I'm still at school. I'm doing a presentation downtown tomorrow and will miss more than half the day of work, so I need to get something finished tonight.
I've been thinking about the ways I've been culling the ambiguous sectional moments, and decided that it was worth another look. I want to produce another matrix that deals with environment (like envelope, shelter from rain, shelter from sun and accessibility), so I've removed all of the 'envelope' category from the previous group. This means that I don't have as many options, but at this point that is a good thing.
I've re-culled the remaining sections by picking a representative from each kind of combination. If I take them into Maya and loft them, I can then look at how they can address environmental conditions.
Showing posts with label Microarchitectural Articulations. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Microarchitectural Articulations. Show all posts
Wednesday, February 21, 2007
The architect of my own destruction?
I spent a little while last night thinking about what my next step should be for my midterm and I realized that I haven't fully made the transition out of the ambiguous sectional conditions into three-dimensions. I'm still looking for how and why the sections should be assembled.
Since I don't want to apply programs yet and it's also too early for environmental conditions, I thought I would go ahead and do another matrix. I went ahead and culled them, getting a total of 17 conditions, so I'm going to go ahead and cross each of them together and look at what that produces. I can then maybe look at combining them in the x and y direction, adding weather protection, and think about normalizing the slope. There are certain ramifications of altering the product of two conditions to get a 1:12 slope for accessibility, or a steeper slope for seating and I don't want to make those decisions lightly.
On a side note, it's been strange working this week because since it is reading week there are very few people in the studio. Even the keeners seem to be working from home, so it's chilly and a little lonely here.
Since I don't want to apply programs yet and it's also too early for environmental conditions, I thought I would go ahead and do another matrix. I went ahead and culled them, getting a total of 17 conditions, so I'm going to go ahead and cross each of them together and look at what that produces. I can then maybe look at combining them in the x and y direction, adding weather protection, and think about normalizing the slope. There are certain ramifications of altering the product of two conditions to get a 1:12 slope for accessibility, or a steeper slope for seating and I don't want to make those decisions lightly.
On a side note, it's been strange working this week because since it is reading week there are very few people in the studio. Even the keeners seem to be working from home, so it's chilly and a little lonely here.
Tuesday, February 20, 2007
Using and abusing the chosen few
I've culled my ambiguous spatial conditions: I'm down to 15 from 115, so I think that's useful. I started by getting rid of the conditions that only matched one surface (about a quarter of them) and then I sorted the rest into types and picked the most interesting of each type -- there are a couple with two, but in most cases each type has a single example. I'm going to leave the rest of them for now, with the idea that I chose what I found to be interesting, but there is always the possibility of going back to the well, so to speak.
I spent some time today putting together a use diagram for the bus loop area. This is the diagram from FOA's Yokohama Port Terminal:
I spent some time today putting together a use diagram for the bus loop area. This is the diagram from FOA's Yokohama Port Terminal:
This is mine:
Not as interesting, not as dynamic. I'm also not entirely clear how this informs my scale move. I know there are lots of possibilities for things to add: graduation, meeting friends and studying, suntanning and people watching, political meetings. I have a list of all the possible uses, so maybe what I need to do is imagine how many people will want to do each of them at each part of the day. This one starts with the bus loop stuff, which I think is important, but my other use ideas don't really fit with it.
I also need to start looking at what additional factors should be considered in putting together the spatial hubs. Should I make examples that deal with rain/wind/sunlight? There must be a way to integrate shelter without just adding something.
I've been reading some of FOA's stuff today, and my favorite part is the way they use grass to cover slopes over 12%. I think this is awesome, and a great idea to indicate other kinds of uses. I think material fits in here somewhere as well. It's almost environmental: it's more pleasant to sit on a concrete bench in the sun, but a wood bench when it is damp or cold, even if neither of them are wet. So not only should I be arranging ambiguous spatial conditions to protect from/take advantage of sun, rain, wind, cold and hot, but I should maybe also look at what materials can do this.
So maybe I need to start making rules about these things. I have some climate information for Vancouver that shows the percentage of possible daylight hours for months of the year. If there's a 21% chance of sunshine in January, then there is a 79% chance of rain, so almost 80% of the area should be covered or otherwise protected. Maybe I should look at my chosen few to see what parts can also serve as shelter. Yeah, I think I'll do that and get back to you.
Sunday, February 11, 2007
Proxemics III
As much as I have enjoyed reading about proxemics, the time I've spent looking into it is wasted if I can't identify and clearly explain why I think it's related to my thesis. Why should I care how close people like to be to each other?
Well, what have I done since my last committee meeting?
The last time we saw Archigeek's thesis committee, they commented that her site research seemed premature, and that she think about her definition of ambiguity. Her notes suggest she create a 24hr flow diagram of the site and look at scales of occupations, linear propogation and exponential growth.
Well, since my last committee meeting, I have been thinking about definitions of ambiguity. I realized that the microarchitectural articulations (MA's) were not covering enough potential uses, and the way they were derived was unsystematic. I decided that if I was going to seriously consider MA's as a process, I should investigate all the different surface possibilities inherent in the 16 MA's I had created.
Part of the reason I did this was that the MA's were still program driven. Because they came from Architectural Graphic Standards (AGS), they still appeared to be very linked to the uses keyed to different positions of the body. I was also very aware that when I had been putting the MA's together I had been thinking of different programs that they could be applied to.
I then created a matrix that could explore some other possible MA's. I took each of the initial drawings from AGS: ramp, stair, sitting reach, standing reach, reclining angles, facing table, high work counter, and stage and added envelope as it had appeared numerous times in the MA's. I 'bred' each of these 9 sections together: this significantly increased the MA's. As some of the original MA's had three antecedents, I did this a second time to derive second generation MA's.
I now have a full tool kit of sectional moments. Because I bred together all possibilities, some uses work better than others and in some cases the original uses are impossible (or as Team pointed out, extremely dangerous). This is not a problem: in fact, it may even be desireable because it removes program from the sections and reduces them to an investigation of coincidences in surface variation keyed to the human body.
The matrix opens up my definition of ambiguity by allowing each moment to do more than the 2 or 3 AGS that spawned it. They are no longer designed to be ambiguous because the user needs to choose from 2 or 3 possible uses, but because they appear so strange there is no clear use and so the user need to choose from an infinite amount of habitations.
While the matrix has been tremendously useful, the MA's are still stuck as sectional moments. This is where the study of proxemics starts to come into play. While all the AGS have mimum widths (for example, a seat must be 16" or wider to be used as a seat) most do not have maximums. Those that do are linked to material -- they need to be narrow enough for users to slide their legs into the leg space. This is the case for the facing table and the desk.
So what criteria should be used for giving the MA's depth? I don't think that they can be given depth without beginning to program them. Instead, I looked at human spatial bubbles to find what kind of options I have for width. I'm still looking small, so I decided that a group of two people would be appropriate (something that I should also note is that in a study of 7,405 informal groups and 1,458 people working, 71% of all groups were two people). I took three MA's as examples and applied human bubble distances to them to see what happens. It becomes clear that planning for two people who want to be in each others' intimate or personal space is fine, when they wish to remain at a social or public space, density is too low to design for a public space.
