BABE in the WOODS

Things are little bit out of control, and I found it hard to negotiate between my own intention and what my instructor was asking for. Self-doubt produced by non-exciting design is further exemplified by lack of sleep. I wonder what is the yardstick that we can evaluate our design against? SH told me that no design can be pro in every aspect, but we always aggregate our attention to a certain criterion such as functionality/aesthetics or philosophy. So it is extremely important to know that what the project is really about.

My instructor said that my project has really evolved into an amplification of the irony between the floor plates and it is going to be a critique of such. Therefore, I would go to an extreme and demonstrate the subversion of the paradigm. I was hesitating on doing that because I was worried that it is too literal to just copy the idea from Rem in his Library project, but I guess the idea of such critique is there, and I should find a way to communicate that out either in the same form as Rem or another system by my own invention.

All the unnecessary work were done due to the fact that I did not understand the intention of her mentioning the example and did not understand correctly what the example was really about.

SH also pointed out that my design is not quite interesting enough, for it lacks spatial diversity and novelty/exciting moments. Also I should think about the sense of arrival, about fluidity and statics. There has to be a story of such trespassing/ journey otherwise any structure can do the same thing. Motivation of each component is also very important in design.

Mine was not quite there in amplifying the continuity that I wanted to bring up to table. Therefore, I decided to amplify the connection between floor plates to an extreme, almost like a vertical Boulevard so people can traverse freely from the lower plan to the upper plan while creating a progression through a sense of arrival - rising - climax - diminishing - resolution.

REM's library: instead of a simple stacking of floors, section of each level are manipulated to touch those above and below; all the planes are connected by a single trajectory, a warped interior boulevard that exposes and relates all programmatic elements. Through the scale and variety of spaces, the effect of the inhabited planes becomes almost that of a street; this boulevard generates a system of supra-programmatic urban elements in the interior: plazas, parks, monumental staircases, cafes, shops. To enrich the circulation experience, and to introduce more dfficient and utilitatiran paths, escalators and elevators create short circuits that complement pedestrian options with mechanical ones and establish the necessary programmatic connections.

THE KEY to this exercise is 1) generation of the intermediate planes using geometrical rules; 2) connection/communication between floor plates which subverts the conventional floor paradigm via utilizing a vertical boulevard ( which is simultaneously a circulatory apparatus and a critique to the paradigm) ; 3) such manipulation is aimed to create various scales of spacial experience. 4) think about the hierarchy of spaces and how it ties to this new form of geometry?

Stop self-doubting and just go to work!