ZACHARY T Y L ER NEWTON
WORKS
the
Option Studio Spring 2010
2 They are then
“bounded� and centered.
of This studio was sited in Belfast, Norther Ireland, and engaged the Peacelines erected between Catholic and Protestant neighborhoods as a problematic for developing an architectural grammar to express the rhetoric of haunting. The process began with a reading of theoretical texts and a screening of films by Michael Haneke. We also analyzed the peacelines to begin developing a means for engaging the site and its potentially haunted qualities.
1 All peacelines around the city are identified.
City of Belfast with its peacelines.
3 The traces of the centered peacelines are collapsed onto the Crumlin Gate site, creating a field of difference within which to generate the project.
Chipboard and 3D print study model.
"If you want to save life and conjure away the living dead, you must . . . pass through the laborious ordeal of the detour, you must traverse and work on the practical structures. . . Otherwise, you will have only conjured away the phantomality of the body, not the body itself of the ghost." -Derrida
View from inside a shallow path.
5 The site continues to
Enlarged detail, showing the solid intersections shifting away from their centers and the cuts of the trace on the ground. Occupiable ground is green, potentially occupiable ground yellow, and isolated ground orange.
grow as the blighted Crumlin Gate neighborhood shrinks. The incomplete project’s specter looms over the still inhabited portion of the site in the form of the paths’ unrealized ext ensions—opaq ue traces in the central diagram. Abandoned homes are demolished; the paths extend.
Early 3D print study model.
4 The peaceline traces manifest them-
selves within the blighted zones of the site as gashes in the ground. These gashes begin at ground level at each end of the wall, and gradually slope downward toward the midpoint. In the central diagram, depth is indicated by darkness. Where traces intersect—creating moments of local clarity along a path of otherwise increasing obscurity (as one’s field of view passes below the ground plane)—intersections are made solid. These figures are then reflected above ground and shifted away from the site center to reveal their genesis as an intersection.
These fragmented figures become blind switches: objects one attempts to enter to continue on his path. However, they always divert one off his current trajectory to a new one. Portions of the site become inaccessible, forming a third landscape, one that belongs neither to nature Site with blighted zones shaded, demolished row houses marked nor man. as red bars, and abandoned homes as red squares.
MILLER-HELLER HOUSE Zadok the Priest as
First Year Studio Fall 2007
Bottom: complete drawing of the dinner party, containing all sections in their proper spatial relationships; final drawing measures 18� x 184�. Above Left: detail; plan of dinning room redrawn based on the first part of Zadok the Priest.
The first assignment required us to draw the dinning room of this house in plan and elevation, and then prepare and host a dinner party in that space. We then recorded that party and redrew the space based on our method of recording. This is that redrawing.
I recorded the party by noting pieces of music which came to me over its duration. I then used one of these pieces— Zadok the Priest, from G.F. Handel’s Coronation Anthems—to develop a system of architectural drawing arrising from the musical notation of this piece.
Background: detail; elevation of dinning room, redrawn based on the second part of Zadok the Priest. Below Left and Above And Below Right: details; extrapolated system of architectural drawing, originating from figures in the first two sections, drawn to the third part of Zadok the Priest.
M
Cellular Automata Cerdá’s Barcelona in
This studio began with an investigation of the Cerdá block in Bar-
celona, its individual configurations, and how those configurations accumulate to form larger urban conditions. Our analysis was then used to break down the block and develop a media center building, using similar iterative techniques.
Second Year Studio Fall 2008
The studio was led in groups of three, my contribution—presented here (including the title-block graphic design)—began with combinatorial investigations Above/Below: model photographs Opposite Left: of the Cerdá diagram of Left: map of Diagonal neighborblock, their densiCerdá block hood of Barcelona’s Eixample, ties, and their agstrategies morwith site indicated in red. gregations into phing into larger urban gesbuilding analySmall Insets: floor plates of the tures. I then used sis. On the city project distributed on page using this analysis to organizational logic of project. side, organizadevelop an orgational units decrease in size: from the light pink 20x20 block sector, nizational strateto the darker 10x10 block district, gy for the vertical to the darker still 5x5 ward, and elements of the onto the darkest—the individual building (from block. Different programs operstructure to circuate at the scales of each. lation cores and library) and their On the building side, a similar strategy horizontal strucis employed, with solid elements erupting tural connexions. on the grid nodes, from the library core, This organization down to the smallest 10x10 cm columns. then informed the Once again, different programs operate at the difplacement of proferent scales, with the larger nodes more functional gram. and the smaller ones more structural. Both the vertical and horizontal elements are developed according to a programatic and structural algorithim, which governs pure structure, mechanical runs, lavatory cores, circulation cores, dinning cores, and the central library.
PACK UP Plug In: AND
Car Charging away From Home . . .
When
oil has peaked and electric cars become ubiquitous, a charging infrastructure for them will come along for the ride. Often this will be little more than a plug at home or in parking lots outside places of work and consumption. But what about in the wilderness where there are no plugs? Rather than forgo distant and remote travels, they should now be undertaken with less guilt! This thesis proposes a model for self supporting stations serving tourists and adventurers needing a plug and waiting on a charge. Located in the Taiga near the James Bay, where substantial portions of Quebec’s, and even Boston’s power originate, it is a mirage of the city living under and feeding off of the transmission lines powering distant metropolises.
and anything else
the
Site
The map at left attempts to illustrate three places at three scales in one graphic: the contient, the region, and the site. At the continental scale are four major cities, the trace of a transmission line, the nodes where high voltage transmission lines cross roads (see opposite for simplification and image below for context), and an outline. Inset within the outline are three local maps: the site, and two of the locales at the ends of the transmission line— Radisson and Boston—are inset within the line cut corridor. Far right opposite is an exploded detail of this map, showing site and regional references. The line cut suggests distant locations: it is a corridor of projection.