This is when I began to look at the strategies people use to withdraw when people are in the wrong zone of their space. Most people are familiar with the phenomenon of the elevator: users look at the moving light panel because they do not wish to make eye contact with people who are standing closer than they would prefer. On buses, riders tense muscles that come into contact with others, don't make eye contact and do not speak when they might otherswise apologize in order to dehumanize (and aid others to dehumanize) other riders. Shutting out people in your bubble of personal space is a lot of effort and quite tiring.
Because the UBC bus loop will accomodate fluctuations in the number of people that will be using the plaza and adjacent spaces, it is inevitable that at some point people will be crowded closer to each other than they would prefer. In order to accomodate this, the space should be designed both sociofugally and sociopetally. In this way, people who wish to exclude others from their personal space could do so using less room than might otherwise be possible, but there would also be opportunities for groups to meet there comfortably. While sociofugal and sociopetal design is often seen as a matter of style, small moves can have an enormous effect.
People will chose adjacencies related to the different ways they are interacting. This can be broken down into three groups: people confront, consort, or coexist. When people are confronting each other, dominancy is unclear. These people will sit accross from each other to better judge facial expressions and body language. When people consort, it happens in two ways. When people collaborate by working on the same project, they will sit next to each other or around the corner of a table so they see the world from the same perspective. When people converse, they wish to see each other's facial expressions and so will face each other.
Most important is when people are coexisting. Most often people who are coexsting will seat themselves in a reciprocal arrangement that is diagonally separated to minimize eye contact. When trains or buses fill up, people who are coexisting will distribute themselves evenly throughout to minimize contact. In the case of a train, territories can be marked by a coat or briefcase.
This information is particularly useful to me because it begins to suggest ways in which MA's could be assembled to permit different kinds of interaction. The UBC bus loop should have space for confrontation, consorting and coexisting. Since there is not enough space for people to avoid entering each other's personal space, MA's should be arranged to allow people to coexist comfortably. One of the ways this can happen is by designing in sociopetal and sociopetal ways. This will allow spaces to remain ambiguous because the ways that people interact are not prescribed, but will be articulated by the combinations of MA's.
Thesis Advisor M remarked that while she liked the MA matrix, it was time to start thinking about making design decisions for specific reasons, instead of trying to find a program that would solve the problem itself (that's program in the computer sense, not the architectural sense). Arranging the MA's sociopetally and sociofugally would be a step towards doing this.
There are pros and cons to this. I'm arguing that the matrix increases ambiguity by combining surfaces while disregarding program and so creates infinite use opportunities rather than two or three use opportunities derived from the AGS. They are so weird it is not a choice of two or three, but a question of if it should be inhabited at all. If this is the case, I don't want to make assumptions about how people will be sitting because it starts to imply that I'm designing for the one or two programs. How can I mediate this problem?
I might just have to bite the bullet and say I'm designing for two or three uses.
Archigeek leaves for a short time for a consult
Team was out getting coffee, but Short Bus thinks that I should use both definitions of ambiguity. While I'm going to design for the uses specified in AGS, it's with the understanding that there are probably many other uses produced by the conjunction of surfaces that I can't control and don't want to. So, ambiguous is defined as 2+ or 3+ forms of occupation.
Also, there are some AGS's I combined that can't have sociopetal or sociofugal design applied to them. The envelope, ramp and stair do not allow inhabitation. In fact, I'm pretty sure the envelope shouldn't even be included, but it's too late now. The ramp and stair are about movement. You can sit on a stair, but you can't sit on the stair portion of a stair/seat, because the seat is defined as the part you sit on. As soon as you sit, the stair becomes a seat.
There are some AGS that already have relationships built in. The stage is designed for public space (near or far). The high work counter and the facing table allow for competing or consorting: while the distance is considered far-personal, I think the table/counter mitigates that relationship and changes it to close-social.
I think I'm going to take a look at the different relationships inherent in the AGS and see if that gets me anywhere.
Well, what have I done since my last committee meeting?
What I have done since my last committee meeting
By Archigeek
The last time we saw Archigeek's thesis committee, they commented that her site research seemed premature, and that she think about her definition of ambiguity. Her notes suggest she create a 24hr flow diagram of the site and look at scales of occupations, linear propogation and exponential growth.
Well, since my last committee meeting, I have been thinking about definitions of ambiguity. I realized that the microarchitectural articulations (MA's) were not covering enough potential uses, and the way they were derived was unsystematic. I decided that if I was going to seriously consider MA's as a process, I should investigate all the different surface possibilities inherent in the 16 MA's I had created.
Part of the reason I did this was that the MA's were still program driven. Because they came from Architectural Graphic Standards (AGS), they still appeared to be very linked to the uses keyed to different positions of the body. I was also very aware that when I had been putting the MA's together I had been thinking of different programs that they could be applied to.
I then created a matrix that could explore some other possible MA's. I took each of the initial drawings from AGS: ramp, stair, sitting reach, standing reach, reclining angles, facing table, high work counter, and stage and added envelope as it had appeared numerous times in the MA's. I 'bred' each of these 9 sections together: this significantly increased the MA's. As some of the original MA's had three antecedents, I did this a second time to derive second generation MA's.
I now have a full tool kit of sectional moments. Because I bred together all possibilities, some uses work better than others and in some cases the original uses are impossible (or as Team pointed out, extremely dangerous). This is not a problem: in fact, it may even be desireable because it removes program from the sections and reduces them to an investigation of coincidences in surface variation keyed to the human body.
The matrix opens up my definition of ambiguity by allowing each moment to do more than the 2 or 3 AGS that spawned it. They are no longer designed to be ambiguous because the user needs to choose from 2 or 3 possible uses, but because they appear so strange there is no clear use and so the user need to choose from an infinite amount of habitations.
While the matrix has been tremendously useful, the MA's are still stuck as sectional moments. This is where the study of proxemics starts to come into play. While all the AGS have mimum widths (for example, a seat must be 16" or wider to be used as a seat) most do not have maximums. Those that do are linked to material -- they need to be narrow enough for users to slide their legs into the leg space. This is the case for the facing table and the desk.
So what criteria should be used for giving the MA's depth? I don't think that they can be given depth without beginning to program them. Instead, I looked at human spatial bubbles to find what kind of options I have for width. I'm still looking small, so I decided that a group of two people would be appropriate (something that I should also note is that in a study of 7,405 informal groups and 1,458 people working, 71% of all groups were two people). I took three MA's as examples and applied human bubble distances to them to see what happens. It becomes clear that planning for two people who want to be in each others' intimate or personal space is fine, when they wish to remain at a social or public space, density is too low to design for a public space.
This is when I began to look at the strategies people use to withdraw when people are in the wrong zone of their space. Most people are familiar with the phenomenon of the elevator: users look at the moving light panel because they do not wish to make eye contact with people who are standing closer than they would prefer. On buses, riders tense muscles that come into contact with others, don't make eye contact and do not speak when they might otherswise apologize in order to dehumanize (and aid others to dehumanize) other riders. Shutting out people in your bubble of personal space is a lot of effort and quite tiring.
