Nicholas Johnson
New Urban Public Realm Set within the DUMBO (Down Under Manhattan Bridge Overpass) area of New York, this project took root with addressing the city in four places: City Living, City Education, City Research, and City in the 3rd place. The latter being the realm of pseudo public/private, enclosed/open space of transition between a city dweller’s life at home and life at work. This is the program of the main space, vast in scale to accompany a large potential of unplanned and evolving programs. The design is also inspired by the Metabolist works from the 1970s in which a super structure reaches out into the surrounding context and serves to bridge the gap between the organism and the exterior. A grid of trusses spans the length of 3 blocks holding vertical circulation. The large main space is elevated above the street level to preserve the commercial works below and transcend the city at a city level, instead operating at many moments on the vertical axis. The large central space is capped at each end by a residential block and an institute. An archive and research facility spans the top of the structure connecting the two more dense programs. These programs act as buildings within a building, held and suspended within the truss system. The large central space can also be seen as a critique on modern architecture as a whole. So often are spaces over programed and articulated only to be used in entirely different ways than intended. The space in this project is able to evolve and program itself as the community inhabits it.
Program Document collaging the ideas of occupation and usage within the central block; markets, street performances, demonstrations, spiritual congregations . . .
First study model of structure inserted into context massing
Plan Diagram
Final study model of space and assembly of volumes with development of edges as extensions into the public realm
- cross section through residential block
- cross section through central volume
- cross section through institute and super computer
The “super-computer�, suspended within the courtyard of the institute
West facade unfolding between the edge of interior and exterior public space
- longitudinal section, (left: institute, middle: open public volume, right: residential block, lower: commercial level, upper: ecology research + archive
Intervention: Vicenza Vicenza is a very unique and vibrant city located in northwest Italy between Venice and Verona. The population is extremely localized and integrated with the quiet Veneto culture of street markets, piazzas, and siesta. Architecturally, the city is a palimpsest of old and very old. Palladian masterpieces are sandwiched between fascist and Venetian style row-houses, cladded with elaborate stone facades weathered by war and time . This project is situated in one of the more active secondary squares 30m west of the main Piazza di Signore. On the north edge is an active colonnade that serves businesses and the street, filtering foot traffic with a sheltered covering and rhythm of arches. These arcade spaces are extremely common throughout most of Vicenza and the edge condition they provide is a major generator for the formal design layout of this project. The structure is based on the repetition of a colonnade blended with tall vertical slabs that visually modulate the front exterior facade. Rather than currying tectonics within thick masonry walls like typical historic Italian architecture, this design celebrates exposed structure and a lightness rarely found within the city. The wall systems respond to the long skinny spaces inside creating a gradual progressive threshold that fades from fully exposed to more enclosed. To elaborate on this concept, the entry stairwell is entirely external with light structural penetration. This leads into the modular spaces with full wall glazing on the west face; amply lit with indirect and some direct light but shaded enough but the protruding fins to stay cool. The furthest end of these spaces is wrapped in opaque concrete with very minimal glazing. This is a space for retreat from the direct exposure to the square. Emulating an Italian arcade, the ground level is variably transparent with public access to a cafe and bar via openings throughout the wall structure. This space has the indoor-outdoor quality of a typical colonnade but can be operated by the shop owner to seal it at night or when closed. The patio in front spills out from the cafe and sinks into the square, anchoring itself as a lasting element of the city. Here the experience is also influenced by the arcade-quality as a delicate overhead and drop columns extend to form a loose edge and transition between the different zones of the square.
South Elevation
West Elevation
North Elevation
Venetian Gallery and Library Venice is a city of alleys. The boundary between public and private becomes blurred where these slender spaces weave between one another in a patchwork maze, creating courtyards where the horizon is absent and the contours of rooftops become portals to the sky. This project explores this concept where the program of gallery and library interlock on the edge of Campo Frari across from the basilica. Designed with the quality of mass-void in mind, the construction is cut and sliced to reveal a smaller campo clad in glass, lighting the interior spaces. Soft indirect light is employed through surface permeations and alignment, accentuating sharp shadows in primary locations while creating a glow inside where sculpture is displayed. The library piece features a suspended volume of books and shelves, used for archiving rare material by the resident librarian. It drops below into the 2nd floor gallery opposite a protruding “arm� that pushes a bank of sculpture and reading tables out over the alley space facing the inner campo. The exterior cladding of the upper 2 floors is a pale limestone, mimicking the common materiality of Venice. The lower level features slats of treated wood, emulating a structure image of the Venetian foundation; wooden piles driven in the sediment of the lagoon and topped with the classical Italian masonry construction.
