Reinventing Place Samuel Williams
Reinventing Place Samuel Williams Masters of Architecture 2012 Degree Candidate
Chair: Professor Lisa Huang Co-Chair: Professor Stephen Belton
The following is a Master’s Research Project presented to the University of Florida School of Architecture in partial fulfillment of the degree requirements for a Masters of Architecture. University of Florida. 2012 Samuel Williams First Chair: Professor Lisa Huang Second Chair: Professor Stephen Belton
Contents 7
Introduction
52
Retraced Experiences
94
17
Case Studies
64
Descriptive Systems
104
28
Dwelling Memory
72
Strange Details
Reflecting on Components
34
Priority Dwelling
80
Process of Addition and Subtraction
111
Final Thoughts
115
Acknowledgements
Symbol of Growth
117
Bibliography
37
Project: Construct
88
Roof Conditions
4
An important part of getting back into place is having a place to get back into. Since we don’t have any such place by the mere fact of existing on earth, we must build places in which to reside.1 Edward S. Casey
1 Edward S. Casey, Getting Back into Place (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1993), 111.
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Roosevelt Residence: East Elevation View
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Perception “The more we reflect on place, however, the more we recognize it to be something not merely characterizable but actually experienced in qualitative terms.� 1 There is an interest and criticism in the individual occupying a given place. This act of engaging a place is related to the meaning of dwelling. In terms of experience, what are the qualities of an inhabitable place? What is the preliminary understanding of a place that the human being indentifies to? And pertaining to visualizing place in context, what are the characteristics of materiality, infrastructure and overall scale? These questions translate into a true remembrance of the occupied place and the human being that encounters it.
1 Edward S. Casey, The Fate of Place A Philosophical History (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1997), 204.
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Encountered Place An experience is defined qualitatively by visualizing space in which color, texture and depth in field are prominent characteristics of habitation. The being as a physical presence transcends through this subconscious experience in layers of dimension, subjectivity, and actual dependency. Meaning that the experience is contained in the being’s consciousness and its memory of the actual living place can be reinvented depending on the individual’s perception. What qualities of dwelling help define the being’s existence within a place? In relation to memory the body embeds itself within the actual living place, identifying objects through sight, touch and smell, leaving traces or imprints for others to look upon. Dwelling can be considered a built place. “The place made, a built place, occurs in a distinctly limited sphere of space. We gain thereby not just a measure of security but a basis for dwelling somewhere in particular.” 1 There is an interest in examining how the human dwells with intention, the determinant factor of being tangent or aware of a created existence. In other words this tangency offers a correlation between memory and constructing as both layered experiences, and further investigates the human being’s occupation in the living space through measurement.
1 Edward S. Casey, Gettting Back into Place (Bloomington: Indiana University Press),116.
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Roosevelt Residence: View outside from the south bedroom window
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Roosevelt Residence: View to neighboring street from the east ktichen window
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The binding of memory to place, and so to particular places, can itself be seen as a function of the way in which subjectivity is necessarily embedded in place, and in spatialized, embodied activity.1 J.E. Malpas
1 J.E. Malpas, Place and Experience: A Philosophical Topography (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 176.
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Roosevelt Residence: View of garden from the west bathroom window
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Roosevelt Residence: View outside from the sotuh bedroom window
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Case Studies
The Gugulan House, Peter Zumthor
Veritti House, Carlos Scarpa Jacobs House, Frank Lloyd Wright The Tugendhat House, Mies Van der Rohe
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Qualities of Constructing Dwelling What qualities or characteristics help define the methods of constructing place? Peter Zumthor’s Gugalun House located in Switzerland defines the idea of stitching the “old with the new”, integrating a holistic landscape with a strong sense of material construction that would “evoke the inhabitant’s way of life.”1 Historically the original house was built by farmers from Grison and the idea was to design an addition to the home that would reconcile the family’s old experiences along with a new method of living. The preliminary understanding of the new attachment was to preserve the traditional way of living while reinventing place as a new material construct. Zumthor respected the design of the original home by knitting the wooden beans together and in such a way of arriving he restored the original path that the family used when transcending on foot. In terms of enlarging the design, the home’s volume was made into the hill side, granting the living room views to the valley. Based on the idea of juxtaposed interior space, each room interlaced one another, creating a joint connection between materiality and structure.
