PHASE 1: The sensitivity of a room

LIGHT BOX

1.1 - Precedents: Architectural lighting.

Light is one of the most architecture’s important materials. Whether natural or artificial, light might accentuate or mask spatial properties, or make a place feel particular (safe, scary, sacred, soft, intimate, heavy, evanescent, etc.).

Each group of two students will start to analyze one of the following architects/artists and their selected works:

• Le Corbusier, Chapel at Ronchamp, France, 1959
• Louis Kahn, The Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth, Texas, USA, 1972
• Carlo Scarpa, Castelvecchio Museum, Verona, Italy 1950-74
• Renzo Piano, Menil Collection, Houston, Texas, USA 1987
• Tadao Ando, The church of the light, Osaka, Japan, 1989
• Peter Zumthor, Thermal SPA, Vals, Switzerland, 1996
• Toyo Ito:

- Serpentine Gallery, London, GB, 2002

- Brugge Pavillion, Belgium, 2002

• Steven Holl, Planar House, Arizona, USA, 2005
• Donald Judd, (sculptor/artist), Chinati Foundation, Marfa, Texas, USA (Aluminum and concrete works)
• Dan Flavin (artist), Light installations at Chinati Foundation, Marfa, Texas, USA

Compose 5 pages in A3 format (11x17) with:

- Brief description (program, floor plans, dimensions, location, year of construction, main materials) of the building/installation/objects/works.

- Analysis of how light is treated and implemented to give new meaning and value to spaces. Print a collage of information, images, photos, drawings, etc.

- Some elementary digital diagrams that explain trajectories, how light enters or diffuses, vertical and horizontal openings, solids and voids, lights and shadows, type of light, natural or artificial, etc.

Class pin-up.
due Wednesday, August 29


1.2: Light in a BOX

Given a solid measuring 12’ - 0” x 24’ – 0” x 12’ – 0”, containing an 8’ – 0” x 20’ – 0” x 8’ – 0” void, each student will choreograph the movement of light across the interior space during three different days of the year. The top and two of the surfaces may be cut in order to transmit light; the other surfaces are to receive that light/shadow. Consider the light in terms of slots, pools, bands, etc.

You are to proceed by constructing both physical and virtual models and Drawings according to the following episodes. You are to develop your spatial construct thru a reciprocal series of representations using both computer generated and material projections.

For the purposes of this exercise, you are to use the longitude and latitude of Chicago, Illinois.

Represent your project at a scale of: 1/2” = 1’– 0”.

Episode 1.2.1: due Friday, August 31

Choose three different days of the year and locate your volume relative to NSEW.

Program three (3) different narratives for the movement of light across a space.

One narrative should address light movement on a vertical surface, one on a vertical and a horizontal surface, and one on a horizontal surface.

This is to be documented using graphite on 1 sheet of 15”x 22” arches hot press 90# paper, draw each of the three narratives by articulating the pattern of light at three different times of day for each episode.

Episode 1.2.2: due Monday, September 10

The box is now a complete solid with an inner centered void.
Choose one light situation: 21 June at noon (12.00pm), summer solstice.
Redefine your cuts on the top surface and on two or three vertical surfaces.
Develop a three dimensional digital model showing how your object will need to be cut to articulate your narratives.

Use the computer to develop 2D study diagrams of the light/space, and to cut a series of rendered transversal sections. You may only use a white surface style.

On 8 1/2” x 11” paper print the following:

- Series of 2D Diagrams of your cuts, stripes, bands, etc., using the digital media preferred: Autocad, Sketch-up, 3D studio….

- One (1) axonometric view of your light box, using 3D Studio

- Three (3) elevations (of cut surfaces), using 3D Studio

- Two (2) episodic transversal sections of spatial construction, using 3D Studio

Scale - 1:1 with your construction

Create a digital folder: LIGHT BOX
Save all your drawings under subfolders (sections, elevations, plans, diagrams, axons…)
It is your responsibility to keep copies and traces of all the studio design process and phases.
Be organized and keep all your digital material in order on your computer.

Episode 1.2.3: due Wed, September 12

Reconsider your design. In addition to your reworked digital model, develop and construct a physical study model of your project.
You may now wish to consider various means of filtering the light as it enters your object.

Materials: Chipboard/tape/glue

scale 1/2’ = 1’- 0”

Episode 1.2.4: due Friday, September 14

Manipulate the interior surface of your volume in order to intercept/trap/redirect the light developed from your narrative. At this point the openings should be fixed and you should concentrate on the articulation of the sectional properties of the inner void. Rework your digital model.

