envelope & skin

The possibilities offered by new fabrication technologies permit great freedom to give an organization to material first, which in a second step is conferring a new skin to objects. It seems another evolution with respect to the designs of two dimensional decorations, as one suggests three dimensional surfaces with aspects of dynamic and tactile repetitions of geometries, stimulating effects that often surprise and stir emotions.

Ornament is a part of the world, and it cannot help but but resurface, reinvented, with a strong communicative thrust. (Alessandro Mendini, Writings 2004)

The architectural production of recent decades can be characterized as striving to be autonomous and heterogenous in comparison with the anonymous and homogenous proceedings of a repetition of modern ideals.
You should localize the inherent characteristics in your design process of “repeating with difference”. In this sense one adheres to certain rules of an existing language or an pattern armature, but trangresses the underpinnings of the project referred to.

One precisely needs to define “the problem” to engage into the disciplinary discourse. The discourse of architecture often referred to a series of dialectics such as inside –outside, vertical – horizontal, center – periphery, frontality – rotation, solid – void, point – plane, figure - ground etc..

Note: A close reading of architectural examples (Palladio –villa Malcontenta, Corbusier – villa Garches, Mies – Glass house , Eisenman- Houses 1-10) helps to understand the discourse of other projects. This supports you to understand and delineate your design and clarify your employed formal design strategy.

interior design - furniture

In order to get a feel for the interiors and develop the living-kitchen-dining atmosphere....and also for the masterbedrooms in particular, refer to the links on the side to leading design and furniture companies.

NYC codes

for New york city codes go to:
building code
new construction codes

Draw one typical unit plan of the residential housing projects on the handout. If duplex you need two levels.
scale of drawings 1/100-1/8"

pay attention to:

circulation (stair arrows!) & core (elevator, stairwell)

structure –wall section thickness –columns;

door swings & fenestration

furniture layout illustrating the program

text for detailed explanation of use;

give rough dimensions (unit – rooms)

due mon 25th march, printout on 11x17"

Residential design development

All residential units are duplex.

Max unit height is 20’ for main living areas and outdoor space. Lower areas should be considered with a min. of 10’. Split-level floors are an additional feature and do not replace the duplex condition. South balconies/ terraces max. 7' off building facade.

Penthouse: ~3300 sqft @ 4 bed & 4.5 bath

4 duplex units ~1950 sqft @ 3 bed & 3 bath

3 duplex units ~2700 sqft @ 4 bed 3 bath

(sqft excluding balconies, including covered outdoor space for duplex units with 100 and 200 sqft respectively, excluding separate additional outdoor space which maybe added, penthouse outdoor space not included in sqft)

Public & semi-public areas

develop a concept for the commercial/ retail /gallery and public use of the building on the lower areas.

Commercial/Retail/Gallery use on the building footprint 50’x60’:

1. 1: ground floor with ~2100 sqft gallery space (optional suitable commercial or retail), remaining is for Lobby, reception, elevator, egress stair, mechanical.

2. 2: 2 ^nd Floor and partial 3^rd Floor with ~2000sqft (depends on the actual Highline height). This area is intended to give additional amenities to the residential units in terms of leisure or service. It is planned to be a semi-public area and may give access to the highline.

3. 3: Vacant Space under the Highline along the frontage of the building in length of 60’ should be designed for public or partial commercial use

4. 4: Lot space south of the building should be designed for semi public use of tenants only. This area should offer green and outdoor communal spaces.

Format: sketches & printouts letter size

discussion Monday 18:

The site_in_Chelsea

Site NYC

The site for the project is in Chelsea, the emerging and now “in” district in Manhattan. It developed since the mid 90’s from a pure warehouse and manufacturing district into first art galleries and then small sparks of residential condos catering to the luxury market.

And there is Chelsea market:

One question... HOW ON EARTH HAVE I NEVER BEEN HERE???? I literally stumbled on it... I always thought that the "chelsea market" was an outdoor food market... boy was I wrong!!!! I could live AND die in the space. Wines, Cheeses, Fun gift baskets, Gourmet Candy (AND Candy Corn... Valentine's themed. SO GOOD), Cupcakes, Lobster, and the most amazing urban loft-style decor. I could spend ALL DAY here. RUN, do not walk...

I love this place. Sure there are many tourists, but unlike several fellow reviewers, I didn't feel the "trap" part at all. I did feel trapped by the baby carriages, but those always bother me.