1 Halldora Armardottir, “The Gugalun House, by Peter Zumthor,” Stories of Houses, accessed February, 21, 2011, http://storiesfhouses.blogspot.com/2005/09/gugalun-house-by-peter-zumthor.html
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Truog House Gugalun, Peter Zumthor Images from www.storiesfhouses.blogspot.com
Truog House Gugalun detail, Versam
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Plan 1
Gugalun House Section, Marco Masetti Images of sections and plans from www.archdaily.com
Plan 2 Gugalun House Floor Plans, Marco Masetti
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“People’s understanding of space is dependent on their experience of the places they identify for themselves within the broader context of the generic space surrounding us.”1 The being itself understands place within the origins of its context and its identification to be located there a moment in time. Categorical Space 1. People-Daily Live 2. Dependency-Experience 3. Generic Space-Ideal Dwelling According to being excluded from the public environment and possessing an individual place, a life that separates from everything which only pertains to itself can be divided into two categories, “internal face versus external face.” Moreover, the idea of being private in itself establishes a communication with objects on the interior, but on the exterior the converse differs based on what the individual chooses to interact with.2
1 Adam Sharr, Heidegger for Architects (London and New York: Routledge Taylor & Francis Group, 2007), 56. 2 George Poulet, Proustian Space. (Baltimore and London: John Hopkins University Press, 1977), 51.
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In reference to George Ranalli’s History, Craft, Invention, Carlo Scarpa’s work during the mid twentieth century allowed for the occupied place to be presented as a sense of “craft, detail, color, ornament, and materiality.” His method of architectural form defined the built place as a “painted poetry” informed by the research of function and the eclectic joining of materials. This expression of place, material and memory molded Scarpa’s designs into a vivid artisan fabrication. There was a sense of being part of the physical drawing prior to sculpting the actual building elements. Moreover, Scarpa’s practicality in sketching place as a variety of patterns, textures, and systems evoked thought and feeling.1 An example of Scarpa’s delicate craft is revealed in the Veritti House, a villa located in Udine, 1955-61. Lucian Veritti the client, was interested in locating the project within a dense vegetation of land surrounded by free standing houses. The first proposal contained two low volumetric cylinders, one enclosing the main living quarters and the other a winter garden, hinged together by a glazed passageway. However, the final design composed two cylinders into one volume which included a terrace and guest apartment. Frank Lloyd Wright had influenced much of the house’s materialistic design, using precast elements of pilaster.2 Scarpa developed a new sculptural identity stitching water and circular forms collectively together in order to demarcate the existing landscape. Yet constituting as independent forms, the building, circular pond, garden spaces, concrete forms and the remaining topography chose systematically to work amongst each other as an interior and exterior relationship. This immediate communication permitted the client to encounter water while walking over a bridge to enter the construct, what is described as a “reserved place.” 3 The relationship between the individual and solidity of the house is apparent based on Scarpa’s delicacy towards framing each living area. The choices made in decorating elements individually defined his complexity of material selection versus the actual built form.4 Thus, a sculptural object was visualized as the house itself, marking prominent gestures on the landscape and establishing an intricate arrangement of masses for the client to inhabit at multiple scales. 1 Nicholas Olsberg, Carlo Scarpa Architect Intervening with History (Montreal: The Monacelli Press, 1999), 41-42. 2 Ibid., 90-92. 3 Ibid., 92. 4 Ibid., 93.
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Second Proposal Ground Floor Plan, 1955-61. Graphite and colored pencil on cardboard. Coll. ACS Drawing and images from Carlo Scarpa Architect Intervening with History
Analytic model, 1998. George Ranalli. Plywood and basswood. Coll. CCA
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Micheal Cadwell examines in Strange Details that the idea of dwelling is not merely a theoretical experience but is an embraced affect. The individual holds onto the physicality of a building even if its material construct is abnormal in detail or reconfigured in form. Cadwell praises the unusual mechanisms of design in reference to Frank Lloyd Wright’s Jacobs House. The idea of the house was to rearranged basic principles of material construction into a natural or non-contemporary appearance. Embedded within its fabrication was a wood light frame construction and each architectural component was carefully selected according to size, durability and overall stabilization. Materialistic thinking of how systems were placed above, below, around or through each other was Wright’s role for being different than the European standards. 1 For example, the floor slab became an anchor to the Jacob House and its site. Working with contractor P.B. Grove, an 18 inch trench was dug first around the perimeter of the slab which was later sloped and drained, then the foundation was filled with rocks for air absorption. The second approach included the pouring of a four-inch slab over a net steel, trimming it with brick and in order for the control joints to follow the 2x4-foot module. 2 Wright had envisioned the roof to be constructed first before the walls. Even though contractors were skeptic of this procedure, the flattened horizontal piece was lifted first before inserting the vertical components. Cadwell describes the roof to be a “thin wafer” as if the woven structure had no room for an additional storage space.