Because the UBC bus loop will accomodate fluctuations in the number of people that will be using the plaza and adjacent spaces, it is inevitable that at some point people will be crowded closer to each other than they would prefer. In order to accomodate this, the space should be designed both sociofugally and sociopetally. In this way, people who wish to exclude others from their personal space could do so using less room than might otherwise be possible, but there would also be opportunities for groups to meet there comfortably. While sociofugal and sociopetal design is often seen as a matter of style, small moves can have an enormous effect.
People will chose adjacencies related to the different ways they are interacting. This can be broken down into three groups: people confront, consort, or coexist. When people are confronting each other, dominancy is unclear. These people will sit accross from each other to better judge facial expressions and body language. When people consort, it happens in two ways. When people collaborate by working on the same project, they will sit next to each other or around the corner of a table so they see the world from the same perspective. When people converse, they wish to see each other's facial expressions and so will face each other.
Most important is when people are coexisting. Most often people who are coexsting will seat themselves in a reciprocal arrangement that is diagonally separated to minimize eye contact. When trains or buses fill up, people who are coexisting will distribute themselves evenly throughout to minimize contact. In the case of a train, territories can be marked by a coat or briefcase.
This information is particularly useful to me because it begins to suggest ways in which MA's could be assembled to permit different kinds of interaction. The UBC bus loop should have space for confrontation, consorting and coexisting. Since there is not enough space for people to avoid entering each other's personal space, MA's should be arranged to allow people to coexist comfortably. One of the ways this can happen is by designing in sociopetal and sociopetal ways. This will allow spaces to remain ambiguous because the ways that people interact are not prescribed, but will be articulated by the combinations of MA's.
Thesis Advisor M remarked that while she liked the MA matrix, it was time to start thinking about making design decisions for specific reasons, instead of trying to find a program that would solve the problem itself (that's program in the computer sense, not the architectural sense). Arranging the MA's sociopetally and sociofugally would be a step towards doing this.
There are pros and cons to this. I'm arguing that the matrix increases ambiguity by combining surfaces while disregarding program and so creates infinite use opportunities rather than two or three use opportunities derived from the AGS. They are so weird it is not a choice of two or three, but a question of if it should be inhabited at all. If this is the case, I don't want to make assumptions about how people will be sitting because it starts to imply that I'm designing for the one or two programs. How can I mediate this problem?
I might just have to bite the bullet and say I'm designing for two or three uses.
Archigeek leaves for a short time for a consult
Team was out getting coffee, but Short Bus thinks that I should use both definitions of ambiguity. While I'm going to design for the uses specified in AGS, it's with the understanding that there are probably many other uses produced by the conjunction of surfaces that I can't control and don't want to. So, ambiguous is defined as 2+ or 3+ forms of occupation.
Also, there are some AGS's I combined that can't have sociopetal or sociofugal design applied to them. The envelope, ramp and stair do not allow inhabitation. In fact, I'm pretty sure the envelope shouldn't even be included, but it's too late now. The ramp and stair are about movement. You can sit on a stair, but you can't sit on the stair portion of a stair/seat, because the seat is defined as the part you sit on. As soon as you sit, the stair becomes a seat.
There are some AGS that already have relationships built in. The stage is designed for public space (near or far). The high work counter and the facing table allow for competing or consorting: while the distance is considered far-personal, I think the table/counter mitigates that relationship and changes it to close-social.
I think I'm going to take a look at the different relationships inherent in the AGS and see if that gets me anywhere.
Friday, February 9, 2007
Prepping the TCM II
TCM being, of course, Thesis Committee Meeting.
I've been working on what I've been calling 'active axos'. I've taken the sectional moment drafted in AutoCAD and applied depth to it. Because the microarchitectural articulations (MA's) are still unrelated to program, the active axos illustrate the different depths associated with different levels of use.
So what I've done is chosen three (so far) MA's, and recreated them in Maya. They start with a thickness of 1", to show that they are derived from the sections. Right now, they are all the same colour, but it might be useful to show the different Graphic Standards sources in different colours. After 1", they change over 10 frames to the minimum spatial requirements for each Graphic Standard to be used by one person. In the next 10 frames they change to comfortable spatial requirements for one person. Frames 20-30 make the GS wide enough to be used by more than one person. Frames 40-50 show other: in some circumstances (like stairs and seats) it gets wider, the facing table gets access because it's limited to how far people will slide into the benches, etc. etc.
I've been thinking about the active axonometrics as the equivalent to a quadratic equation, and while I think they start out like that, they aren't showing as much information as I want them to. I'm not going to do that many, certainly: I thought 5 would be sufficient to show what I'm thinking. But while they start out great, there is something that just isn't working.
I need to sort this out before the end of the weekend because I need to put a presentation together for Tuesday. What's missing? What have I taken for granted that can be pulled apart to show something interesting?
I've been working on what I've been calling 'active axos'. I've taken the sectional moment drafted in AutoCAD and applied depth to it. Because the microarchitectural articulations (MA's) are still unrelated to program, the active axos illustrate the different depths associated with different levels of use.
So what I've done is chosen three (so far) MA's, and recreated them in Maya. They start with a thickness of 1", to show that they are derived from the sections. Right now, they are all the same colour, but it might be useful to show the different Graphic Standards sources in different colours. After 1", they change over 10 frames to the minimum spatial requirements for each Graphic Standard to be used by one person. In the next 10 frames they change to comfortable spatial requirements for one person. Frames 20-30 make the GS wide enough to be used by more than one person. Frames 40-50 show other: in some circumstances (like stairs and seats) it gets wider, the facing table gets access because it's limited to how far people will slide into the benches, etc. etc.
I've been thinking about the active axonometrics as the equivalent to a quadratic equation, and while I think they start out like that, they aren't showing as much information as I want them to. I'm not going to do that many, certainly: I thought 5 would be sufficient to show what I'm thinking. But while they start out great, there is something that just isn't working.
I need to sort this out before the end of the weekend because I need to put a presentation together for Tuesday. What's missing? What have I taken for granted that can be pulled apart to show something interesting?
Thursday, February 8, 2007
UBC Statistics
Here are some things that may affect the spatial requirements of Microarchitectural Articulations:
Statistics Canada says that in Regional District Electoral Area A, 83.4 % of the populations is over 18. This means that I can stick to adult size articulations for design.
The report I got from Properties Trust says that at some times over 800 students are waiting for the B-Line. 4,500 people get off the bus between 9:00 and 10:00. The total UBC population in 2005 was 53,300.
This University Town brochure forecasts 10,700 University Town and Hampton Place residents in 2021, and 10,200 other campus residents in student residences and graduate housing. The projected future population is 20,900.
With this in mind, I think I'm going to design a space for certain ranges of people: 0-10, 10-25, 25-50, 50-100, 100-200, and 200-500 (I may not design for all of them, but instead pick a couple to investigate options)
It looks like the variations in size of people are negligeable, so I'm not going to worry about size fluctuations affecting use. The articulations are supposed to be ambiguous anyways, so while short people might have to find a different way to use them it should still be possible.
