038: Oh, hiatus, but "work" remains constant during the semester...

Oh, Wheeler Station. The image of a grand transfer station on this piece of land!

The Assignment

Assignment 4. Building Design Program (2.5 weeks)

DUE: Wednesday, February 27

Wheeler Station Building Design Program

In Problem 2 (Design and Program Analysis) you established the parameters on which the program requirements for the final design stage of the project are based. The following list of requirements is based on your analysis. In addition we have added several small program elements not addressed in the analysis.

A. Metro Program Elements
1. Elevated University Line Station (alignment, size, and height as described in analysis)
2. Local Bus Stops (10 total, this includes 6 existing plus 4 new)
3. Information and Security office: 2000 SF (Information and Reception Desk, Security office,
Employee Rest Room, First Aid Room, Administrative Office)
4. Bicycle Storage Facility: 2000 SF (Bicycle Storage Area, Individual Restrooms with showers (4)
5. Public Restrooms: Women’s and Men’s (Total of 6 fixtures per sex, single or multiple sites)

B. Intercity Bus Program: Provide six spaces to be leased to intercity bus companies as
described in the analysis problem. No indoor waiting required; tickets provided by vending machines.

C. Commercial Program: 25,000 SF Gross as per analysis. Please note that 50 parking spaces should
be allocated to serve commercial (no permanent parking in these spaces)

D. Parking Program: 500- 550 Spaces (Includes 50 spaces dedicated to commercial)

F. Storm Water Detention: Provide .5 Acre Feet of Storm Water detention on Site as indicated in the
analysis

G. Urban Event Space: In keeping with Metro’s plan to develop functional urban landscape elements
wherever possible, develop a major public exterior space capable of supporting a weekend produce
market, public meeting, or performance.

H. Miscellaneous Requirements: Provide a protected or pull off waiting space for
6 vehicles (Taxicabs and auto drop off)

Adjacency requirements:

-Direct, accessible pedestrian movement must be accommodated between major metro movement systems (Metro Lines, Local Bus Lines). This would include ramps, stairs, or escalators and elevator(s). All stairs and ramps should be sized for a population of 150 persons (44” + 2 x 22”=88”).
- Information office should be centrally located for ease of use and efficient surveillance.

Additional Requirements:

-All bus and train stops should be provided with overhead covering so that it is possible to move between all modes of transportation (and major program elements) without getting wet.
-Retail space should be located to take advantage of movement between major program elements.

Schedule:

Documentation for this exercise will be due Wednesday, February 27 at 1 PM.
-Site Model: 1”=100’ (Concept Type Model similar to Assignment No. 3)
-Site/ Floor Plan(s): TBD
-Site Sections: TBD
-Digital Model: Ground level views, Major Interior/ Exterior Space

Topographic Interpretation:

Before this assignment, however, we were to vaguely assemble the program under one unifying topic: I picked Topography. Although my project was very literal, I feel that there is logic behind a literal topography, in which that slopes can equate themselves to ramps, making a more fluid traffic flow.

Thinking, thinking....

...and my thoughts ended up looking like a magnetic field: all pedestrians orbiting around the intersection of both lines. Of course, this isn't at all realistic (pedestrians will be thinking about their destinations.) Really, the 'magnetism' is behind the circulatory connection between three different zones: parking (cars), light rail (waiting, retail) and buses (inter/intracity) with transfers in between.

Thinking along the lines of form: I'm more of a functionalist, or, circulatorist (let's make up terms shall we?) but I have been thinking of form.

1. Topography + lamination + carve (light)= what my concept model looks at the moment.


2. Interpreting velocity with form, like the speed of cars, of pedestrians, of waiting pedestrians, of Greyhound buses, of METRO buses, of the light rail. Vehicles of different types, functions, and allowed speed.


3. Interpreting 'magnetic lines' with form: follow the line.

The Architecture of Parking by Simon Henley

There are the lines! Lines!



And this....

The above picture is not just for "inspiration," but I found it appealing (not only because it's a Japanese architect) because my professor previously mentioned that parking could indeed be seen as a form of topography. This takes that literally, of course, and I couldn't help but like the idea.

So far, what my project is looking like is like a repeating curve, a curve that was stolen from the flow of parking garages.

Houston is indeed a car city. Commuter haven. (or Hell.)

Wheeler Station does not call for a gargantuan structure. Drive by the site and you hear it call for what it already looks like. A megastructure would just be like a distraction from the city's core.

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037: Glasarchitektur

As method of organizing my thoughts on this excerpt manifesto (from Ulrich Conrad's Programs and Manifestoes on 20th-Century Architecture), I will quote some interesting things from this passage:

1. "We live for the most part within enclosed spaces. These form the environment from which our culture grows. Our culture is in a a sense a product of architecture."


