Studio Exercise 3 - Posterboards

For this weeks exercise we were to use our abstracted form created during the paper folding exercise. In addition to this 2 of our analysis views from the last week studio - I chose a section showing public/semi-private and private and a plan showing movements. Along with this I used several pictures of the Hotel Unique to give an impression of the building. I find the building itself kinda something you could see in a very dream with its truly unique half moon shape. I kinda chose this as a theme for the poster. I tried not to be too clear of how the building actually looked. I used the abstract form as a kind of canvases for the images.

I used A3 size for the poster.

I used a space background to support the moon shape of the building.

Research Exercise 2

For this exercise we were to find 3 examples of graphic representation boards that somehow awoke our interest.

I like some of the concepts of this graphic representation board regarding a battery park. What I really find attractive is the spatial relationship between the rendering and the bird-view perspective of the park. The two different kind of graphic representations share the same horizon line which gives a very fluent transition. Transitions are often, for me, one of the hardest things to do properly when creating a board. I like the color manipulation of the tree – from the lively green fitting the rendering to the more serious grey suiting the project summary on the right side. I think the small diagrams in the downward left corner could have been done in a much more elegant way.

 I like the connection between the iconic pictures and the plan view of the project. The black background colors gives a sharp contrast between the light colored pictures and make them “jump” out of the page. The amount of text is quite large but is smoothly fitted on the poster in their natural places next to the bobble shaped images, which make the user wants to view and read afterwards.

This poster has a very nice color scheme. Transition between the big plan view and the block of text is a simple, but effectfull, fading effect. The poster looks very calm and invites the viewer to study it closer. The colors of the plan drawing is melting in to the background leaving mainly the contours of the site visible. This brings out the interesting information of the Brisbane Transportation Centre in a very clear way.

Sources:

#1: http://parametrication.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/board-01.jpg

#2: http://www.archdaily.com/188122/the-mobius-portal-to-the-point-weissmanfredi/portal-point_boards_page_3/

#3: HOK San Francisco: http://www.hoklife.com/tag/san-francisco/

Studio Exercise 3 - Technical drawings of chosen building

Stage 1 - Gathering material

I work with Hotel Unique designed by Ruy Othake. I were not able to find any floor plans but luckily I found a simple model at Google Sketchup 3dWarehouse from which I could work off. The models name was Hotel Unique by Eric Mancinelli. I estimated concrete slabs of depth 200 mm as decks. I drew these between the windows which created the six stories I read the hotel have.

To make the floor plan was more difficult because the room varies in size, some more luxurious than others. Lets have a look at the facade:

#2 Facade in daylight

We see here a total of 37x2 = 74 windows on each side (symmetric). I was able to read that there is a total of 95 guestrooms available at Hotel Unique, which means that for the rooms to have at least one windows there will have to be rooms at each of the two external facades. This is why I chose to put the hallway in the middle. The part of the external wall without windows I estimate to be the space used for circulation. Probably a staircase in one side, and a elevator in the other. The rest of the space I imagine is used for dwellings. 

Here is an example of the interior:

#1 Interior

I estimate that the rooms have two windows, where this probably varies a lot in the real building.

I watched some videos of the building to get a better impression of it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oRL0WLPB37E
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A4J6hMkE-n4

Though their main focus was just pointing out that the hotel is very unique.

Stage 2 - Section and floor plans

First part was to create a plan and section of the private, semi-private and public areas of the building.

Next step was to describe the circulation in the buildings in a section and plan drawing.

Final step was to extract the simple shapes represented in the building which in my case is very clear.

Regarding the structures it seems like a catenary arch, which is very ideal for absorbing moments because its shaped as an arch - moment curve as result of uniformly distributed load. This is not totally true because the original building is also supported by a steel structure at the bottom of the arch. If it were not supported here the concrete slabs in each side would probably have to be a lot larger and would definitely change the expression of the building. By making the bottom support transparent I think that the building has structurally created a good illusion of being carried by the 300 mm concrete slabs at each side.

Image sources:

#1: https://www.google.com.au/search?q=hotel+unique+sao+paulo&rlz=1C1ASUT_enDK485DK485&um=1&ie=UTF-8&hl=da&tbm=isch&source=og&sa=N&tab=wi&ei=ksgWUs-fI835lAWHx4DYDg&biw=1745&bih=860&sei=lMgWUqWGEMb5kAXtmIBg#facrc=_&imgdii=esiCEZ4Q2om9QM%3A%3BCJqmj746erRrmM%3BesiCEZ4Q2om9QM%3A&imgrc=esiCEZ4Q2om9QM%3A%3BmHnraLqP-dIxTM%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.trainperformance.com%252Fwp-content%252Fuploads%252F2010%252F08%252Fsao-paulo.jpg%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.trainperformance.com%252Fthe-fitness-bug%252F8-of-the-worlds-best-hotels-for-post-workout-relaxtion%252F%3B337%3B450

Post 2 – Weekly progress

I started off making a table in Excel containing all the rooms supposed to be in the house. I assumed rough dimensions for the rooms, but since they are just to be made as boxes at this step, the dimensions will probably change a lot along the way. I split the rooms into three different categories private, semi-private and public. I’ll try to keep boxes in the same category together, and perhaps have public in one end of the house, and private in the other.

