Student Center

big bigness has not yet been fully understood rem koolhaas

c2 studio

C-2 Adventures In Architecture Robert Hsiung - 16 classes

how much

Week 1 Robert posed the question, “What is the most essential thing in architecture, and what can you build with 20 million bucks?”

I believe that at the center of architecture are people; the most essential thing for architecture is to arouse human sensibility— activities will follow...

This studio was a dizzying experience because the site, program, and budget changed from week to week. In fact, the final program and site wasn’t unveiled until the last two weeks of class giving us little time to react. Because of this my goal for this studio was to develop many edge conditions, programmatic relationships, and spatial frameworks that acted as the ‘rules of the game’ for when the final site and program was issues.

A generic but cost appropriate matrix (1) is generated to illustrate scope in both abstract and spatial terms using conventional cost trends.

Programmatic elements (1), in a cost per square foot basis (shown bottom page) are organized around large voids to optimize lighting and create exterior spaces with interior panoramas. A generic syntax (2) is created to begin exploring building criteria for any given site later in the semester. The general attitude was to establish a flexible blob that explored spatial, skin, and massing conditions that aspired to ‘arouse’ user senses by using circuitous processions that morph from condition to condition such as light to dark, tight to expansive, etc. (illustrated next page). They serve as criteria for qualitative environments meeting user’s quotidian needs (purposeful or otherwise).

The first goal prior to presenting in a few weeks was to establish a vocabulary of “influential spaces” that are based on conditions that develop into “a building.” Because the project is as large and the client decidedly vague, the approach was to focus on spatial narratives, small spaces, and loose relationships.

all variations @ +/-100,000 sf

clumpy

big

Apparently, 20 million dollars is a lot of square footage to massage around, particularly when one has no idea where it’s going to go. The initial brush stroke is purely incidental and I believe the instructor wanted it this way. I decided to combine all four archetypes into one “blob” which enabled me to explore the qualities of each archetype.

street

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agora structural Mixed parking Mixed Use Use Cultural Cultural Mixed Center Use Center Mixed Cultural Use Center Cultural Center Floor Floor Height Height Floor Height Floor HeightCost Cost

Cost

Cost

ssrooms Classrooms 8000 8000 8000 $500 $5008000 $500 $500 Tilt-up Tilt-up panels, panels, Tilt-up steel steel panels, frame Tilt-up frame steel panels, frame steel frame 14 ft 14story ft story14 ft story 14 ft $4,000,000 story $4,000,000 $4,000,000 $4,000,000 minarSeminar 4000 4000 4000 $225 $2254000 $225 $225 Including Including Interiors Including Interiors Including InteriorsInteriors 12 ft 12story ft story12 ft story 12 ft story $900,000 $900,000$900,000$900,000 nference Conference 3000 3000 3000 $279 $2793000 $279 $279 Including Including Interiors Including Interiors Including InteriorsInteriors 12 ft 12story ft story12 ft story 12 ft story $837,000 $837,000$837,000$837,000 ditorium Auditorium 8000 8000 8000 $298 $2988000 $298 $298 Precast Precast panels, panels, Precast steel steel panels, Precast frame frame steel panels, frame steel frame 1 story, 1 story, 35 ft 351 ft story, 35 1 story, ft $2,384,000 35 $2,384,000 ft $2,384,000 $2,384,000 eation oor on Recreation Indoor3000 Recreation 3000 3000 $217 $2173000 $217 $217 Insulated Insulated metal Insulated metal panel, panel, Insulated metal steel steel frame panel, metal frame steel panel, frame steel frame 35 ft 35story ft story35 ft story 35 ft story $651,000 $651,000$651,000$651,000 ces Offices5000 5000 5000 $300 $3005000 $300 $300 Curtain Curtain wall, wall, Curtain steel steel and wall, Curtain and glass steel glass wall, andsteel glass and glass 12 ft 12story ft story12 ft story 12 ft $1,500,000 story $1,500,000 $1,500,000 $1,500,000 eteria Cafeteria 2000 2000 2000 $350 $3502000 $350 $350 Including Including Interiors Including Interiors Including InteriorsInteriors 12 ft 12story ft story12 ft story 12 ft story $700,000 $700,000$700,000$700,000 e Cafe 800800 800 $351 $351800 $351 $351 Including Including Interiors Including Interiors Including InteriorsInteriors 12 ft 12story ft story12 ft story 12 ft story $280,800 $280,800$280,800$280,800 ail Retail 5000 5000 5000 $200 $2005000 $200 $200 Precast Precast panels, panels, Precast steel steel panels, Precast frame frame steel panels, frame steel frame 14 ft 14story ft story14 ft story 14 ft $1,000,000 story $1,000,000 $1,000,000 $1,000,000 ultiple) using ple) Housing (Multiple) 25000 (Multiple) 25000 25000 $350 $35025000$350 42$350 42 Units, Units, Decorative 42 Decorative Units,42 concrete Decorative Units, concrete Decorative block, concrete block, steel steel concrete frame block, frame steel block, frame steel 6 story, 6frame story, 11 ft 116floors ft story, floors 11 6 story, ft floors $8,750,000 11 $8,750,000 ft floors $8,750,000 $8,750,000 derground darking Parking Underground 30000 Parking 30000Parking 30000 $98$9830000 $98133133 Cars, $98Cars, Reinforced 133 Reinforced Cars, 133 concrete, Reinforced concrete, Cars, Reinforced cast concrete, cast in place in place concrete, cast in place cast in place 2 story, 2 story, 10 ft 102story ft story, story10 2 story, ft story $2,940,000 10 $2,940,000 ft story$2,940,000 $2,940,000

