031: House in Black, Manabu Chiba

Like it said in Rem Koolhaas's little margin glossary in S,M,L,XL:
Avoid: I'm trying my best to avoid the Japanese word void

Simple. Beautiful. Voids.
Why I love Japanese architecture.

030: A long stretch of no-posts, and plastic.

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I've left my blog hanging.

I could recap everything that happened in a month, but charrette claimed all my time, leaving me with no time for logging what happened with my project.

So, for recap, pictures of the last project of the semester:

Quick Summary (in pictures) of 1st Semester Last Project: The Urban Movie Theatre





Simple renderings of one of the facades (suspended glass, cables, different opacities) during day and night.


The final 1/30" model, showing massing, facades, direction, and...well, scale.




The model, lighted. I find this the most attractive facade. My filter.

Final grade, A-
I'm excited for next year.

Plastic: the archi-arts party theme 2008
The addition of 2008 makes it sound so eventful, once-in-a-lifetime.

I know what I will wear. That is a matter of making.

What I am thinking of though, in this sleepless state, the theme itself. The fliers, the image, the representation, the essence-- the t-shirt design.

At the moment, only keywords:
plastic wrapper, bleach bottles, soda, Tupperware, vinyl (fetish), plastic surgery, bubble wrap, robots & electronics, outdoor decorations (plastic flamingos, gnomes, chairs), medical & military equipment, legos (toys), umbrellas, mannequins...

My submission: a creature, the bleach-bottle-head with assembled-appendages.
Well. Working on it.

029: Mid-review and the few days after...

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Overall: all the comments were positive. The critic Dallas (works in HOK) made many comparisons in ideas, not in what is made.

I presented (sloppily) my design as having two main focuses. The first being circulation, and the second opacity, (while, of course, safely and practically functioning as a movie theatre, without letting the design interrupt its function.)

Circulation has two distinct and independent systems: The exterior is a "filtering device," filtering those arriving at the parking lot and the pedestrians walking down Dallas St into the courtyard--- or, the filtering of those entering through the plaza, all which meet in the nexus-- the cafe, administration, ticket sales, social interactions, some good coffee. Inside, one travels through large escalators, taking one to the theatres starting on the first floor.

This circulation is shown with glass/material opacity. The escalators will be very clear glass- maybe waterwhite glass, known for its clarity-- while the circulation loops around the theaters will be opaque-- in which light shines through. The threaters will be exposed and will be solid-- heavy. The escalators will be a sort of connection to the city (they face the downtown lights) while the opaque glass circulation loop is a separation-- look for your movie showing! Don't stare at the lights!



The first thing they mentioned was: This is an excellent diagram.

They mentioned many architects after this...

First, massing. He said the spaces created are made out of "Loosian plastic solids and voids" while subtle, powerful moments are made in how these plastic spaces come together. Ever heard of Siza? he asks me, in which I shake my head. Look him up.

I slur, that the minimalism comes from my penchant for Japanese architecture.

He continues this slur; mentions Tadao Ando. There are similar moments in my design, only that mine is not an object, as Tadao makes his buildings.

Continuity is desired, don't break these moves!

They applaud- keep working at it, refine it. Keep thinking in terms of connection to city/separation from city. Think as the parking lot as a texture, reset the horizon to those entering.

028: Oh, late nght, some progress.

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I need to write some sentences to ease my mind.

Ground floor:Administration/break room next to stimulant Cafe/ possibly gameroom? Lobby (first floor): Those going up one escalator must easily locate ticket stand, then concession, not necessarly next to each other? This portion will always be busy, whereas ground floor administration will not-- thus, place gameroom next to cafe, along with main bathrooms, but here, run into spacing problems. Gameroom may be pushed upstairs.

Orthogonal-- I feel boring.

The desk, presented to you:

On my desk:


Above my desk:


Underneath my desk:


Next to my desk:


And, my company:


Yes, graveyard shift-- deadtime hours. No one here. I should start to go...

027: Process means cold hands, coffee, endless cp, tr, ex, and erase.

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I am in the computer lab.

After a good weekend working on this scheme, a few suggestions from Doug:

1. Medium theatres should be narrower instead of 42 x 39.5'. I've edited them to 32'x 48' instead, and rearranged method of entry/arrangement of seats inside.


