January 2012 Archives
This feels more project heavy than TS heavy at the moment, but I'll continue to add in TS spreads as I go (will update with scanned version of storyboard tomorrow as this is almost completely illegible).
A crude first attempt, but an attempt nonetheless to create a kind of photomontage of historical precedents as well as my insertion in the superblock conversation. This also begins to address the transition from exterior to interior (another comment from the jury).
A view of a visual superblock hybrid - combining Corviale, Unite d'Habitation, and my insertion:
A snippet from my jury presentation:
"My aim is to create a living cabinet of curiosities for the city to: challenge the conventional superblock housing typology by removing the corridor and more importantly challenge how we inhabit it; encourage and sometimes force the involuntary collection of other people's lives which we reluctantly accept when living in the city; and overall, recreate the correspondence between the residents, the pieces of the city's collection."
Floor plan, 1st attempt: Two living spaces, volumetrically shared while still creating a boundary in terms of access with the location of the kitchen island.
Section, first attempt: By removing the corridor, the organisational structure of the flats instead revolves around an open internal courtyard. Additionally, the living spaces cross and overlap surrounding the open volume creating the renewed correspondence. With a nod to Atelier Bow-Wow, the drawing starts to indicate how these changes alter the way in which we inhabit an urban block - layering the spatial, technical, and social stories woven in a single drawing.
Thanks to jurors Chris Pierce, Chris Matthews, and Tom Weaver the conversation was animated to say the least. Of the many comments and suggestions, these were the ones that stuck with me the most:
The Modernist block serves as typology and precedent. Make nods to it throughout the project rather than rush to the interior
You didn't mention the grid in your drawings, which is the thing that allows the typology. Repetition of the grid allows the multifarious happenings within. How do you interrupt that grid through plan or volumetric ideas rather than surface textures?
Design the architecture rather than the narratives within
You can talk through your superblock by talking about others - in a way a version by which one would describe Merzbau by talking about the bits within. (include photomontage history)
Conversation of
Orthogonal vs. Non-orthogonal
Grid vs. Anti-grid
Superblock vs. Collage
Generic vs. Context
Urban Living and the Architectural Overlap
Table of Contents:
0_Project Statement: A Cabinet of Curious Living
1_Grid and Anti-Grid: Challenging the Conventional Superblock
Chapter 1.1_Grid and Corridor
1.11_The Ubiquity of the Grid - A concise history (?)
1.12_Introduction of the Corridor - A nod to Robin Evans
Chapter 1.2_Superblock | High Density Urban Housing
1.21_The Model. Unite d'Habitation - Marseille, 1957.
1.22_The 'S'. Park Hill - Sheffield, 1961.
1.23_The Strip. il Corviale - Rome, 1982.
1.24_The Snake. Kitagata Apartments - Gifu, 2000.
Chapter 1.3_Anti Grid | Aggregation and Collage
1.31_Merzbau - Hannover, 1919
1.32_Superdensity. Kowloon Walled City - Hong Kong, 1868-1993.
1.33_Precedent
2_Architectural Overlap in its Three Forms: Research and Experimentation
Chapter 2.1_Spatial Overlap
2.11_Functional
2.12_Implied Boundaries
2.13_Access
Chapter 2.2_Visual Overlap
2.21_Perspectival
2.22_Material Solutions
2.23_Obstructions
Chapter 2.3_Acoustic Overlap
2.31_Isolation/Absorption
2.32_Diffusion
2.33_Reflection
3_Correspondence in the Curious Cabinet: Implementation of Architectural Overlap
Chapter 3.1_Moment 1
3.11_Macrocosm | The Big Picture
3.12_Microcosm | The Detail
3.13_Result | View and/or Model
Chapter 3.2_Moment 2
3.21_Macrocosm | The Big Picture
3.22_Microcosm | The Detail
3.23_Result | View and/or Model
Chapter 3.3_Moment 3
3.31_Macrocosm | The Big Picture
3.32_Microcosm | The Detail
3.33_Result | View and/or Model
Just a small piece of one of the plates for the jury- still lots more to draw and of course needs annotation as well. Also, ignore the fully clothed man standing in the shower - just needed scale.
Slowly, but surely, I'm (hopefully) homing in on the real crux of the project. Whereas before I was thinking of my project as one of collection explored through housing, after my last tutorial I'm thinking it should be the other way around. How can I use the idea of collection (of people- their stuff, their stories, their lives) to challenge how we approach design and inhabitation of urban housing?
"The history of cabinets of curiosities began with the notion of a correspondence...between the microcosm and the macrocosm." -Patrick Mauries, Cabinets of Curiosities
With the above quote in mind, going back to the Merzbau we can view it as a cabinet of curiosities all on its own though not precisely in a cabinet. A deeply personal collection, the Merzbau shows an aggregation of disorder - dense, chaotic, and always changing.
If we then think of the hyper dense examples of urban housing (the Superblock, for instance), we have a space of aggregation, but also one of division with the cellular separation of different flats. This separation hinders the correspondence which is vital to the cabinet of curiosities.
Living in the city, one must accept a certain level of "involuntary collection" of bits of people's lives due to living in such dense quarters. By and large, the conventional attempts of "shared space" are limited by the divided typology. My strategy will be to intervene - to challenge the notion of shared/communal space in the superblock and push the correspondence between the pieces of this collection (here, the residents) to create a cabinet of curiosities for the city. To start, I will begin by removing the corridor of the typical double loaded and/or courtyard building in favour of the progression of connected spaces Robin Evans describes before the invention of the corridor.
"If anything is described by an architectural plan, it is the nature of human relationships..."
-Robin Evans, Figures, Doors, and Passages
First, I will begin with an existing housing project and surgically remove the corridor to see how this can alter the nature of human relationships within it. I've collected a few precedents to choose from; here's a selection:
Kowloon Walled City in Hong Kong (now demolished): arguably the "Merzbau" of Housing in its chaotic, uncontrolled growth
Corviale in Rome: another example of urban housing taken over by the residents
typical upper floor plan:
Still working on articulating what this means for my project, but in looking at collection and urban housing, two main architectural types came to mind - the courtyard (or perhaps more generally, the boundary) and the grid.
The courtyard aggregates and contains. This typology can be applied at different scales - from the table in a dining room, the patio of a flat, the courtyard of a building, the park in a city.
The grid separates and allows expansion in repetition of the cell. It can be seen in the modulation of a bookshelf, the section of a dense housing block, the grid of a city
I took two examples at the urban scale which deal with the tension of the grid and courtyard:
First Barcelona, combining the grid at the city scale, courtyard at the building scale:
then Manhattan, the grid forming the streets with Central Park as a courtyard for the city
Finally, I'm working on drawing my own scenario which jumps to various scales within one drawing:
At the scale of the room - Barcelona's grid is embedded in the dining room table, which sits on its carpet on the gridded floor:
At the scale of the building, a double loaded corridor wraps around the building's courtyard filled with a gridded hard and softscape:
At the scale of the city, the urban block is repeated in its grid of the city streets:
This drawing(s) still needs some work, the jump from scale to scale isn't always successful yet. Also, I'd like to try another set which focuses on the elevation/sectional view and emphasises the grid.
I swear progress has been made! Still working on the most recent stuff...