#	Room	Width [m]	Length [m]	Area [m2]	Category	Color
1	Master bedroom	5	4	20	Private
2	Ensuite bathroom	4	4	16	Private
3	Childrens bedroom	4	4	16	Private
4	Childrens bathroom	3	3	9	Private
5	Study	3	3	9	Private
6	Guest bedroom	3	4	12	Semi-Private
7	Guest toilet	3	4	12	Semi-Private
8	Kitchen	6	4	24	Public
9	Living room	8	6	48	Public
10	Separate dining room	5	5	25	Public
11	Laundry	4	4	16	Public
12	Parking for 2 cars	5	5	25	Public
	Total Area			232

I left some area for circulation but I’ll probably need more than the 18 m2 I have at the moment, but they can be taken from the rooms. Also note that with a standard room height of 3 meters, it will not be anywhere near the 900 m3 suggested in the project description. This way the master bedroom or the living room could be made really nice with high ceilings. With this is a starting point I modeled the rooms as boxes in SketchUp. I labeled the room as the numbers in the table, grouped everything and started doing some compositions.  Here are some step by step photos of the room composition.

Here are some snapshots of playing with the 3 primitives shapes.

As seen in the table the light blue ones are the public areas, the dark blues are the private areas and the blue in between are the semi-private areas. I’ve tried combining these areas in different ways. But mainly I imagine the public space to be the connecting joint between these two types of areas. I like the proposal with the flipped pyramid the best, so I think I’ll proceed with that. 

Studio Exercise 2 - Paper folding

This exercise was about folding single sheets of paper to shapes inspired by the chosen architect. I have chosen to work with Ruy Othake and his design Hotel Unique in Sao Paulo. I chose to view the hotel from a spatial point of view. The hotel, seen in the picture below, with its moon shape has some clear curving shapes. I chose to try and interpret those shapes by folding the paper as to form an overall curving shape, with some "holes" to resemble windows. Ideally those would have been round but that was quite hard to do. Insted I made them squared but twisted 90 degrees.

Model #1 - Abstract intepretation

Model #2 - Inspired by patterns

Second model was inspired by Ruy Othakes use of wave-like shapes e.g. as used in the Villa Residencia, seen on the picture below.

Model #3 - Free model

I did not have any scissor or tape so it did not really make a difference for me - except I was now able to use more sheets of paper. I wanted to make something that resembled Ruy Othakes high-rise buildings but it was to make the paper stick together. The idea was to place some curved shapes along the facade of the tower.

In conclusion, I actually found it better to work just one single sheet of paper to, as said in the tutorial, make one think closer about the production method.

Image sources

https://www.google.com.au/search?q=hotel+unique+sao+paulo+structure&rlz=1C1ASUT_enDK485DK485&um=1&ie=UTF-8&hl=da&tbm=isch&source=og&sa=N&tab=wi&ei=cWYEUtTxBIXXkAWCxIHABw&biw=856&bih=833&sei=cmYEUtOwKoe6kQX1-4GIAg#bav=on.2,or.r_cp.r_qf.&fp=386201c5d6059fc6&hl=da&q=hotel+unique&sa=1&tbm=isch&um=1&facrc=_&imgdii=_&imgrc=brsrFc843KlXPM%3A%3B2maA-iTEhsz5lM%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fwearedevelopment.files.wordpress.com%252F2013%252F03%252Fhotel-unique_1.jpg%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fwearedevelopment.net%252Fbrazil%252Fgroupe-seb-farewell%252F%3B910%3B606

http://www.arcoweb.com.br/arquitetura/ruy-ohtake-residencia-valinhos-27-07-2011.html

Research Exercise 1 - Design influence

Choosing from one of the given 20 persons/firms was not easy at all. In the end I had to make a descision between Studio Gang Architects, Santiago Calatrava, UNStudio and Coop Himmelblau. All four work with complex shapes and very interesting structures, which were what I was searching for. One particular building that I could not forget while researching the others was the Bengt Sjostrom Starlight Theater by Studio Gang Architects. When I researched more of the theater I learned that the Studio Gang Architects did not originally design the building but were just in charge of refurbishing. I decided to go back to another architect that fascinated me, Ruy Othake.

