscape and sky.3

Though I agree that this “reduc[tion] [of] an element’s visual impact” or dematerialization supports Neutra’s overarching aesthetic of “nature near” and “building with nature”4 and that in the Kaufmann house the horizontal silver fascia as well as their silver supporting columns dematerialize and lighten the overall structure, deflecting one’s attention onto the landscape, I would also argue that the silver highlights the artificiality of the building. Neutra had a nuanced relationship with nature. Unlike his architectural mentor Frank Lloyd Wright,5 Neutra did not romanticize man’s relationship to nature. He did not believe that buildings “grow” out of nature, but that buildings are “inserted” into nature and are nature’s “contrast.”6 The desert

in Palm Springs heightened this juxtaposition. Neutra once remarked that Palm Springs was a “grandiose waste.” He knew that anything built in the desert would be artificial: the structure was “frankly an artifact, a construct transported in many fabricated parts over long distances into the midst of rugged aridity, like the needed water which is piped over many miles. Its lawns and blooming shrubs are imports jut like its plate glass.”7 It is important to realize—before you go—that Neutra was deeply influenced by the Modernist machine-aesthetic. Like many of his European mentors—Adolf Loos, Erich Mendelsohn, and Le Corbusier, among others—Neutra lauded America’s industrial buildings as being free of the trappings, the “ornament,” of architectural tradition. At this point in history, an excitement in industry and nature was not necessarily considered contradictory. One sees this paradox in Le Corbusier’s “Five Points of a New Architecture” when he asserts that “the roof gardens” that “help protect the reinforced concrete from changing temperatures” will, with “their luxuriant vegetation,” be “the most favoured place in the building.”8 Le Corbusier perceives no disjunct between concrete and garden. Similarly, throughout the Kaufmann House, Neutra “build[s] with nature.” Of note is the front entrance walkway, where weeds grow in the broken pavers, creating a sensual rhythm of slim, soft, multi-surfaced (tendriled) green and large, hard, smooth white. Another striking natural and built area exists by the master bedroom: a tree is almost contained by the extended roof; its branches reach out from underneath. In such architectural details, as well as the overall design, Neutra uses the flowing landscape to offset the building’s orthogonals. Neutra’s inclusion of bright green, irrigated grass in the guest patio and by the swimming pool further highlights the difference between the artificial man-supported grass and the natural desert landscaping. The irony of the chlorine swimming pool in the desert could not have been lost on Neutra. But this heightened artificiality does not necessarily contradict Neutra’s love and inclusion of nature. Neutra saw man as being a part of the universe’s and, by extension, nature’s “dynamic continuum.”9 According to Neutra’s son and associate, Dion Neutra, Neutra conceived

of the Kaufmann House as a kind of NASA project. Dion writes, “My. father always spoke of the ‘Desert House’ as a forerunner of Man’s approach to a design solution for a rocket station on the moon.”10 I know it’s hard to leave this moonscape. You wish, as the guest, to be the host. Perhaps part of the stepping-on-toes phenomenon/problem with guest-and-host relationships lies in the contradictory and fraught etymology of the words. The etymology of “host” (Old French hoste) once included “guest.” I think this inclusion relates to the interdependency of each: hospitality (from Latin hospitem) is a two-way street, a host isn’t a host without a guest, and vice versa. And, as we know from our literature, there have been some terrible hosts who lorded over their position of power; thus a “host” literally means the “lord of strangers” (from ghostis in Proto-Indo-European (PIE)). But, on a host’s behalf, look at the use of the term in biology (the earliest recording is in 1857 (two years before the publication of Darwin’s Origin of Species)): a parasite needs a host. And remember that in Old English, “guest” includes “enemy” (gaest, giest)—though it is true that “host” has a similar reflection: in Latin hostis (“enemy”) is a cognate of hospes (“host”). But this mirroring between the words is appropriate. If you think about it, there is an equal danger for both guests and hosts. A guest may loot, while a host may entrap. Both are strangers, as the root of “xenophobia” suggests: xenos of Greek origin includes “guest, host, stranger.”11 Guests and hosts are strangers made intimate by a home. Next time you are caught on either end of guest-host relations, think of the Kaufmann Desert House and how nice it would be to have your own wing as well as that ashlar fireplace to stare into as you enjoy another’s company.

Notes 1. Several of Neutra’s predecessors used pinwheel designs. Chief influences were Frank Lloyd Wright’s pinwheel designs and L-shaped Usonian houses (1/4 a pinwheel, if you will) and Mies van der Rohe’s Project for a Brick Villa, 1923.