Entrance hall + gallery campo
Sculpture Wall
Library (3rd floor)
Library (2nd floor)
Edge
The perceptible edge is a visual confirmation of depth and construction. It creates a spacial breakdown within its thickness that softens the abrupt nature of interior and exterior. What happens when this edge dissolves into an ineffable plane? The idea of three dimensional space begins to flatten into the clarity of 2D form and unexplainable method of assembly. Exterior conditions become completely showcased and framed within the edges of the portal. This is the concept behind my study.
Material Studies Plaster + Resin
One-to-one analysis of edge construction
Edge: Implementation The previous project focused on the 1:1 construction of a detail; the edge of a portal. Here, the detail is explored at a larger scale at an intersection. Two spaces are shaped through the conditions of light the detail expresses and the connection between them is the focus of this study. The portal is an overhead piece that hovers in space. A gap between the wall and ceiling plane creates a zone in shadow to emphasize this separation.
Constructed fragment
Light is molded and exaggerated by the presence of darkness. Floor, Wall, and Ceiling are expressed as planes held by an inner structure than exposes itself at the gaps between.
Memory of a Ruin: Lovatnet, Norway
The site in Lovatnet Norway presents physical challenges to the way something is built a designed. Landslides as a threat are a demonstration of the raw power in the fjord, the work of gravity and rock as a method of displacement. In response, the design here confronts but also respects the landslide. Anchored by a series of heavy packed-flint walls, the enclosed space above is meant to be purposefully temporal and predictive. Light weight and efficient both in its materiality, local pine timber and corrugated metal paneling, and construction method, a traditional A-frame based on the Norwegian fish rack, the top section juts off the mountain side over the forest below as a parallel to the power of a landslide sweeping off a mountain. In the event of a landslide or disaster, the foundation will remain while the damaged portion above is rebuilt and reconfigured. Centralized by a hearth, the foundations span outside and around the current construction above in anticipation of a future design, presenting a new ruin to explore and speculate on. This hearth generates heat and a hospitable climate inside, fueled by a furnace at ground level which exhausts the smoke and ash overtop the space. An opening to the exterior mirrors the hearth as it faces the site of the destroyed village. This is a space for thought and remembrance on the tragedy itself as the heat from the hearth radiates behind with the chilled wind of the fjord sweeping in front. The ruin is then an opportunity for the rebirth of nature in the fjord as architecture retains its memory of the both the past future.
Analysis of site and heating furnace
Site conditions of Lovatnet include a high range of seasonal shifts. The winter landscape is a de-saturated collage of snow and dark rock punctuated by a dull brown of the dormant foliage. This is exaggerated by the dim Norwegian light emitting from the white sheet of overcast sky. A brief summer brings vibrant orange and green into the surrounding lakeside as the clouds thin out.
Marking the site becomes an exercise in how to “touch the earth.� The harshness of the landscape is reflected in the mass-like foundations that occur in bays towards the base of the fjord. (far left) A detail of the foundations cut away at a moment of alignment, turning wall into a permeable fragment at human scale.