2. "It was the railway station that produced the brick metropolis culture of today from which we all suffer. Glass architecture will come only when the metropolis in our sense of the word has been done away with."

(1): It's a strange thought, that culture is a product of man-made, unnatural things, that instead of culture shaping the architecture, it is the architecture (the environment) that shapes the culture. I would guess it makes sense after some x amount of years....maybe its in cycles: At first, culture creates the architecture, x years pass by, then the architecture-environment modifies the culture. Then new modified culture creates new architecture, etc.
(2): But then if we only build steel, glass structures, wouldn't we suffer from the glass metropolis in the future, when another form or material is introduced to replace steel, concrete and glass?

Paul Scheerbert's poetic obsession over glass.
He completely ignores the rules of the real environment: heat gain = a very, very hot, and energy inefficient metropolis.

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036: Green beams

Not related to my research at all, but I just love the idea of non-structural vegetation beams. As you can read in the short article (it was the issue of AR of "Emergent Architecture"), the architect meant it not to be practical, nor just aesthetic, but unnaturally filling up the void of urban space.

Fake nature. In this world, what do we appreciate more? The man-made landscape, or, the wilderness as terrific (_{old sense of the word}) and vast as it is...?

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035: Topography.

It is much harder than I thought it would be.

The Olympic Sculpture Park (Weiss Manfredi), suggested by my professor, to break down and analyze.

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034: Plastic, Anderson Lounge competition, and topography.

Go to archi-arts.

Please?

Anderson Lounge competition entries:



The first is a "joke:" It is my ridiculous idea (that I actually would love to be materialized): the giant squid, or, the XL SQUID. Remember what Rem says about Bigness-- a huge "fuck you!" to all other things-- it is such a large squid that it is valid as furniture. It transcends all other furniture. Or so, I jest.



The second seems a bit unconventional, but by nailing perpendicular book ends, the 60 degree angle won't be as tough to adjust to. It leaves place for everything in the "program"...that is sitting space, a pencil box, a library and magazine rack-- even space for a coffeemaker.

And its modular-- you can place them around the column, use them as seats. Etc.

Wheeler Station, a topographic knot.

This is what I am working on- conceptualizing the urban transit knot as a topography. I picked one of the harder solutions to it-- but I will try!

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034: Plastic, the future, this semester's project starts....

Plastic: archi-arts and the world's pollution.

Free plastic bags have been banned in China, a law which will take effect June 1st. In the United States, little of this has happened. Mostly, here, there is only the option (of paper or plastic) rather than having a law that embraces the environment.

"I think this really shows that China is being a responsible country," said the 21-year-old.

Plastic bags is just a minor pollutant when compared to everything else, the emissions, all the other waste. But, thinking in terms of plastic bags-- think of all the disposable items that are given/sold to us-- restaurants, groceries, packages, toys, electronics. Once they are thrown away, there they stay forever.

I used to applaud Mexico, for using/reusing glass bottles for soda and water. Yet in recent years (as in, the last 10 years I've gone to the country), plastic quickly replaces glass. And Mexico is already heavily littered in the first place-- and the plastic comes even more dangerously since Mexicans in rural areas burn their trash.

In the United States, which has less than one-quarter of China's 1.3 billion people, the Sierra Club's Sierra magazine estimates almost a hundred billion plastic bags are thrown out each year.

The Sierra Club estimated that if every one of New York City's eight million people used one less grocery bag per year, it would reduce waste by about 218,000 pounds.

With such numbers, I remain optimistic. Considering there's over a billion people living in China...the pounds of trash prevented will be much more than 218,000 lbs. The problem-- the hardest of all-- is making sure that many participate. But to eradicate the apathy, the lack of awareness...I would consider it pollution too.

Mass Transit in Houston,TX: the knots of transportation














This semester focuses on Wheeler Station. By 2012, the METROrail will have many additions, the first one being the University Line (blue) that connects UH to the Galleria Area, and crosses the existing Red Line.

At the moment, we are doing metric work: understanding the dimensions, movements, and scales of the light rail vehicle.


















Then again, what more can we do? This is the first week of school...

033: Sustainable-ness

The back of a notebook bought at the Target:

Our pages are made from 100% post-consumer waste with nontoxic soy-based ink.

The notebooks are called greenroom eco...very design orientated and markers (Prismacolor, Copic) do not bleed through. Which is very surprising, considering my main archisketchbook is a Moleskin Sketchbook, which costs a lot more, but all markers bleed through it.

032: Nature walk

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Some pictures I found while in blogs, or were in my computer.

The first, Koen Van Velsen, in Rotterdam:


















The second, a work by Mass Studies, Korean firm: