Submission 3 : Developed Design

Submission 3  Developed Design

As we are building a Experimental Art Foundation, I feel like the most intriguing challenge I was facing is, how do I deal with the relationship between Architecture and Art. For me, as an architect, I do not necessarily create art itself. What I create is the possibility for art to be produced as well as to be represented.

That's the reason why I decided to use concrete as my main material along my whole design progress. The thing I love about concrete is, its quietness, emotionless, almost like a silent giant, never talks much. By pursuing silence in my architecture, I wish to really push the artists and their artworks to the centre of the stage. Architects stay humble so the artists don't have to. 
With that being the driven force behind all my design decision, I came up with the "concrete forest" idea.

With massive concrete structures on top of the platform, I intended to create quality spaces for artworks to be represented. Surrounded by concrete elements which represent silence, the artworks are allowed to be "loud", drawing attentions from visitors.

As for the chambers, they will be divided in a way that each studio room has its own character - some a double size that the original chamber, some have two stories, some are darker that the other etc. There are horizental and vertical opening on the sea wall to bring lights into the art labs. I'd like to call it "bar-code" openings. 

  

In my previous design, I demolished all the existing buildings on the upper site. Being criticized to be irresponsible for the site, I decided to try a more gentle approach in this submission. The brick & timber structures of the existing buildings are kept, however with the interior completely re-arranged. Also, I have concrete elements insert into the brick & timber buildings to create the sense of "old" and "new". All the art foundation spaces and public spaces will take place in these "altered" existing buildings.

Project 2: Final presentation and thought through design progress

Project 2: Double house

Site: Victoria St. 123

When I first looked at the site, the key challenge came to my mind was "how do I arrange the space?" The site is 10 x 30m which means it is quite long and narrow. Plus you can only get sunlight and air flow from two side of the building (east and west). The design requires us to fit two dewelling and a gallery into this narrow space, so the arrangement of space is what I focused on in the early stage of my design.

My site plan and street front elevation.Site is long and narrow.

From my previous research of Adolf loos' villa muller, his idea of "designing space instead of floors" really insterests me. So I thought, what is the most important space in this project? My answer is - the gallery space. Hence, my primary objective of this design is building a large, bright, high gallery in the centre and putting other spaces to serve this space. Let the visitors view it from variety of angles.

Plans and section. Gallery space in the centre and other space around it.

One advantage of this particular site is the view of city. Hence I opened up the entire west facade as glazing curtain wall to embrace that city view and sunlight. I also have varieties of meeting space, office and bedroom space on west side to maximum the value of the view.

I have the art collector's dewelling on the top floor with a private stair hall. It has both city view at the back and street view, also with the opening on the floor (right on top of the gallery space so the art collector can view that space from where he live) and skylight on top of that opening to create a pillar of light lead right into the gallery space.

For the other client, he is a young photographer.I decide to make his journey across the house more dramatic with different light experience. His dewelling is below the street level. He will go downward a long stair in order to get to his studio and furthermore his living area. To make his trip more dramatic, I put the skylight on top of the stair hall to create a interesting shadow effect. Then he went into a dark studio, after that is a bright studio. His living area is 1.5m below with the view of city and good solar access. The roof of his living area is a roof garden that he can access from his studio.

Space for art collector, photographer and public.

Project 1: Villa Muller research - Part a: Drawings

 

               
 Figuring out the drawings and model for villa muller is quite a challenge simply because there is no concept of certain floors in this building. But that almost is the exact reason why villa muller is so interesting and important in the realm of architecture.

 I choose to model the centre part of the building including all important rooms and major level changing.

It took me a long time to make this model. Not only because the model itself has a lot only details, but also because villa muller itself has so many subtle changes in levels.

Project 1: Part b - Villa Muller Research

My first research is why I choose to build this specific part of villa muller. In my opinion, what villa muller means most to the architecture world is the introduction of raumplan - the concept of design spaces instead of levels and floors. My part includes most of the major space (salon, library, dining area and lady's bedroom) and the main circulation of the building that connecting these space together. I think it is the best section in this building that can represent the idea of "raumplan".

Part and whole. Level changes and raumplan.

My second research focused on how Adolf loos handled the transition from public and private in villa muller.Simply said, the material getting richer as visitor going deeper into the building. Adolf loos create this interesting "journey" through the alternation of material richness.

As people going deeper into the house, the materials are getting richer.

  My third research is about the circulation in muller house. Adolf loos designed two circulations - one for the owner and another for the servant. As you can see below in my research, the servant space tends to be small and stack together while the owner's space is much more open and comfortable. Also, Loos concerned a lot on the arrangement of the spaces so the servants wouldn't disturb the owners while they working in the house.

Yellow and red for Owner, blue and green for servant.

Week 4 Progress: Part B

week 3 experiments of part b

week 3 model progress

 

Updated my model today