1 Micheal Cadwell, Strange Details (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2007), 52-58 2 Ibid., 54
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Jacobs House, Floor Plan Drawing from Strange Details
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The “sandwich wall” as Cadwell describes it, was different from the contemporary nonbearing wall. Wright requested the design of each wall to be an “organic unity”, combining vertical surfaces and structure together that would illustrate a non structural vocabulary. An additional structure at the corners was not used and the roof’s components such as horizontal boards and battens ran with non perpendicular edges. According to plan the Jacobs House geometry mimics the letter L, with the bedrooms and study expanding to the east, and a grand living area expanding to the south. This was a common plan organization utilized to Wright’s advantage, creating exterior walls that embraced the street with “bands of board and brick”, alleviated by high level glass entries.1
Jacobs House, Wall Section Drawing from Strange Details
Pertaining to Wright’s belief in the built place facilitating human activities, he incorporated the point of entrance to be ceremonial and in favor with the automobile. Resolving entry he designed two different thresholds. The first entry quality expressed how the public way was framed by the carport’s masonry wall and a solitary column. The second entry gave praise to the automobile which pushed back the privacy of the living areas to the left, within the carport.
1Ibid., 63
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Jacobs House, Garden View Images from Strange details
Living room from dining nook
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Dwelling Memory The body that lives and dwells in the built place draws from other activities surrounding it. Is there a sense of depth that reveals the individual to have felt a certain quality of the experience pertaining to remembering? Daniela Hammer- Tugendhat explains in Living in the Tugendhat House, her experiences from the home based on the idea of remembering. The images portrayed in the narrative illustrate architectural design, natural surroundings revealed through light, an understanding of dwelling conversing with nature, and the client’s relationship to the architect. The idea of the client being significant was mentioned before in constructing dwelling through the physicality of materials. However, another reason is embedded in the mind of the individual’s perception on what can be recollected from the experience. Daniela’s perspective of the building formality is described as something that is “made for, inhabited by, and used with human beings.”1 Located in Brno, Germany, the Tugendhat House was designed by German architect Mies Van der Rohe between 1928-1930 for Fritz and Grete Tugendhat. Mies wanted the house to respond to its natural surroundings, created “through lush vegetation on the facades in the garden , and on terraces.” 2 Architecture being informed by the land reflected back on the Tugendhat family, which promoted them to dwell privately within the landscape. Daniela mentions about a garden given to her mother as a wedding present; as she states, “Fascinated by the upper end of this long park, the position offers and ideal opportunity to realize the concept of opening up the interior space of the house to its natural surroundings.” 3 There was a strong sense of materiality and module form that allowed the clients to view out to the landscape based on the use of glass onyx walls. Moreover, Mies intended for this design to reveal both an interior and exterior relationship between architecture and nature. The main interior space functioned as a “free flowing space” which was structured by an onyx and curved wall of Makassar wood. Seclusion and privacy between rooms was established through the usage of black and white velvet, and Shantung silk curtains.4
1 Wolf Tegethoff and Daniela Hammer-Tugendhat, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe: The Tugendhat House (Austria: Springer-Verlag/ Wien, 1999), 16. 2 Ibid., 12. 3 Ibid., 15.
4 Ibid., 18.
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The Tugendhat House Garden Facade from southeast, Fritz Tugenhat Images from Living in the Tugendhat House Onyx Wall Facade, Fritz Tugenhat
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As a result to these interior design choices, the experience of dwelling in such a place revealed qualities of life to the house. But it was a distinct indication of elegant furniture that the family adored in terms of satisfactorily living. Designed by Mies and interior designer Alen Muller-Hellwig the furniture consisted of a white lambskin carpet, glass table, Brno armchair with a Barcelona ottoman-cherry red leather cushions. Furniture was a necessity towards scaling each interior space of the home, illustrating rooms to gather in, dine, and rest privately. Overall, Daniela’s story of place is visualized as an architectural symbol, remembered in terms of when the home was occupied. She reminisces on how there is a “local way” of living, how people and dwelling discourse together in a “social” and “tactile” environment. 1 Within the Tugendhat House there was a sense of culture; an idea of inhabiting a place that was meaningful to the clients and spatially informative to architecture and landscape.