6. Richard Joseph Neutra. Kaufmann “Desert House,” Palm Springs, CA, 1946. Tremaine “House in Montecito,” Santa Barbara, California. 1948, Global Architecture 8, edited and photographed by Yukio Futagawa, text by Dion Neutra, (Tokyo: A.D.A. EDITA, 1971) 7.

2. Barbara Lamprecht, Richard Neutra, 1892-1970: Survival through Design, (Köln: Taschen, 2004) 60.

7. Ibid.

3. Barbara Lamprecht, Richard Neutra: Complete Works, (Köln: Taschen, 2010) 34.

8. Le Corbusier, “Five Points Towards a New Architecture,” in Programs and Manifestoes on 20th-century Architecture, edited by Ulrich Conrads, (Boston: MIT Press, 1970).

4. These phrases refer to two titles of Richard Neutra’s books: Building With Nature. (New York: Universe Books, 1971) and Nature Near: The Late Essays of Richard Neutra, edited by William Marlin (Santa Barbara, CA: Capra Press, 1989).

9. Neutra, Nature Near.

5. Also unlike Frank Lloyd Wright, Neutra often exposed materials, such as concrete, steel, and aluminum. Frank Lloyd Wright originally wanted to cover the concrete—which he dismissed as “conglomera” and an inferior material—in Falling Water with gold leaf. Luckily, Kaufmann dissuaded Wright from doing so. Afterward, Wright came up with still another solution to fix the concrete: he proposed applying a coat of apricot paint as a finish. See Kenneth Frampton and Yukio Futagawa, Modern Architecture 1920–1945, (New York: Rizzoli, 1983) 398.

11. Douglas Harper, Dictionary.com, Online Etymology Dictionary, http://dictionary. reference.com/browse/.

10. Neutra, Kaufmann “Desert House”…, 7.

Please Also Note: All of the linked images in this article are to Julius Shulman’s photos of the Kaufmann house. I also highly recommend looking at Yukio Futugawa’s photos in the Global Architecture series mentioned in the endnotes.

Arch 591: ECS I / Winter 2015 Professor: Alison Kwok Partners: Alexandra Lau, Abigail Annis Distinction: Project inducted in ECS Hall of Fame

Abstract

This project investigated the idea of thermal comfort in a heated yoga studio in Eugene, OR, in February 2015. The objective was to consider measurable factors of thermal comfort, including dry-bulb temperature, humidity, and psychology or perception of heat. The researchers hypothesized that the space would not be uniformly heated, with a gradient ranging from 95°F–105°F and a variable humidity level ranging from 15%–30% humidity. Additionally, the researchers hypothesized that the u sers are aware of the thermal gradient in the room and place themselves according to where they perceive the hottest spots in the room to be. The methodology includes observations and surveys from ninety-seven partici-pants to collect data on the perception of and desire for heat. Data was collected for four days regarding the dry-bulb temperatures and humidity levels. This project found that users desired varying levels of intense heat for this activity, and chose to be in the middle of the room according to various factors. The data on the actual physical setting showed that participants may not have chosen correctly according to their perceptions, but data is inconclusive. The hottest spot in the room was found to be in Zone 1, the northwest corner of the room.

The Problem The ANSI/ASHRAE Standard 55-2013 for thermal comfort does not apply to many spaces, including hot yoga studios. The standard is based on six factors for determining thermal comfort: metabolic rate, clothing insulation, air temperature, mean radiant temperature, air speed and humidity. The standard is only relevant for analyzing spaces where users have a metabolic rate below 2.0 met and wear .5-1.0 clo. Users in the hot yoga studio on average have a metabolic rate of 2.6 met and wear .1 clo, thus this space is not encompassed in this standard. As a result, there is a gap in literature regarding thermal comfort in heated yoga studios.

Hypothesis The main hypothesis was that the thermal environment in the heated yoga space at Sweaty Ganesh Yoga was not uniform, ranging within a 10째F gradient throughout the room with variable humidity levels of 15-30% in a mild winter season. Additionally, the researchers hypothesized that survey results would show that users of this space were aware of these gradients and placed themselves throughout the room according to their perceived hottest spot.

Methodology This study used four tools for data collection: observations, surveys, interviews and environmental measurements using HOBOs.

