Stemming from "How to Draw Up a Project", here is my initial concept sketch.
Monday, August 31, 2009
Sunday, August 30, 2009
Response to "How to Draw Up a Project" by Jose Luis Mateo
In this essay, Jose Luis Mateo defines the architectural process as series of steps with a specific direction. He explains that a project will begin as a vague idea, gain a structure, and finally assume a skin and spatial condition. In his conception, buildings today are composed of skin and bones, separate entities combining to define space. While this may be a successful approach to framing a process, it leaves out possibilities of feedback between structure, space, and skin. Because these elements are hierarchically separated, the project loses its ability to form hybrid and novel architectural conditions.
In citing possible dangers to the process, Mateo argues that projects need ideas that do not restrict formal explorations. My professor last semester would reiterate a similar sentiment: Don't let the project become a building too soon. In Mateo's first two steps, a "phantom" pairs with structural logic. For me, the "phantom" is the set of potential relationships between users, environment, and context that the project must content with. The structure is not the physical members tasked with overcoming the force of gravity, but a framework of decisions that organize space. The interaction and feedback between data (the phantom) and decisions (the structure) produces the hierarchy, rules, and specific geometry necessary for defining space, skin and physical structure. The architectural process is then about gathering data of various types (environment, program, occupancy, codes, etc) and coupling them with analytical tools and form-finding algorithms that translate data into workable architectures.
In citing possible dangers to the process, Mateo argues that projects need ideas that do not restrict formal explorations. My professor last semester would reiterate a similar sentiment: Don't let the project become a building too soon. In Mateo's first two steps, a "phantom" pairs with structural logic. For me, the "phantom" is the set of potential relationships between users, environment, and context that the project must content with. The structure is not the physical members tasked with overcoming the force of gravity, but a framework of decisions that organize space. The interaction and feedback between data (the phantom) and decisions (the structure) produces the hierarchy, rules, and specific geometry necessary for defining space, skin and physical structure. The architectural process is then about gathering data of various types (environment, program, occupancy, codes, etc) and coupling them with analytical tools and form-finding algorithms that translate data into workable architectures.
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Welcome
This is a weblog created to document thesis prep work for course 48-497. I am a 5th year architecture student at Carnegie Mellon. This blog will contain posts of assignments and other materials related to the thesis design process. Check back for periodic updates.
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