Rawan Adel Almohasen
Architecture Portfolio Bachelors of Architecture 2013-2017
Everything is already in existence waiting to be found waiting to be uncovered we look and search within voids and solids in between lights and shadows We create rhythms and rhymes and make spaces
Index 1 2 3 4 5
Response De DensitĂŠ Steady Synapses Form Works and Profiles Creation from Destruction
6 7 8 9
Balanced Trajan MarketCase Study Memory Crisis RMP
1
Response De DensitĂŠ Location: Marseille, France Architect: Le Corbusier Time: 1952
I found myself going into isloation, in my dark room. Home to work and work to home. I wanted to be in a place where I can meet and see people. I wanted a change. I saw light, coming into my living room. I felt the air passing by, in, out and through. I can now breath.
Design Studio 3A: Housing
Through this case study; working with Le Corbusiers five rules; creating a new unit cluster, instead of a two units interlocking, it became a combination of four units. The new cluster increased ventilation into the unit and around the unit, better access, created private outdoor patios for each unit and increased social interaction.
Multiple ground figure alternatives for Le Corbusier original interlocking unit form.
Unit A1 Four different unit types. This interlock allows the units to be flexible; to open up to each other, or to stay as it is.
Unit A2
Unit A3
Unit A4
2
Steady
Location: Rome, Italy Time: 139 AD
I hold steady. Within my walls I withhold the energy of different ages. I hold steady in the center of my own growing form, as my stones slowly crumble, I still hold. I have consumed all that passed by me and around me. I was the center of this Castel, but today I am just a passage way. Pass through me, but stop and read me first. I am loud and unmovable, faithful and devoted. I stand here, in the center. On the surface of my skin are the wrinkles of my age, exposed. If you sit here for awhile, I will let you feel the energy of my age, I will expose all the stories I held in my walls.
Design Studio 4A: Rome Study Abroad Program
Exploded Axon: Chamber of Urns
Detailed wall: Chamber of Urns
Over time the castle added layers and layers to its ground. Dividing the castle to three layers of time; ancient Rome, midieval and renaissance. Through the added layers; pockets of air started to form inbetween and within the layers. Beneath the castle, while airpockets were forming, compressed pockets formed, because of added material, construction and deconstruction, these pockets became loaded with information of material, spolia, occupants...
Section cut: Chamber of Urns
A layer within the castle from the Midieval age Airpockets A layer within the castle from the Renaissance age
Renaissance Age Midieval Age
The Chamber of Urns Airpockets forming between the different layersof the Castel Sant’ Angelo
Ancient Age
A layer within the castle from the Ancient age compressed pockets A layer within the castle from the Midieval age
Castel Sant’ Angelo
3
Synapses
Location: Border between Tijuana, Mexico and San Diego, United States of America
Synapse is the meeting point between two neurons. If your neurons form the tructure of your nervous system, then your synapses; the tiny communication links between them; are what turns the structure into an actual system.
Design Studio 3B: Structure/Systems
FEDERAL BUILDING USA MEXICO
PAVILION
PARKING
OPEN-AIR MARKET
TAXI
PARKING
Overall Site
Syanpses is a pedestrian border crossing bridge, which brings people from one side to the other, in a smooth transition. Tijuana-San Diego is the busiest border crossing in the world. You have two criss crossing bridges, one for slower traffic with seating, markets and view points and the other for faster traffic and faster access to the parking lot. The pavilion is made to allow people to stop for a second and inhale, locals are to embrace there culture and new comers are to be introduced and welcomed to it.
Concept drawing: Pavilion Elevation
Concept drawing: Pathway Elevation
Cross Section
Cross Elevation
4
Form Works and Profiles
I am flowy my energy flows and transforms from object to space and from space to object.
Design Communication ||
5
Creation From Destruction Location: Palermo, Sicily, Italy Architect: Piazza Garreffello, several buildings in the square. Time: 1576
I can not hold myself together, I will collapse if you let me go and I will bring down all that is around me. I have become a burden on this city, but I will resist until I crumble. This project hypothesizes what the site would look like if the structures that hold up the facade were all that remain after the entire historic structure collapses.
Design Studio 4A: Rome Study Abroad Program
Piazza Garraffello, with the fountain located in the center. Study model of the height, intensity and bone structure of the buildings surrounding the piazza.
All the facade bones of the buildings has been put into one structure in the piazza, while all the rest of the buildings structures collapse and crumble.
This Piazza becomes a space of reflection and of connecting with yourself, others and the land you stand on, leaving you with what it was and what is has become.
6
Balanced
Location: Lisbon, Portugal Architect: Santiago Calatrava Time: 1998
Heavy at some points and light at other points, but I am balanced. I feel gravity, I go against and with the earths force, intertwining and becoming my own.
Design Studio 3B: Structure/ Systems
Only weights and string has been succefully used for this project.
The angled supports of the station inevitably give the structure a sense of movement. Calatrava emphasizes a light beauty that is confirmed by his consistent use of light colors, and in particular white. Calatrava tree columns might be more complex than they really need to be, but this complexity lends itself to the play of light and variety of visual experiences offered to the everyday commuter.