Actually Joni Mitchell's fluttery song does fit this place...sorta...
"Woke up, it was a Chelsea morning, and the first thing that I knew
There was milk and toast and honey and a bowl of oranges, too
And the sun poured in like butterscotch and stuck to all my senses."

Chelsea Market is one of those places where you can take a stroll through so many different atmospheres. You walk into a gritty, redeveloped warehouse with exposed beams, brick, and steel; only to find cute bakeries like Annabelle's and fancy eateries/design stores like 202. Not to mention that the Food Network has a studio here. Must stop here for lunch if you're in the Chelsea area.

Two important first aspectsThe site 510W 19th is right off between 10^th Ave and 11^th Ave and notably the whole block is in the hands of the large Frank Gehry IAC building along Hudson and Shigeru Ban’s building. The east side faces the Highline under development according to the masterplan by Diller&Scofidio

Assigments:
Due Friday 15:

Review the formwork of provocation 1, and the site conditions and develop your proposal for an adapted volume to the site.

Site footprint and height requirements & restrictions according to file provided.

The interior - sublime

….Icon Humor Tribe Beauty Inspiration Happiness Vision Honesty Home Whimsical Expression Love Democratic Hearth Unpredictable Sophisticated Classic Quality Design Playful Nature Welcome Ironic Respect Creativity Tenderness Warmth….

While construction as a technological process is prosaic –deriving directly from a mathematical equation, a functional diagram, or a rule of formal combinations- architecture is poetic, necessarily an abstract order but in itself a metaphor emerging from a vision of the world and Being.

Only by engaging our own imagination (with its inescapable horizon of language, and despite its dangers) can we be truly compassionate. It is our imaginative faculty that allows us to identify with the other, and truly understand her suffering. This entails a very real, yet opaque connection between words and deeds. Alberto Perez Gomez

Narrative and fiction, have always played a role in architecture, not long ago however suppressed through modern architecture. If we think about rituals, even back to religious and ancient mythodologies, mankind tries to understand its condition through symbols and the words described within.
Architecture often is a metaphor for those interpretations and the words become inscribed into its processes and more so into its representation. Architecture affords to be read in those terms.
The architectural narrative in the last century has been replaced for most projects with the mathematical orchestration of a program, nothing but a rational quantification of volumes, sizes, proximities etc..
With this project, it is now the time to revisit the power of the architectural narrative and to establish an association between architecture and fiction.

What is the projected interrelation of spaces to the distinctiveness of means of how we inhabit architecture and even in a larger sense …the world.
You need to accommodate the individual first, but also extend your concept to the larger group, the family, friends…The interior as a place is addressing life and the methods of occupation of space as you would define it.
Think about the recent emerging reflection back to the ritual and the mystic, as it informs architecture.
Get interested into the more intimate territories of life, which includes also the insecurity of life, death, tradition, the family, ceremonies, the richness, rite, secretness... How do we obtain or reconsider a new significance in daily life? How do you see the idea of the modern minimalist open space as opposed to the “house” with a lot of small secret spaces? What about the violence or public exposure through media?

Assigments:

Due Monday 4:

Give a brief written description of the physical and psychological condition of the typology of the person inhabiting the space. Explain through your narrative in how you see “him or her” in relationship to a variety of external conditions. Take notice of the specific environment in which the occupant/s are situated, New York. Your narrative needs to incorporate a vision on how one sleeps, works, eats, uses the bath etc...
Give few words (1-3) in a loose list that describe the atmosphere as you imagine it.
Enhance the narrative through a collage of few images, describing the words.

Due Wednesday 6:Set up a potential time line of the described daily activities, which you then transfer into an abstract drawing.
The following evolution of the drawing into three dimensions inscribes the essence of those activities and time into space.

The type of occupation will be situated somewhere within the construct of exercise 1.

Films: Michelangelo Antonioni, >L’Avventura >Blow-Up >La Notte > Eclipse
Format: printouts letter size & pdf on class server!
Books

Frederick Kiesler, Selected Writings

Frederick Kiesler, Endless Space

Frederci Kiesler, Inside the Endless House

Formwork requirements:

Drawings of the diagrammatic process. These should express the sequential phases of transformation until the final stage. 2D and/or 3D wireframe representation.
Images of the 3D parti models during the process.

