WINTER 14 / 15

Social Condenser

The studio developed a new type of condensed labor/research headquarters on the existing Novartis Campus site in Basel Switzerland. The architectural emphasis was on achieving a miniature city, a micro cosmos - within a compact singular building with distinct functions and work environments. Seeking opportunities of blending the urban environment (streets, park) into the building and develop an introverted building with internalized urban spatial characters. Concepts found in historic examples of Russian constructivist period were further developed and explored within the projects.

Summer 14
Dam 

The studio returns to the topic of literal and phenomenal motion with the design of infrastructure and buildings related to water and energy. In proportion to their size, these buildings and structures have few occupants but their presence in civic culture is significant. The formal language of these structures has seen little innovation in the last 50 years as their address to culture has been that of neo-classical monumentality.
How can these engineering structures be rethought through architecture?
Expressing the movement and dynamism of the machines in the massing as well as designing views and passages into the interiors without compromising security is an issue.

VAST SPACE
Vastness is immeasurable, infinite, without edge or limit, difficult to comprehend, out of scale, distant, vague and sublime. It has nothing to do with ‘absolute scale’ but instead vastness is defined by ‘relative scale.’

As Dresden has been a city with two squares you are being asked to add a third which unlike the other two is a covered room. The typology of an outdoor plaza for sporting events, festivals, and markets defined by urban walls is being turned inside out where now the perimeter is defined by the ground, roof, and vertical structures. The perimeter of the VASTMARKT should be porous with the surrounding streets and instead, the interior should be modulated by internal walls, ceiling, and floor,...

The VASTMARKT should have a different character within a fairly compact enclosure so that it should seem bigger than it is by having areas that are smaller than they should be. Instead of focusing on a design technique that works all over equally well please focus on methods that add contrast and juxtaposition of scale and distance.

Winter 12 / 13
Massive Movement

The task for the winter term will be the design of a vast open long span sports enclosures that is capable of being opened and closed continuously throughout the day by the use of large moving chunks of the building. These chunks can be occupiable elements of the building or they can enclose mechanical systems that assist in the conditioning of the indoor/outdoor space.
The studio is looking for alternatives to surface pattern and brisolei techniques and instead is looking at enormous moving openings and how this can change the interior as well as the façade and urbanism of the building. In order to ventilate and change the condition of the interior environment the design should have giant dynamic openings. The design of these massive urban openings should be informed by two concerns: their spatial and monumental impact on both the surrounding city and the interior environment an environmental systems concept at a vast spatial scale.

In the summer term we will significantly scale down the project and look at the design of a large moving room that can influence and transform its surroundings. We will specifically be looking into retail environments which have changing floor plan and wall configurations, but instead of operable walls there should be an architectural element in the form of a large volume that moves through the space in order to subdivide and reconfigure the overall structure, program and form.

Winter 11 / Summer 12
Floors

The focus this term is designing with floors. The studio began to introduce techniques for creating space using a language of boundaries, edges, slopes, stairs, terraces and furniture-scale elements. The results of this task serve as a basis for the design of a large addition to the Stockholm Public Library designed by Gunnar Asplund. The focus of the design is the alignment and relationship of the different levels as well as their edges and transitions. Special attention should be paid to defining different types of spaces by changes in level, orientation, diagonal views and boundaries that are not walls but can be railings and balustrades. Floors and integrated furniture will be the primary design elements to give regions spatial and volumetric character. Special attention should also be made to the design of the stacks containing books. These should be the only vertical elements separating spaces.

Summer 11
Vertical Mass: Neither one nor many

This semester the studio worked in teams on a large-scale urban development that is an alternative to a collection of towers (of any type) resting on a retail and public plinth. We were interested in an alternative approach that is massive, dense, and not a collection of vertical columns (connected or not).  Like the Hypostyle Hall, where the spaces are more important than the figures of the columns, the students were asked to propose skyline voids and spaces within masses.

Summer 10

Winter 09

Summer 09

Winter 08

Summer 08

Winter 07