7
Trajan Market
Location: Rome, Italy Architect: Apollodorus of Damascus Time: 100-110 AD
The historical Trajan Market, located in Rome, is now a foot print of ruins. Romes urban outlines and the complex geometry shapes of Trajans market becomes a dragging center point for people to enter. The extruded lines within the building and through the city links the form out into the city and back into its form.
Contemporary Issues
8
Memory Crisis Location: Qatif, Saudi Arabia Time: 800 AD
Meaning is built through memory. Memory is what sustains us and connects us to the world. It forms our identity as individuals and it brings individuals together to form the identity of social groups. It’s what links the past to the present and we build upon it for our future. This thesis explores the traces that lie between the sensible and nonsensible world within its context. “Memory Crisis” discovers certain architectural elements that may seem insignificant to most, but the loss of these “minor” elements will not only be the loss of cultural heritage, but also the lessons these forms contain hidden within it; the forces that are the birth of it, inhabit it, bring it to life and that erodes it. “Without memory, without reading traces of the p ast, there can be no recognition of difference, no tolerance for the rich complexities and instabilities of personal and cultural, political and national identities” (Huyssen 1994, p. 10)
Degree Project Proposal
Architecture only came to preserve memories and represent it on tragic events, or when a crisis occurs, and to praise victories or iconic people. While architecture failed to take into consideration on keeping and remembering the smaller things and objects that shape our everyday life. This project explores ways in which architecture could fill in the gaps that we fail and continually struggle to fill by erecting monuments, walls, museums and memorials, I am exploring the unfolding elements of peoples memories of the past, as Craig Barton wrote in his book Sites of Memory “ In our everyday lives, memory is a natural, perhaps automatic, by-product of the manner in which we think about an unfolding episode. Unfolding implies that episodes are not static but dynamic recollections. They are encoded and retrieved, evoking the exploration of stored memories� Exploring the different segments of memory, this thesis responds on how to document, preserve and interpret our memories and represent it in built environment. The theory that the scale of tragic or heroic events could be on a smaller scale that occurred over time rather than on a certain event. This project will explore executing the different elements, by defining different geometries, looking at different forms and materials, extracting from written journals and photographs and also archiving photographs and journals. As I go into different places and try to discover the memories of the past, I loose connection. For generations we have put memories into memorials, into monuments, into museums, but we have failed to find memories in all the little things, such as the roads, the sidewalks, the doors, the windows, that plays a vital role in our everyday life and shapes who we are and what we do. We found ways into praising people, for example, the Lincoln memorial, or to display a tragedy, world war ||, the Kolum-
ba museum, and events such as the holocaust, the jewish museum, but there are things that over time change and slowly become “extinct”. Extinct in a way that it is no longer remembered, but slowly forgotten. How can we turn our memories for future generations to learn from, to see, to feel, to experience without the need of building something monumental. The Jewish Museum in Berlin, was built to bring back the jewish presence into Berlin. The Lincoln Memorial, provides a nation conscience into us. The Vietnam Wall, representing the names of who died in service in the Vietnam war. The Berlin Wall, has become a cold iconic war symbol. These iconic walls, museums, monuments and memorials have made us loose track of maybe connecting with future generations at a deeper level of just surface visual interaction. How can we impact and leave an imprint on those that follow us, to teach them or to remind them of what was” through our memories and those that passed before us. We create meanings through our memories. why is it that we only present our memories at times of tragic events and iconic people? what if we are living in a tragedy of forgotten memories, memories that didn’t occur in a certain event, but overtime. Breaking memories into “elements”, not just one. These elements eroded form what was once a “whole”? Memorials were built to signify the importance of past situations or influential people. It gives us the security of “keeping a memory”. Some memories could be tragic and painful, so how can you represent something without giving a reminder of the pain, but rather the “complete memory” of what was. We should wait until a good time after a certain tragedy, rather that build the memory right away. We should find the purpose of why were building it. is it to remember them? or not to be like them? or sometimes the memories are too painful that
we don’t build anything and bury it forever. In the creation of place, Douglas takes the memorial of Abraham Lincoln as an example. We learn from our past. We build it to consider trauma and rethink and reactualize the past. It is also there to warn us and remind us of the past for the future. Memorials and Monuments is, a place of memory, a place for mourning, a place for reflection and healing, a place for ceremony and a place for collective action. These spaces and structures become the re-creation of a person, or a deed, or an event. “A monument in its oldest and most original sense is a human creation, erected for the specific purpose of keeping single human deeds or events.. alive in the mind of future generation” Alois Reigl They are created for future generation to see the truth, the lesson and the projections it wishes to project. they are there to tell us “Remember this, this was important- others sacrificed something of themselves here for you” Douglas Allen Memorials create a space where the non-physical is housed and evoked, enabling a fusion of the viewer’s own memories and those of the creators. They are spaces where specific memory, physically located, is guided as a catalyst to a direct experience in which time can collapse and we join the past in a truthful, comprehensible way. Memorials are spaces of dreaming, reflection, not otherwise accommodated in our market driven world. They present what is absent. According to Alois Riegl “A monument in its oldest and most original sense is a human creation, erected for the specific purpose of keeping single human deeds or events alive in the minds of future generations.”
