ARCH 101 Learning Por1olio Towers Nicastro-‐Aikman Tues-‐Thursday Jerry Lum
Table of Contents What’s Your Sign………………………………..3 What’s Your Sign V.2 …………………….…..5 A Journey of Discovery……………………….7 Wall of Wonder………………………………….13 Wall of Wonder V.2 …………………………..15 Place of Wonder………………………………..21 Journey to Wonder……………………………27
Journey to Wonder V.2 …………….…….34 Exploring New Building Approaches..40 Exploring Part 2……………………………….42 Exploring Part 3……………………………….44 Group Design…………………………………..46 The Final Form…………………………………48
What’s Your Sign? • This Ice-‐breaker exercise was done to explore each individuals personal traits and characteris[cs that made them who they are. • While thinking about who I was I began to run into some trouble. While not a ques[on o]en pondered upon by myself, but frequently asked, I dug deep to find out who I really was. • Eventually I came to the conclusion that the three traits that characterized me were; curious, adventurous, and determined. • The next challenge was to find out what those specific words iden[fied with and to mash them all together into a sign that accurately portrayed them while working together in unison. • The old saying, “curiosity killed the cat” stuck with me and is what was the focal point of the first itera[on. What personifies curiosity more than a cat?
• The idea behind each trait is shown in the cat • First, curiosity represented by the cat itself. • Second, adventurous by the cat balancing on a box to reach the spheres. • And third, determined by the cat stretching to reach, giving its all.
What’s Your Sign V.2 • For the second itera[on I stuck with the main theme of a cat balancing on a box but changed to the support and the object the cat was reaching to from a set of clear spheres to a balloon mobile. • The main challenge was construc[ng the support frame. With no prior experience making anything of the sorts it was a trial and error experiment. • Doing some research on store front signs, I came to the conclusion that the weight needed to be balanced at each point. So the weight bringing the front down was countered by the top which was then countered by the pressure pushed against the boeom.
A Journey of Discovery A trip to a place with nothing but a camera and the thirst for explora[on. • Star[ng off by my home in the presidio I tried to take no[ce of the things I normally wouldn’t. • The brick clad buildings along with the contras[ng materials line the historic streets crea[ng a warm and invi[ng feeling.
The shadows that sprawl along the buildings create a stark contrast that
Wall of Wonder • The first itera[on of the wall of wonder that started off as a sketch using rapid vis. • The idea was to create a curved wall that engulfed the inhabitant to give them the feeling of security as well as peaked their curiosity. • The original plan was to cover the outside and inside of the wall with small branches to create the feeling of being in a birds nest.
Wall of Wonder V.2 • A]er exploring the idea of what a wall could be through rapid vis I took to sketchup to conceptualize an idea. • A]er seeing what was possible I realized I was limi[ng myself to what I thought a wall was and could be. • Through sketchup I went about crea[ng the wall with an almost gestural approach. Meaning I laid the lines wherever arbitrarily. • I felt in order to elicit wonder I had to first experience wonder.
The challenge I faced most making this model was physical construc[on. Measuring and cuhng accurately was difficult for a beginner which is quite evident by the uneven joints and edges.
The second version of this concept was given more thought as to who and what would be occupying it and how they could explore the area. I thought why limit my design to just appealing to humans curiosity when cats can also get in on the fun. I took the experience I gained from the previous model to [ghten up this one to give a cleaner presenta[on.
Place of Wonder The place of wonder was first brought about using a rough model. For this there was no measuring, just cuhng. If something was cut incorrectly, I used it as inspira[on to see what could be done with the new piece. The part that was most stuck on was the window. Similar to the previous models, the window lacked inspira[on. It was similar to the original problem that I faced where I limited myself to what a wall could be. I limited myself to what a window could be.
What I wanted to focus most on in the new itera[on was to break down the barrier that I had with the windows and create something that laid an interes[ng shadow paeern on the plane below.
Similar to the previous model, this was also done using rough model tac[cs. However, there was more thought that went behind each cut and how each piece could work together to create unity among the structure as a whole.
Journey to Wonder
This model had more direc[on and flow than the previous to give the sense of a journey that a person could take through the structure. The inspira[on behind this were aquariums. This idea for this par[cular model was to be overlooking the ocean so the giant seaweed structure on top would cast shadows over the en[re model as well as the area behind it. The first level was made shorter to give a [ght feeling, almost squished. This is because of the super high pressure at the boeom of the ocean.
