THE WAR HAS ENDED? - CORE 1 finished!

I guess to this point I kinda of know what I can do better with all my projects. But I have to admit that not all projects are supposed to be perfect - there is no perfect design, it is just about how someone interpret the design and appreciate the cleverness in the design.

For this last project, still the cleverness is missing. Though the circulation is invented to reinvest the spatial property, but the whole thing is not responsive to the thermal impacts, and the whole thing is totally not thermal dynamically driven. The excuse I have is that it was thrown to me two weeks ago when I could not really understand and formulate my take on the continuous surface that my instructor liked. I should have been more opinionated about my design. I had a beautiful project with the hidden room, when she was not pushy and I developed my design to achieve the interesting spatial quality. Being systematic and diagramtic is not a problem, same with the parametric design method. actually the space created through diagram operation can be really beautiful, after all, architecture can be a diagram of all the forces. The cleverness, then, is the way we manipulate the spatial arrangement - for the most time the sectional property within a volume. The plan is the flow, while the section is the essence of variation in spatial experience.

I cannot tell if it is a good thing for me as a designer to have such a dictating instructor, and I have tried several method in design - antithesis leading concept, diagramatical operation, systematic aggregation, form dictating strategy...

After all, be self critical and radical, and always seek the cleverness in the design - being aware of what space you are creating, no matter what approach I am using and what path the project is leading towards, but accept mediocrity.

COMBING THROUGH THE PQ INTERLOPER

The previous scheme died because the systemiczation was too dominant and the beauty of architecture got lost in the rather diagrammatic production. Then my instructor sees a lot of potential in my PQ surface exercise. Therefore...I started over with my rather sexy surface.

The new surface is a combo of two identical surfaces with a extrusion and a recession along the central axis. The connection of the two surface is a simple hinge where the recession of one surface and the extrusion of the other meet, through which self shading is created. The shape of the surface is aiming towards maximizing the surface area for solar gain. Different shading conditions and degree of privacy are inscribed in the overall form. Circulation and aggregation opportunities are embedded in the grains of the discretization (horizontal) and and central axis (vertical).

Right now I need to work out the organization of the labs and clean up the circulation to make it a tight system - the integration of horizontal and vertical circulation.




Review Take-away:
1) Seek contradiction in a design to produce great architecture.
2) Interlacing of simple non-linear relationship that produces complexity/variation.
3) Produce otherness in synthesis,  both geometrically and thermal dynamically.

The Misshapen Pearl: A Baroque Manifesto

The Baroque is a misshapen pearl: shining and attractive but somehow flawed. It is interested in systemization – mathematical understanding of space and development of perspective as a rational tool to systemize space. The systemization is not about the homogeneity but about relational heterogeneity bounded within a seemingly homogeneous field. That objects are qualitatively different even though they are composed of rather homogeneous elements, in the sense that it is rather the relationship is being examined rather than the objects as placeholders. The homogeneity of geometric space is reflected through the notion that all the points are mere determinations of position, they are purely relational rather than substantial reality, and there is no independent content of their own outside of this relation. It is liberation from the view of individuality to a web of relationships, a systemized singularity.

As a beautiful pearl of systemization, the misshapen aspect of the Baroque is embedded in its emanating quality and generating forces – the transformation from linear to painterly, from planar to diagonal recession, and from closed form to open form. It is about the tactile, plastic, loose, making shadow and light integral and superseding to contours as fixed boundaries; the diagonal, scenographic deployment of two or three point perspective, which engages the spectators in the spatial relationships and oblique views; architecture as an open system of relationships which involves the fabric of the city and the landscape.

The fact that Baroque is a synthesis of dynamism and the systemization concludes that it is a not a representation of a simple decoration system but rather a system that adopts multiple references: its nature as eclecticism. Baroque architecture is embedded in the tradition, and extends the tradition. Baroque finds multiple connectivity to different ornamentation/structure, spatial, typological references to infinity. It is a machine of making connections of all sorts: connectivity in addition to multiplicity and variation. It combines abstraction with realism, in an allegorized fashion; it connects corporeal realm to the spiritual/heaven realm. The visualization of such connectivity and synthesis would be the membrane that begins to stretch and almost folds back to itself – creating distortions to create different connections. The fold, multiplying the membrane to reach beyond the simple imagination plane is the generator to produce knowledge. The Baroque as misshapen pearl is a representation for itself as a fetish of complexity and contradictions, a marriage of systems and dynamism, and an allegory of seemingly objectivity in relation to the boundless infinity.