2. Escalators: I used some strange template that made them 21.9 degrees rather than 30. Like Jessy said, his Ching mantra, "1.732 times rise!" Instead, I used trigonometry and well, got the same. This changes a lot in my scheme, doubling the work.


3. Less elevators, one more emergency stair.

Main worries:

1. Cohesiveness of the scheme: will it stay intact after these changes? The escalators will change a lot of the plan, since initially, floors were planned according to the 21.9 degree template....


2. Materials: what exactly, and how? What size panels? What do I want to show?


3. And, combining the previous two: Will the experience I planned-- experiencing the city as one floats up the escalators-- be present in the product? Can there be a harmony between harmony and aesthetic intent?


4. Emergency stairs-- I might need more.

Least of my worries/Minor worries:

1. Parking spaces, need at least 5-10 more.


2. Open spaces that serve no particular function-- I should embrace this, no?

Materials:

Transparency: Escalators--> circulation completely clear, connection to city. Hallways--> opaque, separation from city, city lights blur, separation from vertical circulation. Restaurant--> moments of clarity (views), moments of walls (private). Lobby--> daylighting, facing north, no need for shading.

Links:

CAD BLOCK EXCHANGE

BLOCK CREATOR

CAD CORNER



I shall post pictures tomorrow, diagrams, depending on how much I have done.

026: Quick section...

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This is a maybe. Really, I'm thinking along the lines of just entering...instead of making mayhem of aisles, why not enter on flat ground, as it uniformly slopes downward? It'll just mean a much higher ceiling on ground level, but, I wouldn't be too worried about seats right?

025: Recycle, destroy, revamp, redo, edit, edit...

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That's what it has been. A stream of editing, frustration, wanting to destoy papers, then finding somewhat a solution, then fixing, fixing.

What happened was....dimensions were clogging up the entrance. It became a tight spot, lossing its defination as rectangular-prism foyer.

So, I inverted the circulation. Instead of making an inner-loop pattern to get to the theaters, I converted it to an outer-loop, creating an even larger couryard space, larger plaza, openning up the first-floor lobby to overloop three total sides: Austin St., Dallas St., and directly over the parking lot.





The front side, you can see how the front parking lot filters into the plaza, whch filters people through the foyer where the mouth of the escalators are......



The parking lot....circulation overlooks this, plus the outdoor theatre. One major change was height, which increased to +22'. I hope height isn't a fear, nor a problem. It only competes with what's around it?

The restaurant would be over on the left mass, which I left out at the moment because I refining what I already have.

024: Excerpt, a look at FOA's Yokohama Port Terminal....

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"Our proposal for the project start by declaring the site as an open public space and proposes to have the roof of the building as an open plaza, continuous with the surface of Yamashita Park as well as Akaranega Park.
The project is then generated from a circulation diagram that aspires to eliminate the linear structure characteristic of piers, and the directionality of the circulation."

"We wanted to make a pier where you can walk in on a certain path and walk out on a different path. We developed this looped diagram, in which we were chaining all the parts of the program. Then we assigned to every line of the diagram a surface. We were interested in playing with the ground."

"We started with certain principles and later combined and changed them. The changes are never visual or aesthetic; they are always technical or practical. We do not believe in the origin or in the end of a project. We believe in the medium of the process. We are totally opportunistic. The end is determined only by external forces, like deadlines of the contractors or the client."
FOA

So, outside...




Inside..

The program.

I'm amazed by this building as I read about it....the quoted paragraphs, I think, relates to the project we are doing now...pedestrians and the urban environment are essential driving forces here. The art of picking up people from the street, sending them through another path, returning them through another, presenting the city differently, then spiting them out through the front door to mingle with the city lights....

One of the focuses of FOA's Yokohama Port Terminal is allowing the locals to walk out onto the extremities of the pier and to "look back at their city." (I read this in Architectural Review, while doing homework.)

...It's one thing I want to achieve with my movie theatre...as movie-goers ride the escalators to their destinations, I want them to look outside and see the city lights passing them by...

"A poor man's New York..." as Doug says, our professor, when commenting on Houston's night-time skyline...