Statistics Canada says that in Regional District Electoral Area A, 83.4 % of the populations is over 18. This means that I can stick to adult size articulations for design.
The report I got from Properties Trust says that at some times over 800 students are waiting for the B-Line. 4,500 people get off the bus between 9:00 and 10:00. The total UBC population in 2005 was 53,300.
This University Town brochure forecasts 10,700 University Town and Hampton Place residents in 2021, and 10,200 other campus residents in student residences and graduate housing. The projected future population is 20,900.
With this in mind, I think I'm going to design a space for certain ranges of people: 0-10, 10-25, 25-50, 50-100, 100-200, and 200-500 (I may not design for all of them, but instead pick a couple to investigate options)
It looks like the variations in size of people are negligeable, so I'm not going to worry about size fluctuations affecting use. The articulations are supposed to be ambiguous anyways, so while short people might have to find a different way to use them it should still be possible.
Research...
I've spent the last few days completing my matrix of Microarchitectural articulations (MA's). I'm now the architect of my own Matrix! Hooray!
I now have 115 iterations. The first generation is made up of Architectural Graphic Standards crossed with Architectural Graphic Standards and second generation is Architectural Graphic Standards crossed with the first iteration. I love the way the graph looks and I'm happy about finishing it.
The next step is applying some depth to these moments. Right now they are cool, but still very diagrammatic. The problem is that I don't have any guiding principles for what kind of depth should be used: I have a couple of plan views from Architectural Graphic Standards that show the right depth for a single person sitting, working at a desk and walking, and I also have information for more than one persone. The issue is that I have not yet assigned program to each of the moments. Since I don't know what each one of them is going to do I can't assign depth based on that. Instead, I'm going to put together a list of all the variable factors that could influence the depth of each section and create an equivalent of a quadratic equation for a couple of key articulations.
I have my toolbox of sections, and it's time to think about applying them to a site. While I'm not ready to look at the physical requirements of space, I think it's reasonable to think about site issues that affect design.
So, what are the variables that affect the three-dimensionalisation of these sectional moments?
I now have 115 iterations. The first generation is made up of Architectural Graphic Standards crossed with Architectural Graphic Standards and second generation is Architectural Graphic Standards crossed with the first iteration. I love the way the graph looks and I'm happy about finishing it.
The next step is applying some depth to these moments. Right now they are cool, but still very diagrammatic. The problem is that I don't have any guiding principles for what kind of depth should be used: I have a couple of plan views from Architectural Graphic Standards that show the right depth for a single person sitting, working at a desk and walking, and I also have information for more than one persone. The issue is that I have not yet assigned program to each of the moments. Since I don't know what each one of them is going to do I can't assign depth based on that. Instead, I'm going to put together a list of all the variable factors that could influence the depth of each section and create an equivalent of a quadratic equation for a couple of key articulations.
I have my toolbox of sections, and it's time to think about applying them to a site. While I'm not ready to look at the physical requirements of space, I think it's reasonable to think about site issues that affect design.
So, what are the variables that affect the three-dimensionalisation of these sectional moments?
- Amount of people in the space: The UBC bus loop has busy times and quiet times. How many people are in this space at maximum occupancy? How do their physical needs vary from the needs of people at minimum occupancy?
- Demographics of people using space: While the UBC bus loop is used primarily by students, there are some exceptions to this and I need to know what they are. Since the moments are based on human dimensions, variations in people should equate to variations in design.
There must be more than these two, but I'll start with them and see if anythin interesting comes up.
Saturday, February 3, 2007
February!
The past couple of days have been short on posts because I've gone back to the CAD work. I've put together a matrix that allows me to track which Architectural Graphic Standards I've crossed and what the result is. I've also put together some images that show this lineage a little more graphically. Unfortunately, I can't get them to post properly.
I've devoted a fair amount of time to 'breeding' microarchitectural articulations (MA's) and now have 31 first generation (that is, two Architectural Graphic Standards (AGS) images combined) and 13 second generation (from a 1st generation MA and AGS combined) for a total of 44. Considering I started with 12, I'm pleased.
I'm creating these to get a 'kit of parts': the next step will be applying 'thickness' to the sections with the plan information from AGS. I would like to get this done before I speak to Mari on Tuesday, but I should be fine if I have enough work to show the general idea.
I've devoted a fair amount of time to 'breeding' microarchitectural articulations (MA's) and now have 31 first generation (that is, two Architectural Graphic Standards (AGS) images combined) and 13 second generation (from a 1st generation MA and AGS combined) for a total of 44. Considering I started with 12, I'm pleased.
I'm creating these to get a 'kit of parts': the next step will be applying 'thickness' to the sections with the plan information from AGS. I would like to get this done before I speak to Mari on Tuesday, but I should be fine if I have enough work to show the general idea.
Wednesday, January 31, 2007
Useful terms
I'm back at the DS looking for inspiration. I read too fast to absorb properly, so usually when I'm looking through something I write down key quotes to think about. Since this is where I'm taking any thesis notes, in this post I'm quoting... myself. Weird.
Flexible space can encourage possibilities that the architect may not necessarily be aware or in control of (abstract)
Microarchitectural articulations are a mechanism to combine flexible and programmed space (abstract)
NB: For my next presentation, it's probably a good idea to start with the abstract to my DS. Some useful terms...
Ambiguity: When a form can be read in many different ways
Articulated space: designed space that uses small-scale details or variations to indicate possible programmatic use
Articulation: a detail added to a building that shows how a building can be used
Flexible Space: space that is able to perform in different ways depending on what is required
and who will be using it. Has an indifferent relationship to the spatial sequence.
Inflection: how the parts of an object relate and the relationship of the whole to its setting.
Interpretable: when something can be read in many different ways.
Microarchitectural Articulation: A human scaled and ambiguous mechanism that allows users to inhabit spaces in a variety of ways that appropriate to a program momentalso the relationship between two surfaces
Neutrality: the result of too much flexibility: tolerable for all but not right for any single user.
Specificity: when programs are so ingrained in space design the space cannot be used for another program.
Flexible space can encourage possibilities that the architect may not necessarily be aware or in control of (abstract)
Microarchitectural articulations are a mechanism to combine flexible and programmed space (abstract)
NB: For my next presentation, it's probably a good idea to start with the abstract to my DS. Some useful terms...
Ambiguity: When a form can be read in many different ways
Articulated space: designed space that uses small-scale details or variations to indicate possible programmatic use
Articulation: a detail added to a building that shows how a building can be used
Flexible Space: space that is able to perform in different ways depending on what is required
and who will be using it. Has an indifferent relationship to the spatial sequence.
Inflection: how the parts of an object relate and the relationship of the whole to its setting.
Interpretable: when something can be read in many different ways.
Microarchitectural Articulation: A human scaled and ambiguous mechanism that allows users to inhabit spaces in a variety of ways that appropriate to a program momentalso the relationship between two surfaces
Neutrality: the result of too much flexibility: tolerable for all but not right for any single user.