Memory of a Ruin: National School of Arts, Havana, Cuba Intersecting a vault at the School of Arts, the intervention in Cuba aims to create a new means of inhabiting the ruins while further activating the qualities of space currently present. At a basic level, this intersection is a rectangular volume defined by two board-formed concrete walls. The formal juxtaposition of this volume against the curved dome is powerful as it appears to cut into the existing masonry structure. Instead, the walls don’t touch the dome at all, cut at an offset where the dome is a dominant force shaping the overall space. Inside this new volume, vertical circulation take occupants upwards into a new dome space. Inspired by the occupiable intermediate space of the Duomo in Florence, Italy, this new experience brings someone up and within a range to touch and feel the physical bricks and ribs of the vault itself. The space is low and wide, but well-lit by an oculus in the center of the space that spills light and rain into an iron basin that funnels into the below. Water and drainage as a process are extremely active on the site currently as gutters and channels capture and move rain water during storms. This new construct does the same in response to the dome itself; funneling water through the oculus as well as off the exterior shell. Water is a transformative element that activates the sense of sight, sound, touch, and even smell. Sound is the generator for the sequence, creating a draw and pull to locate the source; the iron funnel basin within the inter-dome space and the metal roof of the vertical volume. Then, the visual power of rain dripping through the illuminated oculus, onto the basin that emits a rusty smell and texture. A cycle of the senses creates a moment of pause and reflection in this space up against the existing dome. Above, the overhead of the intersection tings with the slight patter of rain that flows down through and onto a series of rain catchers, bringing the water overhead down to waist height. On top of the dome, the vista of the surrounding ruins is commanding and insightful of a lost potential.
Plan Diagram
Site conditions
Inter-dome space - rain catcher + lighwell
Section through stair volume and inter-dome space
Shop
(fabrication))
+ House
(dwelling)
This project explores the relationship between shop and house. The case example being the Chihuly Glass workshop in Seattle Washington where glassblowers work within a choreographed space alongside a dwelling where the fruits of labor are displayed in conjunction with the programmatic elements of a house. The Hawthorn Trail located in Gainesville Florida is the site of this project whereby it strongly dictates position and alignment of the designed construct. The initial “mark� on the context arrives from the rhythmic strike of a blacksmith onto an anvil; blacksmithing being my chosen craft to propose shop space for. The defining characteristics of blacksmithing are heat and force. A forge as the source of heat and fuel. A hammer to strike the malleable iron into formal submission. And an anvil serving as the bed of kinetic energy to withstand the heat and pressure of the process repeated over time. These are the components of the shop, fabricating iron pieces along the linear bike path. The dwelling resides above the path itself, resting in a curved shell that acts as a translucent overhead for the path, reflecting light along its west face. The occupant of the complex descends into work and rises back into his private quarters, through an oculus piercing the screens that wrap the shop. The experience for the cyclists is then a path of senses, warping as a bike speeds by with the sounds, smells, and temperatures fluctuating passing each segment of the blacksmith fabrication line.
Mark 1
Mark 2
Mark 3
Preliminary Sections
The “Shell� intersecting the elements of house and shop. This works as an envelop between the floor of the housing unit and bike path below, housing mechanical and structural members between the floor plate above it. The shell also extends past the enclosed spaces of the house, providing shade and cover for the further end of the bike path. The chimney flus from the furnaces of the shop puncture the shell next to the stairwell, seen in the middle 2 sectional layers.
Furnace, chimney, and ironworks shop
Living space corridor and shop storage
School of craft: Seattle
Based on the Bauhaus School and its approach to programing fields of craft, this small campus is structured to house each craft with an individual instruction space in additional to shareable “ floating yards� that occupy the coastline of Battery Park on Lake Union, Seattle. Living units are modest but efficient in their layout, stretching a north bar across from the classrooms. The parti of the plan is dictated by a point grid denoting the layout of structure and module sizing. A single point in the grid has been expanded into an inhabitable oculus where the double-layered skin encases a ramp bringing students up and above the programed gallery/display yard below.
Exploded Axonometric
Final Section Preliminary Section
3-D printed studies on assembly of oculus
The interior shell of the oculus is surfaced in zinc panels that are individual products of the students at the school. The bending, cutting, and coating of the zinc crafting process influences the finish of the final panel. The installment of panels becomes a bi-yearly ritual of interchanging old panels with products of newer classes. The weathering qualities of zinc allow exposure to sun, rain, and temperature fluctuations with minimal degradation. The space below the oculus becomes a working yard during these installment periods where the panels are stored and attached to mechanical systems that lift them up into the shell. Workers and adventurous students perform the delicate task of positioning and fixation of the panels on ladders that lock into tracks within the shell.