SURAJ RADADIA - WORKS VOLUME

SPORT SHED

PAGES

PAGES

SPORT SHED

SPRING 2020 ATHLETIC CENTER |

The Sports Shed redefines the relationship between spectator and spectating by focusing on a single element that connects circulation, structure, and threshold. Instituting a scissor form allows access to different levels at each landing through the bifurcation of the staircase. Through this system, the circulation core creates two discrete enclosures: a smaller playing court on the south end of the site and a larger court area on the north end. The wide range of figures playing on the court and walking in the circulation core are projected onto the translucent facade. This allows not only the courts to be the spectacle, but the spectators within the circulation core also become part of a larger spectacle, from other spectators within the shed and the public outside the shed.

The sport shed, iconographic, is idiosyncratic to Boston’s historic North End and brings a new formal language into the historic neighborhood. The circulation, structure, and form echos a Shed Typology, each element dependent upon the other, making the structure the form and form the structure.

The switchback form continues past the core edge as trusses. The truss system not only supports the courts but allows the courts to span unobstructed of any structure.

The Sport Shed extends along the garage’s east facade, creating a new public space in Boston’s North End.

SECTION

The switchback form continues past the circulation core edge as trusses. The truss system not only supports the courts but allows the courts to span unobstructed of any structure.

A new public space in Boston’s North End: Sport Shed (left), Reflection Pond (center), Bleacher Seating (right)

SITE

The south end of the structure cantilevers over Prince St.

The main entrance to the Sport Shed is on the north corner of the site which leads into the handball and basketball courts.

The acoustic echo of the large courts bleed through the central circulation to the spaces above and below.

A scissor/switchback construction serves as the main structure to support the Sport Shed.

BASKETBALL COURT

The central structure continues as trusses and private program spaces. are situated between the trusses.

From the open courts at the top individuals can cascade down through the running staircase to the programs below.

SECTION PERSPECTIVE

The main structure is a scissor/switchback construction that connects the courts with the spaces below. The truss system allows the court to span 120 ft with studio spaces, locker rooms, kiosks, administrative, and MEP below. The structure and floor plates are made of concrete, and the skin of translucent glass panels and metal.

SYMBIOSIS

FALL 2017 MIXED-USE |

Oakland, California’s income gap is fractured into two distinct incomes, lower and upper. The goal of this project is to improve the sociological state by integrating all economic incomes on the site; creating a social fabric to grow. The master plan for this project aims to blur the line between the two incomes and have these two independent systems become co-dependent by means of symbiosis.

GROWTH & REPRODUCTION

TRANSDUCTION GENETIC TRANSFER MOLECULAR STRUCTURE

POLYMER

This project replicates spatially the process of symbiosis by analyzing bacterial growth of biosynthesis to derive the overall form of the structure. Biosynthesis is a multi-step, enzyme-catalyzed process where compounds modify, convert into more complex compounds, and join to form macromolecules. As the compounds convert, it allows cells to integrate into select voids or stems into new sections of growth.

CULTURED BACTERIUM

TRILATERAL COMPOSITION

This building aims to revitalize the immediate context that is comprised of five public schools (south-southwest), a community college (southeast), and residential towers (north) with essential public facilities. With these three existing developments, they become the three primary nodes that anchor the thresholds of the building to the site. The thresholds placement become the immediate access point for the surrounding context to its corresponding public facility. The mixed-use civic building program comprises a library, a healthcare facility, and public workshops. Each program becomes the framework of the trilateral form, which mediates the discretized context to a single.

TRANSVERSE SECTION PERSPECTIVE

The overall form mimics the process of biosynthesis, where the bacteria stems from single cells into new sections of growth. Cutting transversely through the building shows that sequence of growth from the core to the ends of the programs on either side. Causing the centermost point to become the densest, whereas the new sections are left open-ended, translating the density into clear and distinct volumes. The central volume extends towards the three nodes while creating a relationship to the immediate program below and engages the central atrium through its overarching form.

ABSOLUTE FORM

DESIGN VIII RESIDENTIAL |

PLATONIC THEORY OF FORM

Absolute Form centers Plato’s “Theory of Forms” as a framework for the design of a single-family residence for an archeologist. Plato defines Form as the representation of all the true qualities of reality. A form is not the physical matter but the representation of all things physical and non-physical, answering the question, what is that? A form will remain constant through time, but the ‘thing’ it represents will always be in constant change, transcending time and space.