Specificity: when programs are so ingrained in space design the space cannot be used for another program.
Key Quotes
Design with microarchitectural articulations can take various forms. Simple repetitions of the iteration create a field that can form space in different ways. The microarchitectural articulations can also be arranged with regards to overlapping programs.... This combination of surfaces affects how adjacent spaces are used and this will in turn drive the development of the entire building.
My DS, in the architectural articulations appendix, provides a kit of articulations that can be assembled to produce architecture. I'm clear on how to create the sectional moments. I look in the ergonomic section of Architectural Graphic Standards for similar distances in dissimilar situations (for example, the height of a seat can be equal to the height of three stairs) and use the numbers in common to juxtapose two different uses/needs together. Then I try to imagine some different ways that people could occupy this juxtaposition. In some cases I also include the envelope and look at ways people can interact with envelope openings and how open or closed windows can affect the use of a surface.
Microarchitectural articulations can be used as devices to determine the building form or designed space. By combining surfaces in specific ways designers can create elements that drive the design of a building as a whole and meet the requirements of users.
The current issue is while I have this kit of really interesting and great parts, I don't have any guidelines about how to put them together. My DS is heavily process based, and the process is that I start with a small scale object and work larger until I finally create something that can have a program and/or site assigned to it. Because of this, even kids with piles of Lego are ahead of me: they know what they want to make. I can't know what I want to make because of this. Instead, I need to assemble iterations and look at what they could be used for.
If the driver of a building form is a small scale move that is applied coherently throughout the project and that addresses the problems inherent to that type, the final form of the designed space evolves naturally from this combination of parts.
Naturally? Good grief. The small scale move in questions, is (of course) the variation of surfaces that I have designed, so the quote could read as "the driver of this building for is variations of surfaces based on relationships to the human body that are applied coherently throughout the project and addresses problems inherent to transit loops". In that case, I need to look at problems inherent in transit loops.
Because there is no clear way to inhabit (the mechanism), users feel free to assign their own meaning and to use them in ways that fit their requirements.
Heh. So I have to practice being obscure. It's SUCH a shame that NLMLN wouldn't join my committee. He's great at that. Anyways, the idea is that the surfaces need to be scaled to suggest some kind of occupation but the users don't know exactly what so they fill in the blanks with their own ideas. My DS outlines three ways for this to happen: one is the repetition of a single shape, another is by overlapping programs, and the third is by creating nodes or hubs of use with programs that spill out into generic space around them.
The theory behind microarchitectural articulations is that surfaces that are arranged to encourage contact with users and perform in different ways will begin to define space ambiguously. Inhabitants can supply their own possibilities for the use of surfaces which can act as seats, tables, desks and stairs. Use varies depending not only on the preference of the inhabitant, but also on surrounding activities in the space.
This is starting to talk about overlapping programs. And that is fine: I think this could be one of the keys to this project. While I'm not ready to stick some thing on part of a site, I can identify different programs that could occur in the SUB Plaza/transit hub/retail area and look at which ones could be usefully overlapped. There is also the possibility of looking at different use patterns throughout the day. There will always be some people sitting around the SUB, but in the morning most students rush through the space to class and don't need to sit down, at lunch they want to eat, read, study and hang out with friends, in the afternoon there will be people moving into the underground bus loop and reading/studying/meeting friends, and in the evening people will want to use the space either for eating, gathering or just to pass through. This is why I picked this site: because so many different things happen there throughout the day.
My DS, in the architectural articulations appendix, provides a kit of articulations that can be assembled to produce architecture. I'm clear on how to create the sectional moments. I look in the ergonomic section of Architectural Graphic Standards for similar distances in dissimilar situations (for example, the height of a seat can be equal to the height of three stairs) and use the numbers in common to juxtapose two different uses/needs together. Then I try to imagine some different ways that people could occupy this juxtaposition. In some cases I also include the envelope and look at ways people can interact with envelope openings and how open or closed windows can affect the use of a surface.
Microarchitectural articulations can be used as devices to determine the building form or designed space. By combining surfaces in specific ways designers can create elements that drive the design of a building as a whole and meet the requirements of users.
The current issue is while I have this kit of really interesting and great parts, I don't have any guidelines about how to put them together. My DS is heavily process based, and the process is that I start with a small scale object and work larger until I finally create something that can have a program and/or site assigned to it. Because of this, even kids with piles of Lego are ahead of me: they know what they want to make. I can't know what I want to make because of this. Instead, I need to assemble iterations and look at what they could be used for.
If the driver of a building form is a small scale move that is applied coherently throughout the project and that addresses the problems inherent to that type, the final form of the designed space evolves naturally from this combination of parts.
Naturally? Good grief. The small scale move in questions, is (of course) the variation of surfaces that I have designed, so the quote could read as "the driver of this building for is variations of surfaces based on relationships to the human body that are applied coherently throughout the project and addresses problems inherent to transit loops". In that case, I need to look at problems inherent in transit loops.
Because there is no clear way to inhabit (the mechanism), users feel free to assign their own meaning and to use them in ways that fit their requirements.
Heh. So I have to practice being obscure. It's SUCH a shame that NLMLN wouldn't join my committee. He's great at that. Anyways, the idea is that the surfaces need to be scaled to suggest some kind of occupation but the users don't know exactly what so they fill in the blanks with their own ideas. My DS outlines three ways for this to happen: one is the repetition of a single shape, another is by overlapping programs, and the third is by creating nodes or hubs of use with programs that spill out into generic space around them.
The theory behind microarchitectural articulations is that surfaces that are arranged to encourage contact with users and perform in different ways will begin to define space ambiguously. Inhabitants can supply their own possibilities for the use of surfaces which can act as seats, tables, desks and stairs. Use varies depending not only on the preference of the inhabitant, but also on surrounding activities in the space.
This is starting to talk about overlapping programs. And that is fine: I think this could be one of the keys to this project. While I'm not ready to stick some thing on part of a site, I can identify different programs that could occur in the SUB Plaza/transit hub/retail area and look at which ones could be usefully overlapped. There is also the possibility of looking at different use patterns throughout the day. There will always be some people sitting around the SUB, but in the morning most students rush through the space to class and don't need to sit down, at lunch they want to eat, read, study and hang out with friends, in the afternoon there will be people moving into the underground bus loop and reading/studying/meeting friends, and in the evening people will want to use the space either for eating, gathering or just to pass through. This is why I picked this site: because so many different things happen there throughout the day.
Surfaces arranged to encourage inhabitation but maintain ambiguity can manifest in many different ways and so be applied to a wide vareity of problems. These variations are schematic ideas of how surfaces can relate to promote different kinds of inhabitation by users. The surfaces have multiple uses and proportions to encourage invention by users. Combining two or more moments of articulation begins to create space.