1 Steven Feld and Keith H. Basson, Senses of Places, (Sante Fe: School of American Research Press, 1996), 137.
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Living room, Mies Van der Rohe Image and drawing from www.GreatBuildings.com
Ground floor plan, Mies Van der Rohe
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Grandpa Roosevelt in the house’s workshop
Places also contain places so that one can move inwards to find other places nested within a place as well as move outwards to a more encompassing locale. 1 Edward S. Casey
1 Edward S. Casey, The Fate of Place A Philosophical History (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1997), 206.
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Priority Dwelling The place to dwell in has an “ontological” reason and a language within its context. In reference to the term Dasein: “there is”, “being there”, priority within a place of interest, how do we question priority of dwelling?1 This question of reason, value, language, and meaning of existence relates to the individual who chooses to perceive something, comprehends its idea, and further interrogates the true meaning of its appearance. “Appearance, as the appearance of something, does not mean showing itself, it means rather the announcing-itself by something which does not show itself, but which announces itself through something which does show itself.” 2 Meaning that the dwelling itself has to possess a reason of being within its own context, a language as a built place, and a measurement for design in order to be conceived in existence. In defining architecture, how does the actual dwelling become inscribed in a program? In reference to Jacques Derrida’s Truth in Painting, how does the human being “deconstruct” an historical piece of living and reinvent it to be a contemporary place to live? 3 As a foundation, dwelling opposes a question of its true content and overall form to the occupant. Derrida defines art in such a way that he questions its existence. “In order to think in general, one thus accredits a series of oppositions (meaning/ form, inside/ outside, content/ container, signified/ signifier, representer).“ 4 A dwelling has an interior and exterior relationship within its context. The built place locates human existence and the individual’s presence reconfigures and comprehends it as a value to the occupant. “A space is something that has been made room for, something that is cleared and free, namely within a boundary.” 5 The habitable places that are contained similar to what is illustrated in the Valeriano Pastor sketch for the Distric School Center near Dolo has a purpose, a reason, or a value pertaining to its function and appearance within its context. The illustrated sketch is rendered as a section, interpreting the central space of the school and allowing for the human being to interact with architecture. 1Martin Heidegger, Being and Time, (New York: Harper and Row), 27. 2 Ibid, 52.
3 Jacques Derrida, The Truth in Painting, (Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 1996), 19.
4 Ibid, 22. 5 Adam Sharr, Heidegger for Architects (London and New York: Routledge Taylor & Francis Group, 2007), 55.
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Valeriano Pastor Sketch, Body and Building, George Dodds and Robert Tavernor, Cambridge: MIT Press, 2002
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Project: Construct The focus will be to develop a tectonic spatial vocabulary of a residence nested in the city of Crawfordville, Florida. Connected to the Williams Family, Grandpa Roosevelt is of value to the original construct and as the established creator or signifier of place the ideology is enriched in what was quilted into meaning. Historical beauty gives life to the home and its context. But how does the being itself move away from the practical fabrication in order to analyze conceptually languages of materiality texture, structure and a new program. Objects, planes and surfaces will be encountered at different scales, but the essence is to perceive them as systems of reconfigured occupation.
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Aerial View
Encountered Construct Layers of Dimension: The local place, site, neighboring areas, external context. Subjectivity: The built place becomes a subject to its site regarding placement, history, and spatial interaction.
Actual Dependency: The being that occupies the given place and relies on the dwelling for shelter, comfort and registration.
1. The individual notes where the place exist in its context. 2. The neighboring areas are filtered into the background, but still communicate in layers with the actual experience. 3. Reinventing gravitates to the construct analyzing the mechanisms of how parts laminate into a complete framework.
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Roosevelt Residence: Site Plan
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Site Map
Transportation
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Hydrography
Land Conservation
Wakulla County
Initial Study Three scales were approached. 1. The existing program was cataloged into a collection of imagery and measurement. 2. As a built place, the original home carries a variety of experiences that are strange in detail and additive in proportion. 3. An idea of fabrication was defined which established acts of reassembling program, illustrating site analysis, and reconfiguring memory of the built place.
Illustrative Maps created digitally through Arc GIS: ERSI UC
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North Elevation
8
7 South Elevation
4 5
6
3
2 East Elevation 1
Existing Floor Plan: 2400 sqft 1. Porch 2. Living Room 3. Bedroom One 4. Bedroom Two 5. Kitchen
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6. Storage/ Bedroom 7. Workshop 8. Bathroom 9. Garden
N
West Elevation
Roosevelt Residence: Existing front porch
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Existing Program
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Storage
Roosevelt Residence Constructed over 45 years ago, the house is characterized by its partially metal corrugated and asphalt covering roof, raised floorboard, permeable porch and strange details. The idea of storage exist in the center of the home. While interviewing Grandpa Roosevelt about the home he quotes that “the house started off as a centered box, but later grew into addition rooms�. Which answers the question why design routine experiences around storage? A further investigation lead to analyzing these experiences in drawn perspectives illustrating lines, planes, textures and filters that constructs a series of occupations. Storage was understood as an opaque system, isolated from the surrounding activities, and only perceived as a room of containing systems.