Both on separate documents in letter size pdf >digital on server by wednesday 30.
Printouts in 11x17 for review monday 28

Model: on base 30x30x1 cm painted exclusively in white, shades of grey, and few selected parts (references to transformations, grids) in red, by mon 28

"The building evades its cartesian definition: not representing an essential form, but a form of 'becoming'" (P.Eisenman, commentary on the Alteka office building Japan, in Architectural Design Profile, n. 102, p.28)

literature:
Manuel de Landa: The machinic phylum
Libeskind/Balmond: Unfolding
Stan Allen: Diagrams Matter
Tufte: Visual Explanations and Envisioning Information
Eisenman Architects: Diagram Diaries
Eisenman Architects: Selected and Current Works
Giuseppe Terragni: Transformations, Decompositions, Critiques
work of early Eisenman, Hejduk, Judd...

The exterior - formwork

guardiola house eisenman architects

You are asked to design a structure. The contents and purpose of it is unknown. The only information you have is, that it is to house a concept for form, material, light and space.

The structure consists of initially of 50 prismatic volumes. Provide for human occupation in terms of access and perception. Focus on the language of form attained through the a definite structural order, space and material articulation.

Constraints:
Structure with 50 volumes. Each volume has the fixed dimensions of 5m x 5m x 10m (~15’x15’x30’). The 50 spaces must be clearly legible and indexed. The only orientation is vertical.
The surrounding situation is a city with perimeter blocks delineated by four orthogonal lines.

Code:
The way how the form is generated is to be documented explicitly. All transformations applied are to be explained via serial drawings such that each transformation is defined in time and can be traced back or repeated.
There needs to be an index on the formwork surface in a way to code form, transformation and time.

Transformations:
Add
Subtract
Shift
Rotate
fold
Elongate
Compact
Cut
Splice
Warp
Bifurcate
Material:
Metal
Wood
Concrete

Construction:
You model (1/100 or 1/8”) needs to be built in wood, preferably bass wood and painted.
Dates: Jan 14-28

Provocation 1: The exterior - brand

What is a brandspace?


Try to familiarize yourself with the term. As a first step, find an international recognized brand example & product example which illustrates best for yourself this term.

Assigments:
1. Give an example of a typical international brand predominantly from the fashion sector. You are required to explain in a written concise statement, what the term means in todays competitive markets referring to the brand you choose. Why do large companies need to refer to this strategy and how? What means identity for fashion and product design firms? (max. 2000 characters - no spaces, Arial)
2.You are required to give a project report of a building of your choice situated in NYC, which refers to the term brandspace as stated in your description above via its design, in particular exterior facade design and its interior space layout, and exemplifies it. (drawings, images, etc..in printed format)

3.Illustrate further the term brand via a product design of your choice. Research two existing mass produced design objects from the mid -20 th century to today. Furniture perfume fashion objects…What is literal, phenomenal and conceptual expressed in the form.

You will give a class presentation on monday the 14th to move forward the class research on the studio topic-brandspaces
The collected information is to be printed (format: A3, 11x17”) for pinup
And to be made available for the class on the webserver.

Reading: Harvard Shopping guide; Prada part I; Powershop;

ACSA competition

CATEGORY I -ASSEMBLING HOUSING

ACSA website

Luxury manhattan Living

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LuxMANliv is the name of a Design Studio that will explore the potentials of the digital craft for the generation of dynamic organizational structures on the urban and architectural scale. The new relationship between man, natural and virtual environments is the basis of research for the conception of space.

To think the future is to speculate on the inevitable.

Private space, working space and public space will merge into innovative hybrids and investigate the definition of mixed programs for vertical structures. Implemented into a contemporary large, public urban setting in NYC, the project’ effects of luxury program mix, design culture and customized fabrication, play on the recent development concept of upscale residential designer brandhomes. An expanding group of buyers is looking for the unique product to satisfy their quest for luxury and differentiation.

One aspect of the studio is to continue exploring on brandspaces with new ideas and concepts now for vertical density.

The other major interest are innovative living-forms that are both, retreats and social condensers, as can be seen in current live-work developments in the Netherlands that offer common social programs and spaces. The studio takes further into consideration the historical, social and technical context of avant-garde housing experiments in the early 19^th century in Berlin and will use these to influence proposals for the existing urban fabric of Manhattan - New York.