On 8 1/2” x 11” paper print the following:

Two (2) transversal episodic sections of your redesigned spatial construction.

Two (2) rendered perspectives/ Axons of the box interior

Scale - 1:1 with your construction

Episode 1.2.5: due Monday, September 17

Play with solar light and place omni lights (one or two outside, one inside, properly set their intensities) until you find the ideal solution for your box. Establish your final light condition at 9 am, June 21, Chicago.

Choose the top surface of your box.
Consider your cuts as 3D spaces, as they project light towards the bottom interior surface (floor).
You should explore a reversal operation: light that enters in the box from the top surface become solid.

Render your box in wireframe mode (3D Studio).
On 8 1/2” x 11” paper print the following:

2 (two) Axon Diagrams / light as a solid.

Scale - 1:1 with your construction

Episode 1.2.6: due Friday, September 21

FINAL BOARD and FINAL PHOTO PRINTS

Requirements: In addition to all of your process drawings, you are to have:

On 18” x 24” paper sheet, plot and compose the following vertically (18” as base), accordingly to a presentation layout using Photoshop and/or Illustrator:

- Three (3) final elevations (of cut surfaces), using 3D Studio
- Two (2) final episodic sections of spatial construction, using 3D Studio
- One (1) final rendered axonometric view of your light-as-solid, using 3D Studio
- Your significant series of diagrams using Autocad.
- Some explanatory text, footnotes, captions or key-words that clarify your concept and working process.

Scale may vary

On 8 1/2” x 11” photo paper print the following:

- One (1) final rendered axonometric view of your light box from outside, using 3D Studio
- One (1) final rendered perspective view of your light box from inside, using 3D Studio

Scale - 1:1 with your construction

Episode 1.2.7: due Monday, September 24

FINAL MODEL

Requirements: In addition to all of your process drawings, final 18”x24” final board and final photo prints, you are to have:

Construct your final model from white museum board. It should be made to open, exposing interior form.

Scale 1/2’ = 1’- 0

Class pin-up

STUDIO BRIEF

The studio will explore the territory where the expansion of the digital age, the dissemination of information technology, and pervasive media-entities change the way we perceive and we inhabit space. An ever expanding threshold of speed, efficiency, and meaning is changing our experience of the space.

Accordingly, the dynamism of new forms will search for structures that are malleable enough to adapt to the changeable and ubiquitous contemporary life-style.

Flexible requirements will afford innovative and hybrid spatial configurations that respond to actual exigencies of virtual environments (seating here and been there, places and non-places).

Phase 1: The sensitivity of a room

The room is the beginning of architecture. You do not say the same thing in one room as you do in another, that’s how sensitive a room is. A room is a marvelous thing, a world within a world. It’s yours and offers a measure of yourself. What slice of the sun enters your room? You feel the privacy of it, you feel that sun belongs to you…… Louis Kahn

Develop a comprehension of given “enclosures” by blurring their spatial boundaries, through the exploration of their sensorial potentialities, leading to new redefined spatialities.

A solid, a room, a sequence of adjacent surfaces, or an oriented object will be affected and dissolved by the movement of light/shadow across the interior space. Consider the light in terms of slots, pools, bands, etc.

Manipulations of the surfaces of the volume will intercept/trap/redirect the light developed from student’s narrative.

Phase 2: Patterns as systemic generators of organizations

Investigate through an analytical process the potential of patterns and their rule based organizations, relationships of units, and techniques for variation. Exploring and uncovering underlying transformations which are already within the pattern geometry foster the possibility for varied diagrammatic repetitions.

Phase 3: Integration

Design three different types of units/rooms/ solids/spaces, as synthesis of the previous phases. They should be interconnected in order to configure inhabitable, dynamic, interchangeable, and flexible organizational structures. Parameters :

- Given modular dimensions (ex. 1, 1 1/2, 2 modules)

- Spatial flexibility over time (ex. Possible combination of more units). Growing organism.

- Horizontal and vertical (stacking) combination of the units, variety of solid/void

- Sectional interlocking possibilities

- Diagram of densities

- Idea of adjacency

Requirements:

Proceed by constructing both physical and virtual models and drawings according to the different episodes of the assignments. Develop spatial construct through a reciprocal series of 2D and 3D transformations using both computer generated and material projections.

3D Studio, Autocad, Photoshop, Illustrator, Acrobat.

Other requirements discussed in the syllabus.