Revolving Activities
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1. Living room construct layered over storage and kitchen activities
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2. Joined bedrooms expressing lavished textures along with opposite material connections
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3. Four segmented locations: kitchen, corridor/workshop, storage, sanitation
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4. The garden and other scattered objects as exterior uses
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Retraced Experiences What Grandpa Roosevelt actually visualizes within and outside the home on a daily basis is measured in the next series of experiential perspectives. The project’s focus connects to the being as a physical entity and how it depends on the built place as a subject. The subjectivity is founded on the individuals method of living. How does the being operate in such a place? Relating to its construct, what systems are effected? There are multiple experiences in the home and the surrounding context that reveal patterns left unanswered, but the notion of permeability exist, illustrating: 1. The owner’s connection to the site and the construct. 2. Translations between the rural context and built place on a primitive and neighboring scale. 3. Perceived methods of materiality and structure. The caretaker has dwelled in a mixed variety of activities quilted together into moments of storage. The objects contained has depended on the overall characteristic of place and how the being has chosen to organize them. For example, Roosevelt has discovered ways to scatter objects in certain areas around and within the home. It is also evident that some clothing, souvenirs, and images of relatives have been organized into a display function, meaning systems that are laminated on walls and other material edges. Experiencing Roosevelt function around these strange collections of mixed valuables introduces a question. How is dwelling a framework for the individual and its contained objects? The house has been constructed in a peculiar way that justifies reasons of additive and subtractive measures.
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1. Section Perspective: Storage construct, roofing composed of a truss system, floorboard condition, jointed bedroom
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2. Section Perspective: Occupied bedroom, tangent to front porch
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3. Section Perspective: Exploded living room construct, kitchen, front porch and roof separation
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4. Site Perspective 1: Built Place/Neighboring Areas
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5. Site Perspective 2: Transferable Layers
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6. Site Perspective 3: Rural Context
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6. Site Perspective 4: Dense Locality
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Descriptive Systems An interview was conducted on-site at Roosevelt’s house that contained general questions on life and place related to the occupant. Grandson: What is your overall meaning of this place you call home?
Grandpa Roosevelt: “In the evenings I enjoy cooking my favorite pork beans, rice and biscuits dish. Also at the table in a corner of the living room I comfortably play cards while looking out the window.”
Grandpa Roosevelt: “Besides my age, I have been living in this country area for almost 45 years and to me it is a strange comfort.”
Grandson: What are some things you find uncomfortable about the home?
Grandson: But what does living in a home such as this mean to you?
Grandpa Roosevelt: “I would rather not see walls and floors deteriorating, but I have adjusted to the weird connections made over the years.
Grandpa Roosevelt: “Strange comfort relates to the work and effort that was put into maintaining the home’s history and present appeal. When the first part of the house was completed I felt as if I could add on things every year.” Grandson: So your lifestyle in the home has been a process of construction? Grandpa Roosevelt: “Yes, but I learned how to make sense of other things like planting a garden, storing furniture and valuables to fit my own comfort, and repairing things a certain way on the house that may seem odd to you but is alright with me.” Grandson: Is this idea of storage located in a particular area of the home? Grandpa Roosevelt: “There is one room in the center of the house that contains most things but storage takes place somewhat in every other area.” 64
Grandson: When do you find the time to relax and move away from daily labor routines?