Detail at the local and regional level. The site and its immediate context are in the exploded map. The45 0 kV regional elements operHV DC ate at the continental scale of this map. These include the network of reservoirs supplying power to the major cities shown on the main map, the three primary roads in the James Bay Region, and the regional settlements. s me Ja
Detail of main map, opposite left. The large blue dot is the site. Major locations are shown in relation to each other, the 450 kV DC transmission line between Radisson and Boston, and a network of potential other sites (red dots) where high voltage transmission lines intersect the road network.
y Ba
73 5
ad Ro
AC
St at io n:
kV
RADISSON
Ne xt
55
km
Tr
Tia ans
ga
Roa
d
TRANS TIAGA JUNCTION Charging Station MAX CAPACITIES: charging cars: 80 beds: 40 dinning chairs: 125 cinema seats: 200 tatooing stations: 6
RADISSON Next Station: 544 km
TTR km 141 charging station 525 km to Caniapiscau
charging station 750 km to Montreal via Val d’Or
BOSTON
AC
MATAGAMI
kV
MONTREAL
5
u
73
850 km to Quebec via Chibougamo
QUEBEC
James Bay Road
charging station
450 kV HVDC
NEMASCA
Cut Development
Transmission lines fill cuts in the forest, ignoring all but the most intraversible geographical features as they cut the shortest paths between points of generation and points of distribution. These cuts are ideal sites for charging stations. They are already cleared, and the lines themselves suggest distant travel and remote locations as they slice through the landscape and disappear over the horizon.
Site exerpt from map on previous pages.
1
A patch of forest in the Tiaga . . .
2
. . . is clear cut in a linear swath . . .
3
. . . through which transmission lines run.
Silhouette Generation Line cuts in the wilderness are broad due to free land and a high threat of forest fire.
The diagrams below show the potential evolution of a charging station within the space of a wilderness line cut. Its breadth is filled to create a structure that must be engaged. The orthogonality is a counterpoint to the rolling landscape. This structure is then further developed by the transmission lines passing through and over it.
4
The lines and their cut define an area . . .
5
. . . which is eroded by their electromagnetic field . . .
6
. . . and cut into by each cable.
Project the
In unsettled places without electrical distri-
bution grids, charging stations will not only be capable of charging cars with power they source or produce themselves. They must also be capable of occupying travelers while they wait for their cars to charge, their batteries to be swapped, or while they simply take a break from the very long road. These stations will be desinations unto themselves.
Top image is a peeled section, with elevation in winter on left, melting to summer, then peeling to reveal different aspects of the interior. The red lines in the plan and section correlate, and indicate where the cuts are taken.
Conceptual Section Cut For this station—located over 500 km from civilization
for travelers driving North—cars drive into pods and are literally plugged into a grid to charge. Power is sourced through induction: the building steals its power from the lines above. Formally it evokes turbine halls and citiy skylines, while the program is a projection of the metropolises the lines power so far away. It is a hub of culture in the wild and a destination on its own. One can select a pod for a quick charge, spending a day, or even a night or few.
Building Elements
Devices
Induction Coil: copper coils that wrap the exterior structure of the building. Serves the dual purpose of taking power from the electromagnetic fields of the transmission lines while also protecting the occupants from those fields.
Cores and Gantry Cranes: the central core houses a wide ramp around a void, providing venues for art. The smaller core makes art of the building’s electrical system. The gantry cranes move the pods throughout the structure.
Program Pods: all program—from charing rooms to stairs—exists within mobile pods, which are plugged into a central structural and service spine. Thus the building is almost completely reconfigurable.
Structures
Exterior Structure: contains two layers to support the charging coil on the exterior and the gantry cranes on the interior.
Roadway Conduits: provide points of entry into, and passage through the structure. It is here that vehicles needing a charge will drive into an open charging pod and be picked up by the gantry crane and plugged into the armature.
Pod Armature: the structural and service spine running down the center of the building. All pods plug into and cantilever off of it. They mate with receptacles which provide them with power, heat, and water, while removing waste. It also supports half the load of the gantry cranes. It is structurally robust to resist the strong moment of the cantilevered pods.
Station
from
Above
Drawings of Select Pods Large Charging Pod
Two Story Stair Pod
with
Berths
Pod Structure
and
Movie Theatre Pod
Mating
Section through four bay pod and pod armature. The pod walls are large trusses to support their extreme cantilever.
Pod Variations Charging Shop Theatre Studio Stairs Food Spa Info
Section Rendering
of
Large Charging Pod
Collage
of
Pod
and
Gantry Crane
Rendering of View from Gantry Crane
Rendering
of
Southern Approach
Rendered Overview
Physical Model Overview
Site Overviews
Physical model made of poplar and plexiglas. Poplar site was milled on a three axis CNC router; building was laser cut. Physical Model Overview
Physical Model Overview
Rendering of View from Central Core down Armature Corridor
Rendering
from
Top
of
Central Core Looking Down
Abstract Rendering
of
Central Core, Looking Up