To conceptualize the theory through a non-script form, the series of drawings explores Plato’s through a pure shape, a square. Allowing this pure shape to represent all physical and non-physical things instead of a single reality. The square extrudes along a singular axis to represent the formal basis of time. This framework allows for simple gestures of impressing, carving, and filtering to represent the spatial changes through time within the object. This Form of representation will become the template of exploration for this project.

ARCHEOLOGY, ARCHITECTURE & LANDSCAPE

CONCEPTUAL AXONOMETRIC

The project pivots to the interest of the occupant for the dwelling, archeology. The axonometric explores the field of archeology in relation to architecture through the development of ruins. The axonometric diagram depicts the square from the theory of forms where a pure shape, shown in this drawing in three dimensions as an axonometric, which extrudes to represent the formal basis of time. The diagram portrays the duality of the ‘new’ that derelicts the ‘old’ over time and that negotiation within the layers. The excavation process exposes those layers and the voids from matter that was once there to tell the story.

DWELLING FOR AN ARCHEOLOGIST

This project focuses on creating a dwelling in conjunction with archeology through the understanding of its form. Processual archeology which is one of three methods of excavation, bases its archeological data off the site and the immediate context. This method becomes the main influence for the dwellings placement and interior expression. The dwelling becomes an artifact on the site where the layers of voids are defined by each program and its relationship to the immediate surround.

SECTIONAL SEQUENCE

T he section shows the constant undulating program on the right side in juxtaposition to the linear circulation space on the left side.

SITE PLAN

The main influence for the dwelling’s placement was the south facade’s interaction with the water’s edge to capture the texture inside. The wildlife encompassing the site optimizes the privacy for the occupant and frames the dwelling.

CONSTANT VS. DYNAMIC

The program (north) changes in a spatial sequence while the circulation (south) runs constant throughout.

FORM COMPONENTS

DUALITY OF INTERSECTION

T he render depicts the relationship of dwelling and context as well as the relationship of the interior and exterior.

SPATIAL OVERLAP

The layers of plexi-glass shows the spatial relationship of the different programs as a single system.

BEAM DROP

FALL 2020 OFFICE BUILDING |

The provocation is based on the sculpture by Chris Burden titled Beam Drop. Within the sculptor, beams are dropped from a crane into a concrete pit, and some beams drop a random others at the author’s choice. The beams are essential elements of construction and a critique of artists and designers in that they have not yet accepted randomness in their work. Chris Burden calls on artists to embrace randomness within their works rather than having a resolution in its inception. In a way, randomness liberates any form of rationality familiar to us. Burden challenges the conventional building construction methods used today. Whether one designs a program space with a definite assignment or a more flexible space from a conservative or hyper-modernist stance, one would interpret the solution as some form of contrived necessity from the author [1].

[1] Inside Architecture – Vittorio Gregotti (pg.11)

[2] Inside Architecture – Vittorio Gregotti (pg.11)

[3] From Object to Field – Field Conditions in Architecture and Urbanism – Stan Allen

The solution, artificial to the building, does not confront the differences, whether contextual, programmatic, or structural. The solution homogenizes the differences until it turns into the author’s ideology rather than a found solution that addresses the difference [2]. This conventional construction method, assumed from the author’s ideas and principles, does not allow randomness to play out.

Randomness must be present where room for authorship is not. The re-simulation of Chris Burden’s beam drop gives the illusion of construction and the planning of the execution, the former found and the latter being contrived within this project. As the structures settle, the natural reaction unfolds an array of interactions and divisions in which the program spaces are “found” within, accepting the impurities and unpredictability [3].

The zones on which the beams are dropped here are mainly circulation spaces. The first zone runs around the periphery of the site and cuts through the middle creating this eight-figure to allow for an open plan.

Structure

BEAM DROP SIMULATION

SITE PLAN

The site plan shows the building in relationship to the context with neighboring buildings, adjacent blocks, the park, the inner block.

Re-simulated the beam drop on the northwest corner of Washington Sq. Park

BEAM DROP

Beam Drop Beam Reaction DROP POINTS BEAM REACTION

MAS OFFICE

The east elevation from MacDougal St. hints at different lines of sight.