A discussion of future proposals for the house was included in the interview. If there were to be a new program could the original home be part of it? Is further cataloging the memory of place through imagery and measured drawings a wasteful system? The home operates on a “strange comfort” as Grandpa Roosevelt explained it and the daily activities revolving work and meditation fit into a framework. Reconfiguring the site and its dwelling was the next approach before immediately translating into a new program. Function was consider from the interview, justifying program measurement in the form of new ideologies: -Programmatic Systems -Methods of Materiality -Structural Components -Quilted Fabrication -Layered Textures
Roosevelt house images
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Roosevelt house and site images
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Vegetation
Front Porch
Existing Construct
Access
Bedroom
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Exterior Storage Garden
Roof Language
Truss System
Configuration
Dolly Varden Siding
Floorboards
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Building onto the existing program through deconstruction and quilting components together
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Roosevelt house images of detail components
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Strange Details There are structural and material systems of the home that are joined together with an unclear language, but has been built through intention. The disconfiguration of materials relates to Roosevelt’s attidude in working on the house as a rountine experience. Ideas of making transfer back to Peter Zumthors Gugalun, house constructing the old with the new. Moreover, the Roosevelt house has multiple purposes in holding its own framework collectively together that either make sense or represent miscommunicative errors. The material connections of the house are defined by their appearance, proportion, configuration, and functionality. As an example, CMU concrete blocks are used as a foundation to hold up parts of the dwelling, are placed together and stacked with setbacks indicating forms of steps, and have been filled with cement and painted on. Additive rooms, not all, are indicated by boarded windows and inaccessible exterior doors. Wood siding components at three different scales and colors weave into one another as systems of patterns. Door frames are embedded within walls of other materials, leaving questions about its tectonic behavior. Some floor boards on the front porch have been replaced, but others were left to deteriorate, revealing odd separations and proportions. These observations were further investigated in the form of detail axonometric drawings, outlining their joints and material configurations through lines, text layers, planes and toned surfaces.
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Wood siding components
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Floorboard construction
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Door frame
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CMU concrete blocks formation
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Concrete fill
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Roosevelt Residence: South Elevation
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Place is not founded on subjectivity, but is rather that on which subjectivity is founded. The structure of subjectivity is given in and through the structure of place. 1 Edward S. Casey
1 Edward S. Casey, The Fate of Place A Philosophical History (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1997), 35.
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Process of Addition and Subtraction The importance of sustaining the memory a place has already been implemented in a series of discovered drawings. Preserving the memory of the actual home was primitively introduced through an idea of storage. The act of containing or displaying systems translated into experiential perspectives that were drawn from both the built place and the neighboring context. Other programmatic activities were identified as additional sources latched onto the centered storage room. Detail components were analyzed for their strange tectonic configurations. Thus, the essence of a new program exist in the project’s discovery. Drawing experiences of the house has been a primary focus to the project. Is the home worth containing some of its ideas, history, and character? Should there be a full demolition or a reprising of systems joined with an additional experience? The process of altering into a new form should respect the ritual nature of what already exist versus what systems can be removed or relocated. Sustaining the memory of place can be a fragile concept, but in process it is important to question if partial components are removed what mechanisms are resulted? A series of axonometric plan drawings were examined at the scale of the construct and site. The first approach cataloged the existing components that would remain in the new program, the second approach indicated shifting walls or rooms at other locations on site such as the storage, and the third approach involved reconstructing the roof at a different proportion and orientation.
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Existing Roof Construct
Garden
Storage
Site
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Truss Roof
Existing Walls
Dolly Varden Wood Siding
Garden
Floorboard Construct
Systems that will remain and are reconfigured in the new program.
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Porch Columns
Views to the garden and front yard are now translucent Removing walls to open up storage
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Situated Storage
Expanded open space -Living area -Gathering -Displaying What are the effects once systems have been relocated on the site?
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Storage marks a new scale and geometric proportion -Collection -Display
Tectonically the relocated storage room latches onto other systems such the kitchen and existing corridor, establishing ideas of access and approach.
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The existing roof is repositioned based on programatic changes.
Indication of landscape is transformed in selective areas of the site How does the remaining roof situate over the initial program changes? An investigation of proportion and orientation shall be implemented.
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Additional rooms may change the behavior of the roof
Extended walls
-Orientation -Proportion
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Symbol of Growth The garden is perceived as a secondary importance to the program. It encompasses ideas of preservation and is part of Grandpa Roosevelt’s daily activities. During the on-site interview Roosevelt explained why the garden was located in the backyard of the house. He believed that the garden should be set aside from the neighbors, so placing it directly behind the house would allow for private cultivation and maintenance security. In relation to Roosevelt’s ritual on repairing the house, craft is also applied to the garden. Along with location, observations were made about the garden’s proportion. Referring to plan, the garden forms a square, similar in width to the back exterior wall of the house. This makes sense of Roosevelt’s mechanism to conceal the garden from neighboring areas. However, its true identity was revealed by Roosevelt in the interview as he stated; “The garden is a symbol of growth and the vegetables planted there give me energy to work more on the house.” Meaning that the garden is an important resource to both the individual and dwelling. The overall belief in the project is to respect the memory of place and its constituent parts. Furthermore, the location of growth can also occur at the scale of cultivation. Included in the process of addition and subtraction could the garden be situated in other areas of the site?