The stairs represent a coral reef with the tall geometric pillars suppor[ng the flowing pedals on top.
Companion piece
Journey to Wonder V.2
I took various ideas that people had given me in the previous models cri[que to improve upon within the next itera[on. First was to have the steps align with the different levels to create a stronger sense of unity among the steps. Instead of the pillars under the steps like the previous, I went with a solid wall of [les that created a cave-‐like structure under the stairs. The original plan for the the frames coming from the first floor up and over the second was to create a wave similar to the previous.
Poten[al configura[on between past models
First and most recent models put side to side to show a drama[c improvement and willingness to push boundaries
Exploring New Building Approaches
A]er finishing the walls of wonder we were given the task of crea[ng a space that evokes wonder. Coming into this I felt like my crea[vity tanks had been tapped dry by the constant foam model making every week. I was drawing blanks. What made this task more difficult was taking away glue which made us try to focus on real-‐ life scenarios where glue couldn’t be used. I came up with this idea which was a simple structure that was took inspira[on from birds nests. The idea that straight lines could be posi[oned to create the illusion of curves.
Part 2
This itera[on I tried to focus more on building a more prac[cal structure considering we were going to be building a full sized installa[on in a few weeks.
Part 3
With this I s[ll didn’t have any kind of an idea about where I was going. I was doing precedence research on architectural installa[ons and saw a few with this same rock-‐landscape-‐ sandstone look. I liked the sec[oning style so I decided to try and make an inhabitable space that used that technique. Building this proved to be difficult due to the lack of glue. So I played around with different fasteners. I used nails to connect the separate layers which created a fanning effect which was interes[ng.
Group design
Designing something as a group was difficult. Originally trying to boil everyone’s models into one proved to be unsuccessful. Instead of taking what we liked from each model and throwing it together we finally came up with a model by taking strong ideas and improving and evolving them. We came up with the concept of an “interac[ve Orchestra” consis[ng of a string, percussion, and wind element. The string would be a giant guitar, The percussion; long chimes. The third chamber consis[ng of pvc tubes that would catch wind and resonate the sound to a single area.
The Final Form
Building a full-‐sized structure with very liele construc[on experience between the five of us was a fun task to overcome. The countless bike rides to Lowe’s and campus took a toll on my legs but gehng to build our crea[on and see it come to life gave me enough energy to fight through. Having measured the scaled down models and inpuhng the dimensions into sketchup to iron-‐out any discrepancies, we were ready to start construc[on. We first had to make the pla1orm which the structure would rest on. We built it in the courtyard on a level surface in 3 parts in order to make it manageable transpor[ng it to the hillside. A]er Leveling it on the hillside the frames for the walls had to go up. This is where we had to make so quick decisions about the size of the structure. If we were to keep the original dimensions we would go straight into the trees so we decided to scale down slightly.
A]er the walls went up on the frames the first sound element to come to life were the chimes. Gehng the cross supports angled correctly was difficult because of the double angles. It took a few measurements and a few cuts each [me to get them flush against the wall. We cut the conduit to match the slope of the support which gave a nice tone progression. We chose to create a second entryway for this chamber to create a diversity of pathways one could take throughout the structure.
Next was the guitar. We were all slightly skep[cal about how this would work. A]er toying with different ways to secure the strings and have them [ght enough to produce a tone, a design was created that allowed us to tune the individual strings. At the end of each string there’s a small bearing which we nailed into the 2x4. The ends were [ed to the eye screws and fastened to L brackets. The Final chamber we unfortunately could not complete as we had originally intended. As we came closer and closer to the deadline we started to realize that it was not in our budget and it most likely wouldn’t work like we had originally imagined. We scraped the pvc pipes and came up with idea for having a space for reflec[on. We took that in its most literal sense by fixa[ng mirrors to the walls on the inside so the person experiencing could conclude their journey with a self-‐ reflec[on.
A]er having completed the structure there a s[ll a million “what-‐ifs” going through my mind. In the end I’ve learned that you can’t force crea[vity. It has to come naturally through exploring. Whether you’re exploring books, movies, places, music, anything to s[mulate your mind. I found myself too o]en sihng at my table frustrated trying to think of ideas. I learned to take a step back, explore new things, evoke wonder in myself, come back with a fresh mind and produce beeer than I had before.
Thank you.
Cover picture and pictures on Pg. 50 and 51 taken by George Lin