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.

Mas Office