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Garden
Existing Floor Plan
Roosevelt House: Garden View
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Existing garden location
The location of garden is reconfigured in a series of linear axonometric plan constructs. In process the garden could potentially find ways to spatially connect to the home through means of intersections and cross sectioning.
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Vegetable Garden
Cultivated Path
Sitting Area
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Roosevelt House: North Elevation
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As a social art, architecture must be made where it is and out of what exists there.1 Samuel Mockbee
1 Andrea Dean, Rural Studio Samuel Mockbee and an Architectural of Decency (New York: Princeton Architecture Press, 2002), 33.
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Roof Conditions Discussing the new program was a constant battle with Grandpa Roosevelt. His interpretation of a new home is a three bedroom, two baths, basic kitchen, double hung windows, low ceilings, and a screened in porch. Roosevelt might as well call Extreme Maker Home Edition and request a brand new house. In contrast, the project’s approach on reinventing has operated at the individual’s occupation with reconfiguration taking place around it. Pertaining to the spatial changes that have been made, but are not final completions, questions the new roof’s existence. The original roof construction was perceived as a patched framework consisting of corrugated metal sheeting, asphalt shingles and a gable truss system. The inquiry on how these individual components work together can only be analyzed if a detail study was performed. However, reinventing this new external covering leads to questions about height, natural light qualities and ventilation. Volumetric displacement of rooms may affect the proportions and orientations of the roof system, but its inherent behavior lies tectonically in adapting with the dwelling experience. 1. What is the character of the new roof construct? 2. Should the roof be reconfigured while existing activities take place? 3. Will changing the existing roof’s proportion and orientation introduce additional light qualities and controlled ventilation? 4. Precedence studies could guide the new roof’s form as a series of tectonic ideas in plan, section and axonometric.
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Roosevelt House: Aerial view and detail roof images
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Corrugated sheeting
Lateral enforcement
Storage
Kitchen Area
Designated rooms with dolly varden material remaining
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If the roof’s construction were to began at the center of the home where storage first existed, what systems are effected?
Option 1: South Secton/ Reflected Plan
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Rural Studio Constructs In comparison to altering place there are two completely different house project stories referenced by Andrea Oppenheimer Dean in Rural Studio Samuel Mockbee and an Architectural of Decency, that express ideas of taking a place away and starting over or analyzing place and using its original components with new constructive systems. Harris (Butterfly) House, 1997 Client: Anderson Harris and Ora Lee Samuel Mockbee of Rural Studio wanted to give the Harris family a new “cost-free” home design, but Mr. Harris an elderly retired farmer disagreed with the offer because he felt as if all the components within the old home would be taken away. Later on during negotiating, Harris bought into Mockbee and his students to reconstruct the home free of charge. Before starting construction, Mockbee remembered observing the Harris family while working on a neighboring house. He noticed that the family practically lived on their porch. This observation sparked the new design, constructing a 600-square-foot house, encompassing half of the original porch and completely ventilated. Butterfly is a nickname for the home pertaining to its “wing like tin roof and angled timber supports.” The roof’s construction allows for a 250-square foot screen porch, that provides the illusion of flight. Orientation and proportion establishes cool breezes to enter the home which is a primary indication of its design. While living in the new home Harris argues about not having enough storage space for all of his junk and valuables.1 This explains why you can’t take everything away from an original construct. Goat House, 1998 Client: Morrison Farm Originally a goat house, the Morrison family desired a place for artist to work and dwell. The programmatic elements that would hopefully be added such as a hub, residence, artist studio and a guest house for Rural Studio did not take place. Instead, the residence idea only remained. Interesting enough, student designers Jeff Cooper and Ian Stuart whom both managed the project, moved into the Morrison’s home before hand to measure its experiences. Following Mockbee’s idea of architecture containing its location and systems that exist within, the process of construction took place. Respecting parts of the original construct, the students punctured through the center of the home “creating a double-height dormered dogtrot.” The dormered roof is supported by wooden rafters rested on top of tall wooden doors that frame views to the backyard. 2
1 Andrea Dean, Rural Studio Samuel Mockbee and an Architectural of Decency (New York: Princeton Architecture Press, 2002), 33-34. 2 Ibid, 107.
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Samuel Mockbee’s Harris (Butterfly House) & Goat House, Photographs by Timothy Hursely, Rural Studio Samuel Mockbee and an Architecture of Decency, Princeton Architecture Press, 2002
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Why has the centered space become such a long and grand experience? Workshop placed beside kitchen The front porch covering is given the same material nature as the main roof construct
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Tectonic roof studies
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The drawn roof studies are not final depictions of the new proposal, but contain investigations of lines and surfaces that primitively measure orientation, control of natural light, views to the landscape and structural character. Systems that have been replaced, removed, added or situated elsewhere on the site are reconfigured in an axonometric experience. Measured components of the program are drawn as parts to whole extracted from their predetermined location and is given an optional appearance.