Findings

Analysis Our recorded data showed that the highest average dry-bulb temperature was in Zone 1, while the coolest average dry-bulb temperature was in Zone 5. The gradients throughout the room can be explained by the large curtain window, the doors, infiltration, and the location of the source of the heat above Zone 3. Though the data for the humidity was ultimately inconclusive, across multiple days, the humidity ranged from 14-43% and, at any given point in time, there was approximately a 6% difference in humidity levels throughout the room. Humidity seemed to be driven by the outside humidity. Possible reasons for the humidity range are lack of data on the use of the humidifier, of information on how the HVAC system works and disperses air, and of the number of people in the room. Survey results showed that temperature is important to the majority of participants: 79% of participants cared that the temperature was either “comfortable” or “the right temperature.” By combining HOBO data with survey results, people, however subconsciously, are seeking a middle temperature between the hottest and coldest average dry-bulb temperatures. But since it’s such a small difference of less than 3°F between the most populated and least populated zones, these results may not be perceptible, despite some interviewees assertion on the importance of temperature in their seating choices and their perception of the variable temperatures within the room.

Lessons Learned The researchers learned that when designing hot spaces the use of windows is problematic. On the one hand, some users’ favorite spots are based on windows and natural light. But on the other hand, windows are an extreme source of heat loss. In this case, the owner right from the start said that she would not consider changing the window feature. She could potentially install a higher-performing window or better seal the current windows’ edges to retain heat and not compromise the benefits of the window. The researchers would also recommend a more compact space during the design pro-cess because users tend to practice more toward the middle of the room.

Conclusion

The main hypothesis was partially proven and disproven. The researchers were correct that the space was not uniformly heated or humidified, but were incorrect about the amount of variability. The average dry-bulb temperature ranged over the course of four days from 99.7 °F–103 °F (in-stead of 95 °F–105 °F), while the humidity had a larger range than anticipated, 14–43% (instead of 15%–30%). The researchers were also only partially correct on their secondary hypothesis. The majority of users thought they were aware of the thermal gradient. But these users did not necessarily seek out their perceived hottest spots in the room. Indeed, some like it hot. References Thermal Environmental Conditions for Human Occupancy. Atlanta, GA: American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers, 2004. Print. Weather History for KEUG, Weather Underground, n.d. Web. 10 March 2015

Shading Device Project Description: The highly exposed east and west faรงades of Prince Lucien Campbell (PLC) Hall at the University of Oregon produces problems of overheating and glare. After assessing the shading needs, we designed, modeled and evaluated a sun shade to perform for times of lowest and highest sun exposure on the east faรงade.

Winter Solstice at 9 AM

Scotty McClelland & Nicola Fucigna Project #2 / GTF: Devin, TH 12-2p

Arch 591: ECS I / Winter 2015 Professor: Alison Kwok Partner: Scotty McClelland Distinction: Project Archived

Summer Solstice at 9 AM

Scotty McClelland & Nicola Fucigna Project # 2 / GTF: Devin, TH 12-2p

Arch 540: Human Context / Winter 2015 Professor: Jenny Young and Mark Gillem Partner: Sean Arnold

Overview: The Rock Wall in the University of Oregon gym consists of two back-to-back walls that are 30 feet high with over 2,800 square feet of climbing. The new, western wall faces out to the central entryway of the gym. This wall is used for bouldering, while the older, eastern wall is used for top roping and lead climbing in addition to bouldering. The new wall is a wood climbing wall, whereas the older wall is a rock-textured wall; both have incuts and protrusions, but the new wall has a very pronounced overhang. The activities in the Rock Wall area include climbing, belaying, spotting, watching (people climb or pass by), talking, socializing, testing, and teaching. The primary users are college students, aged 18-27 years old, but there are some older users, including older students as well as UO staff, faculty, and spouses. During family days (on Saturdays), users as young as 5 years old come and climb accompanied by an adult. Student staff members oversee the space.

Circulation

The main circulation route flows from the entrance past the belaying wall to the bouldering wall. Secondary circulation occurs within the climbing, sitting, and changing areas on the edges of the main circulation.

Sociopetal

Users are encouraged to see and interact with each other through the seating facing the climbing walls and through the curvilinear railings that create eddies or clusters of social space.

Density

Density on the climbing wall occurs on both beginner and advanced routes. Density on the floor occurs in the central belaying area, at the most open seating and standing area on the boulder wall, by the staff desk, and the changing area.

Noise

The noisiest area of the rock wall is from the main lobby and its (often) blasting music. The quietest areas are at the far, NE side of the belaying wall and directly by the soundproof partitions on the bouldering side. The rock wall is a very social space, so there is a lot of talking throughout the entire space. The loudness of this talking often depends on the density of people.