This makes it more clear what I need to do. Just like I have the kit of parts of MA's, I need to assemble a kit of parts of MA assemblies that I can plug into certain situations. This is where I start to disagree with my previous stuff. I talk about how you can get combinations of MA's through thinking about what programs need to go together and assembling MA's to suit. What I should do is look at the MA's the same way as I looked at the ergonomic drawings in Architectural Graphic Standards. What surfaces are the same distance apart? What can they create? Obviously the possibilities are endless. It also means that instead of designing for program I am programming for design. But it isn't irresponsible form making (a la F Gehry) because the initial idea is linked to the human body.
Wow. That's a pretty exciting idea. I've got it written down here and in my sketchbook, so I can move on. So let's say I assemble these combinations. Each one has one or two ancestors in the previously designed MA's and is documented through this. I eventally assemble enough to produce hubs of use.
Hubs provide ambiguous program suggestions and define adjacent open spaces.... They create opportunities for use of spaces because users can apply their own meaning not just to one surface but also to the room as a whole.
At what point to MA combinations begin to respond to program? I think that I need to assemble a full toolkit -- everything from the simple sections, to hubs that are 3 or 4 generations removed from the sections -- and then I can start to think about how they are assembled. Is that where program comes into play? The spaces do need to begin to consider program, but I don't want to do it too soon.
(Hubs can) provide prgrammatic generators for space. It can act as a stage, a seat and a central point... Because it is unexpected users apply their own ideas to it. If (it) were unarticulated many of these different activites would not be possible. ...It is best if the articulation that limits possibilitieis is ambiguous and so can support a number of different uses.
Articulations become a mechanism for designs that allow the architect to investigate ways users can inhabit space to enliven a building. At the same time, because the microarticulations are iterations of a single idea they solve different problems in different ways. It makes it possible for variations of a single idea to solve many different spatial problems and so create fine-grained spaces that fit the evolving needs of a building. By using assemblies of iterations... and applying the concept of hubs, designers can use micrarchitectural articulations to design buildings with many different kinds of programs.
Stall
My meeting yesterday with my Thesis Committee pointed out that I've been a little off track in the past few weeks. Instead of getting into site, they suggested, I should really be looking at how microarchitectural articulations (MA's) can be formed. Big D made it clear that if I want to do bottom up design I need to start and stay small for a little while, which means no site for a while. She had some really great comments: she suggested I think about the Eames 'Powers of Ten' movie.
I had a postmortem lunch with E (who, having edited my DS is au fait with my arguments) and we discussed what my next move should be. We both think it's a good idea to go back to the small stuff and to think about what kinds of parameters are appropriate for the MA's. If I am going to argue that MA's can serve multiple purposes, I need to nail down my definition of ambiguity. D also suggested that I reread my DS to think about how I can apply it, so I'm going to spend some time today doing that and maybe I'll have a brainwave.
I had a postmortem lunch with E (who, having edited my DS is au fait with my arguments) and we discussed what my next move should be. We both think it's a good idea to go back to the small stuff and to think about what kinds of parameters are appropriate for the MA's. If I am going to argue that MA's can serve multiple purposes, I need to nail down my definition of ambiguity. D also suggested that I reread my DS to think about how I can apply it, so I'm going to spend some time today doing that and maybe I'll have a brainwave.
Monday, January 29, 2007
Committee Prep II: Presentation Boogaloo
Well, it's definately useful to write down everything that I know. Unfortunately, that doesn't always translate into a good presentation. What will make a good presentation is a concise & succinct presentation of what I know.
Since that may not come through, here is a list of what I need to do for tomorrow at 5:45.
Since that may not come through, here is a list of what I need to do for tomorrow at 5:45.
- Outline DS project. Pick a couple of precedents and a couple of microarchitectural articulations (MA's) and describe how they work.
- Outline site. Show current site and proposed site, including new renders of SUB plaza and transit hub. Describe Properties Trust's ideas for SUB plaza mall.
- Outline program. Explain the need for a space that slows the flow of students to the bus loop.
- Look at design obstacles/opportunities. This should include: rents required to pay for part of hub, grade change over site, daylighting, comfort and keeping students dry, requirement for 'liveliness'.
I need to do this whole presentation in 20 slides or less and keep it to required information. I know more about this site than anyone on my committee, and I want to make sure that I don't overwhelm them because I know so much.
I'm not yet clear on the best way to organize this information. Is it better to start with the MA's and then talk about site/program and design obstacles? Or should I start out with the site and design problem and suggest that MA's are a good solution for it? I guess I'll start out trying to describe MA's and then I can stick that portion of the presentation wherever it seems to fit best.
Friday, January 19, 2007
Where some things change while others stay the same.
So I've been thinking about yesterday's discussion of rates of change, and wondering if a good program would be one that has a couple of different rates of change. One example of this is a shopping centre: the retail spaces are frequently remodeled while the corridors remain basically the same. I'm not sure if a shopping centre would be a good program for microarchitectural articulations, but the idea of a building that supports different rates of change seems interesting.
I also missed a couple of programs that have high rates of change:
I also missed a couple of programs that have high rates of change:
- Schools and/or daycare centres: very busy from 9-5, unused the rest of the time
- Train stations/ferry terminals: very busy when people are waiting.
I was going to make that list a little longer, but I think that train stations/ferry terminals seem like an interesting place to start. In Vancouver there are a number of different places passengers wait for transportation.
- Ferry terminal at Duke Point
- Ferry terminal on North Shore
- Greyhound Bus Terminal on Terminal Avenue and Main Street
- Seabus/Skytrain/WestCoast Express station at Waterfront Station
- Seabus at Lonsdale Quay
- Skytrain/bus at various Skytrain stations (the most famous is Brentwood Station)
- Skytrain/Skytrain at Broadway Station
- UBC Bus Loop
I think most of these designed spaces have pretty much the same requirements.
Since we have been asked to do programs/sites on UBC campus, I think that the most useful site/program to investigate is the UBC bus loop. What are the pros and cons of this?
Pros:
- A bus loop/station needs seating that is extremely durable and resistant to wear
- There are significant variations in use during the day
- The proposed bus loop is underground, which will provide lots of opportunity for sectional variations that support MA's
- The programmatic use of a bus loop is unlikely to change frequently. Partitions won't go in as user requirements change.
- A large bus loop will need small scale articulations to give a human scale
- There are many opportunities to add other programs to the site, like small shops and other things that might need a large covered space
- The very specific requirements of a bus loop might make it easier to generate architecture
- Vancouver already has a history of allowing architects to design transit stations (like the Millenium Line Skytrain stations)
What are the cons?
- The program does not change significantly in the life of the structure. A bus loop is unlikely to be used for anything else and I would be reluctant to design for that.
- A bus loop would have to deal with issues of homelessness and skateboarders. I like skateboarders and I think they can be very useful in activating a space, but they can make other users of areas very uncomfortable because it is possible they could hit other users.
- Lighting and structure would be very important and I'm not sure how to tie this in with the MA's.
All in all, a new bus loop at UBC sounds like it could actually be a feasible option for program/site. Hooray! All I need now is a third member of my thesis committee, some site research, a list of dates for committee meetings, some help with structures..... well, an awful lot of stuff. But still, hooray!