tal

Total63800 63800 Total

63800 $307 $30763800 $307

$307

tall

The exploration of four basic archetypes (above) pose the big question: which will it be, and why? Koolhaas’s essay “Bigness,” helps to explain why context may or may not be useful given the sheer scale and “critical mass” of any given project. “Bigness replaces the city, it engulfs and engenders placeness.”

This idea led me to explore the project as city.

A place with streets, edges, nodes, verticality, large scales, and monumentality.

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cost/sf sf cost/sfsf cost/sf cost/sf Construction Construction Construction Type TypeConstruction Type Type

long

use

Classrooms Seminar Conference Auditorium Indoor Recreation Offices Cafeteria Cafe Retail Housing Underground Parking

sf sf

campus

$21,002,800 $21,002,800 $21,002,800 $21,002,800

faceted

punched

grided

blob

layered

exterior experience

Week 2 Since the site and program were still a mystery, I was interested in developing a kind of exterior spatial syntax. This was helpful way of developing a series of qualitative edge conditions.

They operated like a “kit-of-spaces,” and were based on the basic gestalt principals described

by Jan Gehl’s and Kevin Lynch’s research. Since we had little to go by (beyond a“20 million dollar budget), I thought the only thing I could do was ask myself, “what type of exterior spaces and edges have I always been moved by?” Each of these vignettes are distillations of what I perceived to be wonderful spatial experiences as they related to Gehl’s and Lynch’s work. They range from plazas in Spain, to alleys in Morocco, to arcades in Virginia and so on. By recording these events I was able to predetermine a series of spaces that could be scenographically choreographed later in the process.

yikes!

monumental

edge studies

arcade

pastoral

arena

ephemera

street

light

intuitive blowout

Week 3 Each frame represents qualitative conditions such as light, form, sequence, etc. They’re intuitive because they were imagined in a vacuum with no regard to context. Much like the way I write music, I began with random sketches that explore ideas around a central theme. Oftentimes, the music is interesting, even lovely, but because it doesn’t support the general theme it goes away. Almost all of this material was edited out throughout the process. For me, it was a great exercise in humility and moderation.

enclosure volume

form

assembly

armature

modularity

systems

structure

sequence

70

great space

quiete space

flux space

intimate

lounge space

67.5

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62.5

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57.5

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27.5

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inside out week 4

The approach of developing dimensional criteria for exterior spaces is applied for interior spaces.

Before embarking on several programmatic or formal studies, I chose to examine the notion of designing “from the inside out” by creating interior criteria as programmatic benchmarks. For example, the frame this text lives in is what I consider an ‘epic’ space that should be near a major entry point as a way of initiating the entry sequence, a portal visible by many on several levels.