Site Plan Ground Level
Site Plan Underground Level
Overall Site
[See] the ancient ruins
[Taste] the tea
[Conference Room]
[hear] the sewer
[Smell] the bread
[Digital Archive]
Our built environment functions as a text narrative. Memories remain embedded in the form, remain to be unearthed, read and decoded. Built structures serve as memory devices. They materialize and preserve the course of time and make it visible. They concertize remembrance by containing and projecting memories. They stimulate and inspire us to reminisce and imagine. Societies have long sought to protect and preserve their cultural heritage, for reasons ranging from education to historical research to the desire to reinforce a sense of identity. The benefits of preserving is good for the neighborhood, for the environment and for the economy. Building on the past for our future. The process of memory characterizes every human society constantly by choosing, for both cultural and political reasons, what is worthy of being preserved for future generations and what is not. Its hard for someone to grow up without the real sense of a family history or heritage. We fear the thought of being forgotten and we can’t bear the thought of leaving with no trace of our existence. We don’t want to disappear. we want to be remembered, we want to keep our memories alive and we want to say that our lives matter even when we are long gone. Every community should contain a social order element that reminds the members of there obligations to others, both past and future. This obligates future generations to hold the lessons we leave behind for them. “When nothing else subsists from the past, after the people are dead, after the things are broken and scattered, the smell and taste of things remain poised a long time, like souls bearing resiliently on tiny and almost impalpable drops of their
essence, the immense edifice of memory.” -Marcel Proust, Sense of Touch. Places are good and necessary in our lives, they create memories. We need to think about where we are and what is unique about the place we are in. Thus, better understanding who we are and how we relate to each other. The mental connection people have for a certain, or at a certain place is what makes architecture interesting. “Memories lodge in places that are distinct. Axes, orchids, platforms, boundaries, openings, canopies, and markers, when interwoven with our movements through them and the light that plays cross them, set out an intricate web of relationships that can ensnare moments from our lives and hold them in safekeeping.” Castello Di Gorgonza describes, the roof, the flooring, how you walk through the spaces, how narrow the hallways are, the angle of the walls, the physical attributes of these spaces become a chamber for your memory of that place. Places could also be a place where community members could come in open this safe lock of memories and share it among each other, thus bringing the community closer together. Memories could be shared as an ongoing dialect. This is where people could internally connect with themselves, discover some attributes such as “identity”, but also for them to care, love and cherish that area or place by feeling a personal connection to it. When each person feels this connection within themselves and then comes in as a community and shares this internal feeling of connection, the community becomes stronger, and the energy will become stronger. How do we make people care about their environment, of places, objects and things? Is it by
connecting them to it? The human body, “humanity”, cant connect if the person themselves cant connect to themselves and there own community and looking within themselves and that what surrounds them. The sense of identity is essential to survival, of individual, family, group and neighborhood. When we go too far from identity and loose connection, we become alienated and dissociated from our surroundings and our environment. We no longer feel the connection between people and place. As said by Paul Brislin in Human Experiences and people, in 2012, “The making of space has an inseparable and complex place in the making and sustaining of human identity”, spatiality, that of which mankind has defined through geographies, urban planning and place is what determines the power of relationships that we create and how we operate our societies and individuals and that reflects on the human body, conditioning their and our behavior. Our understanding of the world begins defining through the space around us. “Our body, our consciousness and the space we live in- we live in it, and it lives in us”. Architecture and the spaces we make and shape, inhabits us, it defines how we feel and respond to our surroundings. “We, our identity and the physical world, are intimately and inseparably connected by the way we create space, and the way we exist in it”. “Cultural identity, a sense of rootedness and belonging is an irreplaceable ground of our very humanity” Juhani Pallasmaa. Homogenization is slowly eroding the feeling of belonging and its flattening and equalizing the differences between people from different geographies. The sense of identity that nurtures us is slowly becoming lost. The human population is not doing anything about this, there response to this loss is unspoken.
“If identity is essential to our survival, if spatialization has an implicit and essential part in the making of identity, and if this sense of identity is being eroded, then what are the qualities of an architecture that can nurture people and provide an equilibrium between rootedness and alienation?” The sense of identity is tied to our surroundings. Our surroundings is being eroded along with our identity. What makes our surroundings a “whole”? Our environment is composed of everyday elements, such as the door knob on the door, the door itself and where the door is placed, are just a few of these elements that compose this “whole”, the whole that makes up our daily routines, from sleeping, waking up, eating, and moving along with your daily activities. Memory is a key tool. To retrieve and to maintain all that has been lost and all that should remain and not be forgotten.
[Touch] parts of the ruins that was saved to be reserved over time and placed on this path.
Section Render
9
RMP
Office: Richard Meier and Partners Time: February 2018- Current
“Cities, like dreams, are made of desires and fears, even if the thread of their discourse is secret, their rules are absurd, their perspectives deceitful, and everything conceals something else.� - Italo Calvino, Invisible Cities
Bachelors of Architecture Woodbury University 2012-2017