Thursday, January 18, 2007
Rates of change
So, yesterday I determined that I need to find the right program and site to showcase the MA's, and one of the ways to do this is to find a site that has a lot of programmatic variation. I thought about programs that vary from day to day, hour to hour, and seasonally. Unfortunately, while I am interested in buildings that vary from year to year it is not possible for me to forecast what program will exist in a building in the future, so I can't use it as a design criteria.
The speed of variation seems to be an important factor, and it ties into my argument. Adam Greenfield has an interesting article that talks about different rates of change in designed objects. Buildings have a number of layers that change at different rates from furniture that can be frequently changed with little expense, to foundations and structure that change infrequently because they are so complex and expensive. Fashion is one of the designed objects that changes the fastest because it is a badge that displays how how close the wearer is to the cutting edge: when the majority of people are wearing something, the trendsetter has moved on to prove that they have financial and stylistic access to the very newest.
My interest in this article is because I think I need to locate where microarchitectural articulations fit into this rate of change to get a better idea of what kind of program would best showcase what MA's are good at doing.
What is the rate of MA's? What is the rate of change in the building around them? How do the different parts interact?
Buildings can break down into the following rates of change:
The speed of variation seems to be an important factor, and it ties into my argument. Adam Greenfield has an interesting article that talks about different rates of change in designed objects. Buildings have a number of layers that change at different rates from furniture that can be frequently changed with little expense, to foundations and structure that change infrequently because they are so complex and expensive. Fashion is one of the designed objects that changes the fastest because it is a badge that displays how how close the wearer is to the cutting edge: when the majority of people are wearing something, the trendsetter has moved on to prove that they have financial and stylistic access to the very newest.
My interest in this article is because I think I need to locate where microarchitectural articulations fit into this rate of change to get a better idea of what kind of program would best showcase what MA's are good at doing.
What is the rate of MA's? What is the rate of change in the building around them? How do the different parts interact?
Buildings can break down into the following rates of change:
- Fastest: moveable furniture. Folding chairs/tables or chairs/tables on wheels can be moved several times in an hour. Their placement can change significantly during the day and the can be moved around to suite many kinds of programmatic needs. To respond to this constant movement, folding (or stacking) chairs/tables are cheaply made of lightweight material so they can be easily moved and replaced if they become damaged.
- Fast: furniture. Most furniture can be moved with a certain amount of effort. The amount of effort, of course, is related to the scale of furniture. Desks, bookshelves, sofas, tables and chairs can be made of moderately heavy materials (wood is a favorite) and may be upholstered. Uphosltery is not a very durable material and will eventually show wear, but this is a trade for the increased comfort in a padded chair. Another example is the rubber chair used by Rem Koolhaas in the SPL: durability is increased by materials, but any material that is comfortable to sit in will not be as durable as one that is very hard.
- Moderate: Partition walls. Partition walls are intentionally constructed to not be very durable. Often they are no more than 2x4's (or steel stud) with GSB and paint. This occurs because while they are very important in the programmatic breakdown of a building, partition walls need to change when the use of a building changes. A building partitioned with brick or concrete will not be able to adapt to new uses.
- Slow: external cladding. The only reason that external cladding ever needs to be replaced is the reduced preformance caused by aging of materials. Roof shingles need to be replaced because they rot, caulking because the volitile gasses that keep it soft evaporate, wood because or rot and/or insects, tiles because of moisture ingress... The intent of an architect should be to minimize replacement of external cladding/envelope unless there is a very strong reason to do otherwise.
- Slowest: Structure and vertical movement. These two parts of a building are often connected and I think it is because they are the two parts that, if they must be replaced, there is a need for a new building. While it is possible to replace structural elements in a building, it only happens if there has been an unexpected failure or if the building is significantly older than its projected lifespan.
Of these 5 rates of change, I think that MA's should be 4 or 5 -- slow or slowest. They are supposed to be flexible enough to respond to unanticipated needs.
Wednesday, January 17, 2007
Control freak seeks same
My friend AL is kind of a control freak -- I'm sure everyone in architecture is, since we try to design everything in the buildings our users inhabit. She argues that she wants to control every experience users have in her buildings, every moment, every action. Her buildings are great and she does this well, but I don't feel the same way. This causes problems. I don't feel comfortable masterminding every action of users in the buildings I design because I feel that when people can adapt and change the buildings they use they are more satisfied with their environments and develop affection for their spaces. I'm not a good enough designer to guess what might need to be changed in the life of a building, so I want to design for change, design in a way that lets users adapt the building to their needs so the building doesn't need to be torn down because it can't be changed. I don't think anyone is a good enough designer to guess what use a building might have in 50 years -- not even the great ones. The best we can do is design in a way that allows buildings to adapt.
This is part of where the microarchitectural articulations (MA's) come from. It seems like a contradiction: putting furniture scaled elements into a building that I want to last a long time. Wouldn't it make more sense to leave the space as open and unworked as possible? Some natural light and good ventilation might make this a good building. But buildings have people in them, and I don't think it's reasonable to pass the design buck to furniture when the building needs to accomodate users. No one wants to work in a giant warehouse: someone has to make decisions about dividing walls and ceiling heights.
These surfaces are an attempt for the architect to do that. They aren't walls and ceilings. Instead, they are elements that limit where walls and ceilings can go. In the same way as a fireplace in a room will affect where all the furniture goes, MA's suggest different types of use in spaces.
I'm not suggesting that a building be made up of MA's. They are most useful as hubs. Strategically placed combinations of MA's act as social condensors. They create the kitchen party. You know how when you go to a party, especially in a large space, people always cluster together at the least convenient place? It could be the kitchen or the bar, or maybe by the stereo (depending of course on the type of party). This is especially visible at parties in rooms that are basically big open spaces. The reason for this is the kitchen, or bar, or stereo area is often the only part of the room that is scaled to the person. It happens in big plazas too: the whole thing is just so damn big that people cluster at the edges.
So MA's can provide the kitchen at the kitchen party: the human-scaled part of a space. If it is done carefully, it should be possible for them to work in a wide variety of situations. A large courtyard, for example, could be activated by these dohickeys. This is why choosing the program and project for my thesis is so important.
I could stick MA's into a preexisting building -- something warehouse-y and souless, and argue that they give human scale and make the place more liveable. This could work because I would have to use them to mediate current programmatic needs of the building and there would be some constraints because the building already exists. There aren't a lot of really large buildings that work poorly in this way in Vancouver that I can think of, so I'm not sure what building I could pick.
I could design them into an otherwise warehouse-y and souless building and argue that they make it less of both of those things, but I would still need to pick a program and site, and there aren't enough parameters to make the project rigorous. I've proved that I can stick articulated surfaces together to create interesting spaces. What I haven't done is found a mechanism that will help me determine how they should go together. The warehouse-with-MA does not provide this. My thesis advisor, M, has suggested that I do a meta-building that will work with many different programs and can be deployed in different situations.