Rather than randomly making shapes per ‘concepts’ and then adjusting them slightly to accommodate use, the strategy here is to generate a list of situations, actions, and events that are then candidly matched to comfortable enclosures. With so many appropriate forms for various social uses based on successful precedents, how does an architect know which one to use, and when? I don’t think we do know, all famous architects have made spaces and objects they would later lament. I suppose we have to start somewhere. I suppose this process becomes more coherent as our inquiry deepens and cognitive maps develop.

excise space

eating space

study space 12.5

10

gathering space 7.5

7.5

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5

2.5

2.5

40

37.5

35

32.5

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27.5

25

22.5

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17.5

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12.5

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7.5

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2.5

long

clumpy

campus

100k square feet?

Week 6 The idea was to move from 40 models to 10 to 3 models as a way of editing down while establishing formal narrative about what the project might be about and why. It began to answer the question “what does 100,000 sf look like?”

Each of the first forty models represent a 100,000 sf. That figure corresponded more or less to the budget we were provided. They initially developed in a vacuum without any notions of context or purpose, but the process quickly developed into a “what if” game. What if it’s a street corner, or it’s on a long site, or a small site, or

near tall buildings, or short buildings? After meeting with the instructor it was suggested I picked three diagrams on pure intuition. “Pick the three you like the most,” said Robert. Since I didn’t know anything about the project, I chose to take a cross section of the three most common archetypes with the idea that one, or a combination, might be the most appropriate when the final site and program was provided. Until then, I chose to work with the notion of ‘campus’ to help guide my form development.

Week 8

raised bar on public plinths

This idea explores a building on a city corner lot. It illustrates a combination of earlier diagrams where a civic domain exists within (or under) the building. I was very interested in making sure that I explored various urban scenarios so that I at least understood the problems that it, or similar sites posed (access, parking, height, massing, etc.) This studio was the first time I explored notions of ‘bigness’ in architecture because all previous studios where under 15,000 sf. The configuration explores modular components stacked one on top of another. Large balconies serve as private outdoor spaces. The plinths have large portions of the roof beveled towards the plaza as a way using natural light to brighten an otherwise dark space.

modular bars for economy and redundancy housing academia + commercial

housing tower nestled into the more private, rear end of the site.

theater for public or private functions

day-lit public plaza

cafeteria with deck above

landform with cascading bars

This diagram was developed with the idea of architecture as an extension of the landscape. When brought in to an urban context, the outer bars are treated as program while the center bar is read as void, or in this case, a pedestrian student street for students to gather around and freely circulate. Given the tight conditions this assumes, the interior street is a way of creating a campus feeling. delivery access

coffee shop student ‘street’

campus bookends Auditorium and Library

the private village

This diagram assumes that the project will be sited on a large parcel with few restrictions on form or distribution.

This time, modularity is explored with the idea of creating diversity. Same parts, different solution sets. Each of the housing blocks are identical in plan but are mirrored and or rotated creating un-uniform arrangements which create the feeling that they’re all different without having to be individually designed and built, therefore cutting down on construction costs. The bent floor-plates allow the buildings to arrange themselves along a circuitous path creating a more intimate and exciting campus layout with discrete destinations and foreshortened vistas.

housing over shopping

deciduous shading in for southern climates

green corridor as campus spine

Mail Room

Bicycle Parking

Cafeteria 1300

Student Terrace Mulit-Sport Indoor Recreation Space (Below Grade) 4000

DN

Lobby Desk

Stage & Projection Wall

UP

Ampitheater 125 seats DN

A

UP DN

UP

Gallery 2000

the private village Week 10

This week, “the client” implies that the site is going to be “somewhere in the south” so now the goal is to explore how any given diagram may be influenced by regional or environmental conditions. Additionally, the client wants to add a place for basketball (so far the only certain piece of program!). When I think of the south I

PUBLIC PLAZA

Retail 3100

courtyard think of “cheap real-estate” and the “humid outdoors.” The private village was the most ideal diagram to continue developing because it was large and had a long green corridor. The long ‘mall’ would be an interesting passive cooling devise to explore further.

