Materials

Olang made the point in my midterm presentation that while hybridization of form may create ambiguity in the short term, in the long term users become accustomed to the new forms and use them in prescribed ways: they become the new norm. He suggested I think about how to make the surfaces preform in unexpected ways to maintain ambiguity. One way to do this is through material use.

While I think that materials are really important, I'm not sure if this ambiguity is something the project wants or needs. I'm wondering if it's a good thing that users become accustomed to the new forms. What advantage is there in a second layer of ambiguity? I don't want the project to get bogged down in material studies.

Right now I see the project as part landscape/part furniture in concrete and wood, possibly with some grass areas. I want most of the seating to be wood because it dries quickly and is not cold to sit on, but I'm interested in the thermal effect of masses of concrete adjacent to seating. It's definately going to be inside/outside and I'm going to start with the stair that connects the transit hub to the main plaza area.

Since it's an inside/outside space, all the materials should be able to weather. I'm concerned about different materials because every material carries associations, and if I choose to make a seat out of wood instead of concrete it begins to direct use. I think I'm going to check out some books on materials and look at what I could use.

Post midterm festivities!

I've made it through midterm! I was very happy with how my presentation went, and only have two complaints. The first is that I'm not sure if the group I presented to were particularly hard hitting -- it's reassuring when you have a decent crit from a tough critic because you know they're asking the hard questions. My second problem is entirely my fault: I wish I had more to show them so they could have given me more design advice.

ARN was nice enough to take pretty comprehensive notes of the presentation so that I wouldn't have to worry about getting it all down, so I have three pages to flip through when I wonder exactly what was said. Olang, S, and JB seemed to understand what I was trying to do, which is a great sign, and they said some nice stuff: that the work I have already done is SOLID (caps courtesy of ARN) and that I've created a nice problem that's well mapped out.

I'm having a little trouble concentrating today and had intended to take the day off, but realized that I have no life outside of school and hence nothing to do except schoolwork. So here I am.

Getting around

I'm currently attending a First Nations Technology summit because of some course work completed last fall. It is unrelated to my thesis, but instead of listening to any of the presentations this morning, I spent the time thinking about what my next steps need to be and trying to work out some of the bugs.

I've been trying to reconcile my working methods with time constraints, and I've realized that while I want to be efficient, time spent working on things that I do not present is not neccessarily a waste of time. While I don't have a lot to show for the work I have done since my last committee meeting, I do think that I'm now at a place where I can go into production mode and start to get drawings, diagrams and models that describe what I've been working on this semester.

So, this is what I currently intend to produce for next week:

1. 3-D models that combine each of the culls, in a matrix
2. Section cuts from the centre of each of the cuts
3. A diagram that compares this section cut to the original Architectural Graphic Standards and shows how the 3-D model can be altered to match the AGS section
4. Diagrams that show the four sides of each of the 3-D models of combined culls and compares them for combinations

This is a ton of work, but I think it's going to be useful. I think that removing the envelope information from the Ambiguous Sectional Conditions (once called MA's) was a good use of time because I can reintroduce it after I assemble groups of 3-D models. Hopefully I won't have to cull again: I don't think that there will be many AGS' that can be applied to the 3-D models, so hopefully that won't produce too many options, and I'll focus on one hub that combines different sides.

When I have done this I'm going to need to produce a full lineage diagram that tracks exactly how I got each hub: the 'parents' of each level. I think I'll do this last!

I need to get the 3-D models done ASAP, so I'm going to find a quiet corner at this conference where I can get down and spend some time working in Maya.

Still here...

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.

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.

Environmental stats

So, following the Flame's comments about environment and my project, I do think that it's important to include some environmental factors in this scale jump. I also want to include program stuff in scale. I might need to have two scale shifts: one for environment and one for program. See, I don't think that I can assemble multiple ambiguous spatial conditions for program yet because I don't want to limit the program by specifying stuff. I realize I'll have to do it eventually, but I think that if I leave it later I'll be able to retain more possible programs. Another reason is that it is too much of a jump between the sectional conditions and program. So introducing environmental factors could be a way to bridge that gap.

Environmental factors (all stats from Environment Canada):

Sun.
In winter, we want sun, in summer we don't. The most popular way to get both is to make an overhang that is deep enough to exclude summer sun but not so deep it keeps out low angle winter sun. In Vancouver, the sun is at around 67.5 degrees on June 21. To keep it off the floor of a 8' room, you need an overhang of 3'-4" at 8 feet. The higher you get, the larger the overhang needs to be, at a rate of about 5" per foot. This keeps out sun only June 21st, the summer solstice. Vancouver is hottest about August, so its a good idea to keep the sun out until then.

Rain.
We have more rain in the winter than in the summer, and frankly it's much less pleasant to be wet in the winter than it is in the summer. And while you might expect the overhang to keep off the rain, most of the time in Vancouver rain comes with wind. Which means it rains at an angle so roof cover doesn't always help.

Environment Canada says that in winter, the wind usually comes from the east and blows around 7-7.4 km/hr from the east (or 2 m/s). Small drops of rain fall around 6.5 m/s (or 23.4 km/hr) and large ones about 9 m/s (or 32.4 km/hr). So for our mythical 8' room, we would need an overhang of 1'-10" for small raindrops and 2'-5" for large ones, or between 2.5" and 3.6" for each foot of room on the east side of the building.

The problem is that while that is the average, the maximum hourly is 32 km/hr (which is around 9 m/s) from the north. This means that our 8' room will need an overhang of 8' on the north to keep off all potential rain.

Wind
It sucks when it's cold and windy, but sometimes when it is sunny if you can find a space out of the wind it can be lovely. The fortunate thing about wind is that if you are protected on a couple of sides, you are usually fine. These two sides would likely be those of prevailing breezes: the north and east. Micropatterns exist around buildings, but it doesn't take a lot of shelter to get you out of the wind.

The problem with environmental stuff is it is so directional. I don't want to decide what direction a seat will be facing if I don't know where it is going to go. Stupid catch 22.

ETA: some other stuff: any grassy area need to be extremely well drained. If it gets sun during the day it will be extremely popular with students. IF there is a roof on whatever thing gets produced, it should be accessible.

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:

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.