I could identify two physically demanding programs and merge them by using MA's that address both at once. This sounds great in theory, but I'm having a tough time working out what programs they could be. Some possibilities include:
This is part of where the microarchitectural articulations (MA's) come from. It seems like a contradiction: putting furniture scaled elements into a building that I want to last a long time. Wouldn't it make more sense to leave the space as open and unworked as possible? Some natural light and good ventilation might make this a good building. But buildings have people in them, and I don't think it's reasonable to pass the design buck to furniture when the building needs to accomodate users. No one wants to work in a giant warehouse: someone has to make decisions about dividing walls and ceiling heights.
These surfaces are an attempt for the architect to do that. They aren't walls and ceilings. Instead, they are elements that limit where walls and ceilings can go. In the same way as a fireplace in a room will affect where all the furniture goes, MA's suggest different types of use in spaces.
I'm not suggesting that a building be made up of MA's. They are most useful as hubs. Strategically placed combinations of MA's act as social condensors. They create the kitchen party. You know how when you go to a party, especially in a large space, people always cluster together at the least convenient place? It could be the kitchen or the bar, or maybe by the stereo (depending of course on the type of party). This is especially visible at parties in rooms that are basically big open spaces. The reason for this is the kitchen, or bar, or stereo area is often the only part of the room that is scaled to the person. It happens in big plazas too: the whole thing is just so damn big that people cluster at the edges.
So MA's can provide the kitchen at the kitchen party: the human-scaled part of a space. If it is done carefully, it should be possible for them to work in a wide variety of situations. A large courtyard, for example, could be activated by these dohickeys. This is why choosing the program and project for my thesis is so important.
I could stick MA's into a preexisting building -- something warehouse-y and souless, and argue that they give human scale and make the place more liveable. This could work because I would have to use them to mediate current programmatic needs of the building and there would be some constraints because the building already exists. There aren't a lot of really large buildings that work poorly in this way in Vancouver that I can think of, so I'm not sure what building I could pick.
I could design them into an otherwise warehouse-y and souless building and argue that they make it less of both of those things, but I would still need to pick a program and site, and there aren't enough parameters to make the project rigorous. I've proved that I can stick articulated surfaces together to create interesting spaces. What I haven't done is found a mechanism that will help me determine how they should go together. The warehouse-with-MA does not provide this. My thesis advisor, M, has suggested that I do a meta-building that will work with many different programs and can be deployed in different situations.
I could identify two physically demanding programs and merge them by using MA's that address both at once. This sounds great in theory, but I'm having a tough time working out what programs they could be. Some possibilities include:
- Something that varies seasonally: A building that is used for festivals, or where the use changes significantly with the weather. An ice rink?
- A swing space - varies unpredictably: there's one on campus at UBC already... and the thing about swing space at the school is that offices and classrooms are all the same, even if they are needed for different faculties.
- Something that varies by day; something that is used for different programs during the week than over the weekend. Some possibilities could be office space/farmer's market or something like that. What kinds of activities only happen on weekends? Grocery shopping? it's been so long since I've had a real weekend, I don't know.
- Something that varies by hour: I gues this could be a school that is used for something different in the evenings (what, I don't know), or office space that turns into something different at night... It's a tough call, because any place where people spend a significant amount of time is a place where they will want to leave things all over their desk/office/bedroom.
Of these, the seasonal variation sounds the most interesting. Maybe there is a way to create a rental space in one of the parks in Vancouver that can act as a bunch of things: a gallery, a party room, a place for festivals... but these programs still aren't physically demanding enough.
Again, something that bears further thought...
Muy Fantastico!
One of the things my advisor M suggested I do to get ideas for my thesis project was to make a list of things that are totally awesome and fantastic about these miroarchitectural articulations (or MA's). I'm much more critical than positive and tend to have problems arguing in favour of my ideas, but I thought I would give it a shot. So, in no particular order, here are some reasons MA's are the best thing evah.
- They provide a mechanism for architects to investigate the composition of solids and voids (a good exercise for architects, but it's unlikely that laymen would care)
- They encourage users to interact with the designed space (almost always a good thing, unless you have a problem with homeless people lying around your building)
- They add human scale to buildings (I think this is one of the best reasons to use them because the zoom capabilities of AutoCAD make it easy for architects to remember what size a person is in their building and so make spaces far larger than they need to be)
- They mediate between specificity and flexibility, allowing designers to create one space that encourages lots of different uses (this is the main argument in my Directed Studies)
- They encourage architects to use a new design strategy and work from small details up to a building (I like this one a lot because being an architect is all about having lots of different design strategies that you can deploy in different situations. They're the tools in our toolbox, and are far more useful than knowing how to use AutoCAD)
- They encourage playful interaction in buildings (this is similar to encouraging interaction, but the key word here is play. Because the surfaces are ambiguous, people need to think about how they might want to sit or work on them, and I hope that increased awareness of bodies in space will lead users to test their own physical boundaries and consider what is comfortable for them.
- They can be combined/assembled to fit any program and any site (not a great argument, because this is true of most design things)
I think of these, the idea of a different design strategy is the most interesting, then the idea of human scale, and finally the interaction argument. Of course, the point of MA's is that they allow architects to combine physically demanding programs in new ways. It's taken me a while to realize this, but I am comfortable arguing that surface articulations of this kind are most useful when programs that need permanent fixtures such as benches, tables, stairs, podiums, counters, chairs and risers are combined. An example of this could be the combination of a movie theater and a lunch counter (the second program still needs a little work, I think).
A movie theater has very specific physical needs. There must be seats, a screen, and some mechanism that allows everyone to see the screen (be that a raised screen or raked seating). A lunch counter has very different needs: a counter that is close to a kitchen and some kind of seating. Microarchitectural articulations are designed to mediate between these two programs and create possibilities for other, unrelated kinds of use.
Tuesday, January 16, 2007
Microarchitectural Articulations: Hubs
Microarchitectural articulations are most effective when they are placed together. This particular example combines a counter, some seating and a desk space (not visible) in a highly articulated area that can be occupied in various ways. The point is that because use is not immediately clear, users are able to project their own uses on the surfaces so that they fit in with changing programmatic requirements.
This particular example is also playing with ideas of materiality: these surfaces have no depth and use rounded edges to investigate continuous surfaces.
This particular example is also playing with ideas of materiality: these surfaces have no depth and use rounded edges to investigate continuous surfaces.Microarchitectural Articulations: Surfaces
I thought I would take a minute to post an image of exactly what I mean by a microarchitectural articulation. This example shows two ways of using a combination of solids and voids. When these are intersected with the envelope of a building, opportunities are created for users to inhabit the surfaces in a variety of ways that may not neccessarily be controlled by the designer.The idea is that if enough variations of this kind are assembled, spaces can be inhabited in unexpected ways by users, but also support many different kinds of programs. MA's can be grouped to create hubs, and I think that the combination of different surfaces also provides opportunities for users to occupy them in new ways.
At the moment, the problem is that while I can assemble MA's in many different combinations there is no measuring device to say if it is correct or incorrect: there are no rules for them to follow or break. Hence the problem, hence the thesis, hence the blog.
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