Rather than assuming that there were no edge conditions and that this was going to be placed on some large open (southern) site, I chose to add two edge conditions to challenge and further develop the previously constructed diagram. Three story buildings wrap around a long narrow imaginary site. How does one maintain a three story walk up, pack a basketball court, and still building 100,000 sf in such

Offices 1300

a tight spot? First, I lifted the site to create an elevated, private courtyard that separated the campus from the city as a means of making students feel as though they where in some ‘other’ environment. Then, I chose to bury the basketball court below the commercial side in order to maintain sufficient space between buildings.

This gained footage and enabled me to keep the buildings low. The court is flanked by a continu-

Pub 1300

ous clerestory to ensure quality day light and to allow passersby to watch and see inside; from either the public sidewalk or internal courtyard.

The courtyard is the key to this plan because it

creates a public realm for students. Deciduous planting helps to shade spaces, maintain cooler temperatures, and connect people to nature in an otherwise urban area with little access toA parks. section

section A

2 Suites 16 Beds 3000

C

B

Bridge

Bridge

2 Bed 100 sf/student

Auditorium 275 Seats 4200

Living Room

Study

Laundry

section B

section C

Offices Conference

Cafeteria

This was one of the most contentious internal discussions I had with myself because as a student I was personally invested in creating good dorm living. As a student who has always lived off campus in apartments, I struggled with the

Gallery Lobby

Retail

notion of living inside 250 square feet. I chose to interview 20 students with dorm life experience and learned that people needed generous architectural affordances such as natural light, defensible spaces that can be personalized,

more bathrooms, storage, good landscaping, privacy, and diverse living arrangements. As a result, each dorm is designed as a highly efficient modular unit like the interior of a sailboat that capitalizes on every surface and void.

Furniture walls double as structural walls, bathroom walls swell and create acoustic sound barriers with additional storage. Furniture walls serve additional functions. Within, they pull inside the box of the room creating more intimacy

Mail Room

and opportunity for varied bed arrangements.

Perhaps more significant to the social life of students, as per interviews, is the fact that the furniture walls create pockets outside each of the dorms which establish ‘community living

rooms’ where students congregate and party.

These spaces would be where students could personalize their ‘living rooms’ as a way of developing a public sense of ownership which is what most students felt they where lacking.

final charrette Week 13 housing

ercial comm

Robert finally unveils the site and program with only two weeks to fully develop from start to finish. Civic center, auditorium for 250 seats, 125 bed dorm, support spaces @ 100,000 sf

AC B e th

First move is to determine what matrix I wanted to develop (clumpy, campus, tall, etc) and I chose to develop a combination of a tower and a lower building to distinguish housing from civic center. The tall housing tower is pushed towards Hereford Street to bring housing closer to the BAC and to pull it away from Gehry’s Virgin Records building so as not to compete.

Second move is to carve out a void along Newbury to create a public plaza. This is the only place on Newbury where the public are finally afforded a place to actually sit without having to spend money! This is also the point of entry for the civic building.

PE I to we r

Third move is to carve out a section of the tower to create some playful dialog with Pei’s tower. More importantly, this allows the floor plan to have an H-formation which I felt was most efficient for laying out dorms because it affords more natural light for each unit.

Final moves include cutting away portions of the civic center to allow natural light into the base of the tower. Later, larger models and plans explored the interior and exterior spatial conditions.

I love this threshold detail because it pulls me into the building!

the tower Week 13

The tower is a stacked H-plan with typical core features in the center. It’s a large faceted box on huge steel and concrete stilts. The stilts wobble about the base-grid and create triangulated surfaces. This feature causes the building to reflect light with varying effect when seen from the city. This de-emphasizes the ‘glass dildo’ considerably and instead draws subtle attention to the structure and order of the building. Universally, occupants are afforded clear views from the ends of corridors and balconies on each end of the H-formation.

structural concept

I was very interested in Norman Foster’s solution and wondered if the surfaces could begin to pull inwards like Foster’s Hearst Tower does about the corners. To the right, I sketched out various patterns that led up to the Hearst Tower solution and then scaled up the structural components. On the opposite page, a small section of the tower is modeled at 1/8 scale to study balconies, the core, structure, and skin.