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Exploded axonometric components
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Reflecting on Components Questions to consider 1. What are the effects from using existing materials in the new proposed development? 2. Does this mechanism of re-configuring draw accessibilities for Grandpa Roosevelt’s well being in the new home? 3. Completely erasing the memory and potential of the original construct may deteriorate the individual, but can the measured and qualitative experiences help to restore a beneficial life? 4. Storage existed in the center of the home which was spatially unique, but could there have been another programmatic system moved first? 5. When moving forward in the project does storage become a time capsule in the new experience? Enhancing the individual’s opportunities within place is both a problematic and intriguing discussion. It is important to draw those options that contain partial implications of memory as well as additional components. The final drawings imply that the new experience belongs to a similar yet entirely different sense of materiality, structure, light, views, and altered choices in occupation.
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The measured components of the program are now drawn as a whole system, but there are volumetric fragments left to be filled or they could remain untouched at this scale.
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Place serves to situate one’s memorial life, to give it a name and a local habitation.1 Edward S. Casey
1 Edward Casey, Remembering (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1987), 182.
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Section Perspective -Gathering Space What does this option do for the experience? Are there additional elements such as extended family who would favor to dwell in this particular experience?
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Storage display room
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Option 2: East Section/ Reflected Plan
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Final Thoughts The interest and criticism pertaining to the individual occupying a given place is measured by its experiences. Quality and quantity are visualized spaces in which physical components operate within habitation. The entity relates to this occupation as a built place, a way of living, or a sense of comfort. Memory of place gives the individual opportunities to identify origins of its context in a moment of time. Thus, appearance of memory is crafted and embraced, justifying how systems will be made, inhabited and used in human scale. Here in this project opportunities and potentials were granted to memorialize an existing built place. A tectonic understanding of this residence revealed a variety of measured experiences and conceptually interpreted languages of materiality, structure and an additional program. Connections were made to the caretaker as a physical entity and how he depends on the built place as a subject. Categories embedded within this subject place such as rituals, strange details, symbols, descriptive systems and storage recapsuled the memory’s dwelling into a fragile concept. Questions evolved about reconstructing a completely different program, but still the project was tied to understanding more about the original dwelling. In other words, components of the existing construct were either added, removed or relocated elsewhere on the site. Measured drawings illustrated options for what the new program could be, but were not final resolutions. Overall, it is a true concept that the project will continue to grow in a actual built experience and the memory contained must be its counterpart.
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Roosevelt Williams
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From left to right: Granddad, Grandson, Dad
Acknowledgements Thanks to: Professor Lisa Huang who encouraged a challenging discovery of place and measured out my full potential towards the research project. Professor Stephen Belton for providing me with initial feedback on the project’s direction. Professor Gundersen for supporting my future endeavors and sharing with me the knowledge of teaching and design. My Family and Friends for understanding the amount of time and dedication put forward to the architecture curriculum. Grandpa Roosevelt who is the most important reference to the project. I love you dearly Granddaddy.
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Bibliography Cadwell, Micheal. Strange Details. Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2007. Casey, Edward. Getting Back into Place. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1993. Casey, Edward. Remembering. (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1987. Casey, Edward. The Fate of Place A Philosophical History. Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1997. Dean, Andrea. Rural Studio Samuel Mockbee and an Architectural of Decency. New York: Princeton Architecture Press, 2002. Derrida, Jacques. The Truth in Painting. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 1996.
Malpas, J.E. Place and Experience: A Philosophical Topography Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999. Olsberg, Nicholas. Carlo Scarpa Architect Intervening with History. Montreal: The Monacelli Press, 1999. Poulet, George. Proustian Space. Baltimore and London: John Hopkins University Press, 1977. Sharr, Adam. Heidegger for Architects. London and New York: Routledge Taylor & Francis Group, 2007. Tegethoff, Wolf and Tugendhat, Daniela. Ludwig Mies van der Rohe: The Tugendhat House. Austria: Springer-Verlag/ Wien, 1999.
Dodds, George and Tavernor, Robert. Body and Building. Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2002. Feld, Steven and Basson, Keith. Senses of Places. Sante Fe: School of American Research Press, 1996. Heidegger, Martin. Being and Time. Translated by John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson. New York: Harper and Row, 1962.
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