Traces

Patterns COMMUNITY JEWEL

Hypothesis If recreation spaces, such as the rock wall in the UO Rec Center, are faceted like a jewel with different degrees of exposure and visibility, then the spatial design supports two senses of community: one to the larger campus community and the other to the smaller rock climbing community itself.

Argument With its prominent placement in the entrance lobby, the rock wall serves as the “prized piece” 1 or crown jewel for the University’s newly renovated recreation facility. For visitors, students, and other members of the community, the bouldering wall, as a visual icon, inspires group membership in the overall University of Oregon community. According to guidelines on campus recreational sports facilities (established by the National Intramural-Recreational Sports Association), facilities and, by extension, the rock wall itself should be “recognizable, appealing, and visible,” as well as “welcoming.”2 But because climbers also feel intense group membership within the climbing community itself, they have mixed feelings about the prominence of their space, specifically the bouldering wall’s high degree of visibility. According to interviews, climbers believe this visibility helps inspire new recruits, but simultaneously discourages recruits from learning and developing in front of others.3 Even seasoned climbers do not always appreciate the “fishbowl”4 or “monkeys at the zoo”5 effect of this bouldering area. Surveys would help us establish what percentage of users feel positive or negative about this visibility, and whether they would prefer no visibility, some visibility, or, currently for the bouldering section, all visibility. Because our current information suggests there is no real consensus on the degree of exposure and visibility, an effective pattern would be to create mixed spaces, in which part of the wall is exposed to the lobby and connects to the larger campus and group identity, while other parts of the wall are more enclosed and private to the climbing community itself. There needs to be, quite literally, facets to this community gem, which allow users to choose between different degrees of visibility.

SOCIAL PARTITIONS

Hypothesis If low partitions are placed between different activity centers in a recreation center, such as the case of the rock wall in the UO Rec Center, then the spatial design encourages social interaction.

Argument In order to create a safe environment, the rock wall has clear divisions between climbing areas and non-climbing areas, such as circulation, changing, and sitting areas. One could imagine the dire consequences of not having such differentiated areas: a climber might fall on someone, a passerby might trip on a rope attached to a climber, belayers might become too distracted and drop climbers. But it is also important that, in addition to creating a safe environment, the rock wall creates a friendly and social environment. From interviews, we have learned that students come for the camaraderie of the climbing community; “people” are what make the place.6 From direct observation, we have witnessed that not only is the rock wall a highly social space, but also the two main social activities besides the climbing itself are talking and watching.7 Thus the space needs to be both visually and physically connected. In his HalfOpen Wall pattern, Christopher Alexander helps identify then solve the dual need for open but differentiated spaces through using half-walls and railings, among other features.8 The current railing on the belaying side of the rock wall demonstrates the success of this pattern, which we have relabeled Social Partitions. Because of the railing’s curvilinear shape, height (roughly three feet), and smooth wooden surface, people often gather by and lean on the railing to socialize.9 But there is still a clear enough division that socializers are not in the way of the climbers and do not distract the belayers from their tasks. One way to test the validity of our Social Partitions pattern is to also study a rock climbing facility that lacks such partitions and (through research, interviews, and direct observation) determine which space is safer and friendlier. 1. Fucigna, Nicola. Interview with Harrison Johnson on February 15, 2015. 2. “Planning Principles for College and University Recreation Facilities.” Ed. James Turman, et al., in Space Planning Guidelines for Campus Recreational Sport Facilities, Tony Brown, PhD, and Danell Haines, PhD, Human Kinetics/National Intramural-Recreational Sports Association, 2009, 112-113. 3. Fucigna, Nicola. Interview with Amelia Remington on February 15, 2015. 4. Arnold, Sean. Interview with Amos Horn on February 15, 2015. 5. Fucigna, Nicola. Interview with Amelia Remington on February 15, 2015. 6. Fucigna, Nicola. Interviews with Harrison Johnson, Amelia Remington, and Caroline Conron on February 15, 2015. Arnold, Sean. Interview with Joseph Tu on February 15, 2015. 7. Fucigna, Nicola. Direct Observation at University of Oregon Rock Wall on February 13 & 15, 2015. Arnold, Sean. Direct Observation at University of Oregon Rock Wall on February 5 & 12, 2015. 8. Alexander, Christopher, et al. “193 Half-Open Wall,” A Pattern Language, New York: Oxford University Press (1977), 893-896. 9. Fucigna, Nicola. Direct Observation at University of Oregon Rock Wall on February 13, 2015. Arnold, Sean. Direct Observation at University of Oregon Rock Wall on February 15, 2015.