Nine unit types where developed (four illustrated on the vellum page) which allows the building to have greater marketability should the program ever change from dormitory to housing or hotel use. As a dormitory, the unit matrix creates diverse living arrangements.

Some unites can be doubles, some singles, and there’s also the 2-story loft set for fancier (wealthier) students, and so on.

The structural diagram was developed after I made several incisions into foam models.

Essentially, I built on Norman Foster et al triangulated structural diagram and pushed it one step further by treating surfaces as though they were more landscaped.

N

social node public pedestrian BAC end user

ley

c al ubli

430

ford here

p

w

ry vie

prima

stre et

new

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tree

ys bur

BAC

mas sach

ary

m pri

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vie

u ven tts a

use winter

reet

e

st ton s l y bo

summer

site planning & analysis

Week 14 The ground level pays homage to the city dweller, the aneur, and to the ubiquitous student.

Most of Newbury Street is porous but there isn’t anywhere to sit. The ďŹ rst recess (in red) is a

small, double loaded plaza. One side decidedly public with benches along Newbury, the other private with light land forming and seating facing the building facade. This is the extroverted entrance to the civic building. Meanwhile, the second recess (red blob closest to BAC) marks the entrance to the tower. This is also pulled

back to create yet another, more BAC territorial type, plaza. It is closest to the BAC in order to give students more convenience. The idea is that these areas add to the existing nodes (red dots) and help make the end of Newbury (a procession generally starting from Park) a more eventful

experience. Two small parks soften the urban experience and give people a place to spill out into during summer months. The west park connects to a cafe which is open to the public. The east park connects to the student dorm lobby and creates a nice place for meeting up.

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cardio cardio gymgym

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cafe cafe

student student lobby lobby

alley alley 441441

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gallery gallery

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newbury newbury

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infoinfo

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cafeteria cafeteria

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academia academia

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lounge/cafe lounge/cafe

This building, like any building, is an aggregate of archetypes that span from the earliest of formations to the most recent. Ever changing technologies have enabled us, today and now, to build any formation at any given scale. “So

-4000

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0 10’ 10’ 20’ 20’

the plan

0 10’ 10’ 20’ 20’

In the beginning, Robert asks us to define “the most essential aspect of architecture” and to explain it in spatial terms. I believe that all good architecture arouses our senses, both ocular and tactile. This building is naked, there are pe-

1800

1900

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40’ 40’

what to build,” asks Koolhaas? For obvious reasons, Boston sites the 1800 and 1900 archetypes illustrated below, but not the earlier two. The community will understand this building as an architectural learning center so why not build a building that looks like a cross section of of all time in the history of architecture?

-2000

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2

the form Week 15

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8% ramp 8% down ramp down

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library library + book + book store store

40’ 40’

ripheral vistas in every direction. Wayfinding is intuitive, spaces are richly varied for social functions both small and large. The structure is clear and intelligible. The spatial experience is dynamic because it is obvious and mysterious at the same. Each level is visible from any floor but only enough to provide a small glimpses.

now

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Final Presentation 0

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open

open

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meditation gym meditation gym

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weight gym weight gym

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10’ 0 20’10’

40’

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10’ 0 20’10’

20’ 40’

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projection room projection room

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open open work space work space

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exhibit space

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offices

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studios studiosoffices

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300 seat 300 seat auditorium auditorium

exhibit space

exhibit space 6

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sitting space sitting space shop

shop

mechanical penthouse roof garden over steel decking and waterproof membrane 36” diameter concrete column with steel reinforcement 12’ concrete slab with metal deck built-up floor with mechanical in raised floor secondary fire stair egress vertical steel reinforcement wall sheer wall support system double skin facade typical apartment unit @ 350 square feet operable windows for cross ventilation two tones of glass operable windows for cross ventilation typical loft unit @ 700 square feet mechanical penthouse habitable roof garden over steel decking and waterproof membrane

main auditorium with seating for 700 floating sculptural box clad with horizontal wood banding main public elevator with fire stairs

main gallery and reception space

ramp down towards student lobby