Chosen person - Ruy Othake

First of all, I like that he works very organic shapes, which I like to become better at. I always think in lines and boxes. From the pictures seen at Google it also looks like he does both beautiful exterior and interior designs which I find very important. I like his use of colors and bold shapes which is hard to ignore if you find them in an urban environment almost no matter which city.

A particular building that I admired was the Hotel Unique based in Sao Paulo.
Pictures of the hotel are seen below (sources beneath them). The hotel reminds meof a horizontal half moon supported by two big plates at each side. The windows are round which I found logical compared to the exterior shape of the building. As seen in picture #1 the rooms are located along the sloping floor, which could mean a lot of wasted space. But as seen in picture #2 the rooms simply have a sloping floor. I find this to be truly unique! This building is very interesting from a structural point of view - because as seen on picture #3 - the ground floor has glass exterior walls which means there must be some serious supports inside the building to maintain this structure. 

   

Picture sources:
https://www.google.com.au/search?rlz=1C1ASUT_enDK485DK485&hl=da&q=hotel+unique+pictures&bav=on.2,or.r_cp.r_qf.&bvm=bv.50500085,d.dGI,pv.xjs.s.en_US.ciY8R2R6XC8.O&biw=1745&bih=860&um=1&ie=UTF-8&tbm=isch&source=og&sa=N&tab=wi&ei=XxQDUsGoJYiPkwXS6YH4Cg#facrc=_&imgdii=_&imgrc=brsrFc843KlXPM%3A%3B2maA-iTEhsz5lM%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fwearedevelopment.files.wordpress.com%252F2013%252F03%252Fhotel-unique_1.jpg%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fwearedevelopment.net%252Fbrazil%252Fgroupe-seb-farewell%252F%3B910%3B606

https://www.google.com.au/search?rlz=1C1ASUT_enDK485DK485&hl=da&q=hotel+unique+pictures&bav=on.2,or.r_cp.r_qf.&bvm=bv.50500085,d.dGI,pv.xjs.s.en_US.ciY8R2R6XC8.O&biw=1745&bih=860&um=1&ie=UTF-8&tbm=isch&source=og&sa=N&tab=wi&ei=XxQDUsGoJYiPkwXS6YH4Cg#facrc=_&imgdii=_&imgrc=brsrFc843KlXPM%3A%3B2maA-iTEhsz5lM%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fwearedevelopment.files.wordpress.com%252F2013%252F03%252Fhotel-unique_1.jpg%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fwearedevelopment.net%252Fbrazil%252Fgroupe-seb-farewell%252F%3B910%3B606

https://www.google.com.au/search?rlz=1C1ASUT_enDK485DK485&hl=da&q=hotel+unique+Sao+paulo+pictures&bav=on.2,or.r_cp.r_qf.&biw=1745&bih=813&bvm=pv.xjs.s.en_US.ciY8R2R6XC8.O&um=1&ie=UTF-8&tbm=isch&source=og&sa=N&tab=wi&ei=zxQDUovBA4LMkAXXqICADg#facrc=_&imgdii=_&imgrc=-JOtImCRwR31PM%3A%3BY-8jxQBm96-24M%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fcdn.luxatic.com%252Fwp-content%252Fuploads%252F2012%252F12%252FHotel-Unique-in-Sao-Paulo-5.jpg%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fluxatic.com%252Fthe-sophisticated-hotel-unique-in-sao-paulo-brazil%252Fhotel-unique-in-sao-paulo-5%252F%3B970%3B546

Studio Exercise 1 - Sketching from limited information

In our group we had sections and elevations of the buildings. This gave us a starting point with two vertical dimensions of the buildings. The problem was mainly the dept of the objects and how they offset compared to each other. The section cuts gave limited information about this and the pathway at the western side of the buildings were hard to notice on the drawings. Also the the roof on the central building was difficult to get right. The overlapping fences were also a problem, because the distance between them was hard to read from the elevations. The heights of the buildings and the sloping of the side was easy to get right, since it was so obvious in our given drawings.

Here is my drawings, I ran out of time during the second one. But as you might see I struggled with the roof of the building facing the courtyard. In the second picture I failed to see the path between the fences.

When you use both orthogonal projections of buildings (or anything else) it rules out any misunderstandings. This way you can not be in doubt of what is being projected, if the drawing material is sufficient. Also since the orthogonal projections are at a certain scale it is possible to measure directly from the drawings, which makes them very useful for engineers. 

On the other hand a 3D projection gives a good spatial understanding and makes reading the orthogonal projections much easier because you get the bigger picture of things this way. A combination of orthogonal and isometric is, to me, ideal.