Project 3- Art Gallery

Site

The site I chose for this project is site 1. To my observations, the front of the site is facing the main King Street, therefore the main buildings along the street are shops and commercial buildings.

However, after turning into the side street, it has a sudden contrast with the busy King Street. The street is quiet and there are only residential buildings.

The site is placed between the two streets, therefore it has the two properties mentioned above. This is interesting because the visitors will have different feelings according to which side of the street they enter.

Therefore what I want do is a gallery that compromises the two properties, but with the main focus on the art gallery. The apartment is made as hidden, so that only guests that are invited are welcomed.

Precedent

The precedent I looked at was SANAA’s Towada Art Center.

The center is formed by a simple circulated passage, which leads visitors to walk through the main galleries by intruding the galleries in the path. The optional galleries, however, are placed on the side of the path and the ones who are interested can go in, while the others can just walk past.

A working model by me to understand the concept of this work.

What I learned from this precedent is that how a contrast of major and minor spaces are created through a simple circulation. The idea is clever and I used this idea in my design in order to separate the two properties of the site.

Scheme

The gallery is made up of 2 separate but linked buildings. The one in front, facing the main road is the art gallery, where the smaller one is the workshop and smaller gallery, also with an apartment.

The roof is made as creased as to give different lighting conditions for the interior. The skylight is place on the sloped side facing North to increase the amount of light gained. However, they are made out of sanded glass, therefore when light passes in, a soft and even light source is diffused to the gallery.

Moreover, some walls are extended from the creased roofs in order to allow visitors to know that the roof is the main feature of this building. Art objects can be placed on these walls which could catch attention as the people viewing from the roof and along the wall to the objects.

Simple-line circulation

When does a person want to go into a place that they never entered before? My answer for this is a pathway that gives you curiosity on ‘what is inside the building?’

From the main doorway on the facade, a simple straight circulation is formed, which allows pedestrians to look through the building to the far end park in the side street. Moreover, the irregular pathway on the second floor has helped to cast interesting shadows, together with the contrasting lighting conditions between indoor and outdoor, a path of light is formed. People walking on the street could be attracted by this path and start to question on what is inside this building.

Moreover, the concept of the Towada Art Center is placed in the circulation, where the path intrudes the main gallery, where the small gallery and apartment is placed on the side. This adds privacy to the apartment as the ones that does no wish to enter this building can just walk pass, thus decreasing the flow of people into the building.

2 properties of workshop and minor gallery

The building at the back is made up of a workshop, a small gallery, office, storage and the apartment.

Although this space is made as an optional gallery, the only way to get to the second floor is placed here, therefore this space have two different properties according to whether the visitors want to go to the second level or not.

If they want to go, this space makes a major circulation to go up; if they don’t, this space remains as the optional space as it was.

Hidden apartment

A hidden staircase is placed at the back of the normal stairs, therefore a sense of privacy is created in the public space.

The ones climbing up these stairs will think that the wall next to them is the exterior wall, however it is actually a wall that divides the public space and private space.

Viewing from side street

The commercial buildings in the side street have uneven heights. If a tall roof is placed in the end, it will catch attention to the pedestrians. This is why the roofs are made higher in the middle and lower in the main front. The creased roof also contrasts with the adjacent buildings, which attracts people to think about what is in the building.

Moreover, the minor gallery is placed not facing the road, so it does not invite people to go into the small gallery before visiting the major one. The walls there are also angles to the left, which helps directing the visitors to enter the main gallery first.

Original Drawings

Plan 1:100

Section 1:100

Room Plan 1:50

Room Section 1:50

Perspectives

Reflection

For this project I managed to finish my model and drawings on time, therefore I do not need to stay awake all night to finish the things. However, I had been struggling in giving a form to a function. I always design a building according to the function, but neglecting the form of it. Therefore in this project I tried to start with a form and giving function by the form, and I think the process is challenging. I hope I can continue with this type of thinking in my future studies.

Project 2: Room and Narrative- Outcome

“An indoor playground for a child which is protected and secured by his mother.”

Because I'm studying Flash design as my elective now, I tried to put what I learned in class to create a folio type flash.


Controls: Simple point and click.










Reflection
Through this project I leant more about how to give meanings to an opening, where before I only used a window to allow light straight in, without thinking how it could be used creatively to create architecturally interesting effects.
However, this time I paid too much attention on giving every door and window a meaning, which makes the whole design ununified.
From last prject I learnt "Time Management"
This project I learnt what "Less Is More" means.

Final Narrative+ Research for Project 2

Isamu Noguchi, Model of Play Mountain, 1933, plaster. Unrealized.Tengoku, 1977-78. Interior garden for Sogetsu Kaikan, Tokyo, Japan.  Photo:  Michio Noguchi.Model of the Playgound for United Nations Headquarters, 1952, New York City. Unrealized. Photo: Charles Uht.

Isamu Noguchi has created his landscape so interesting so that it forms a playground by its own. This inspires me to have a concept to create a room that combines the meaning of a room and a playground as well.

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Sejima Kazuyo, Villa in the Forest

I’m always impressed in how Sejima created wonderful architectures by using simple geometric shapes. In this villa, she used two circles to create two different levels of privacy, also with windows aligned to have a lined view of the outdoor through the inner circle.

Through the study of this house made me rethink of my old design, which is an interior space and exterior space that is watched by the mother. I questioned whether it is necessary to put an exterior space outside the room, and therefore I changed my design to a room similar to this villa with two circles, where the inner circle is an indoor garden which is the playground for the child.

In this case, I will need to modify my narrative slightly, which does not change my main principles of this design.

 

Final Narrative

for the images and principles, please refer back to my older post(which is just below).

“An indoor playground for a child which is protected and secured by his mother.”

Project 2: Room and Narrative-Draft 2

Peter de Hooch

The Bedroom 1658－60

This is a painting full of liveliness. Both the woman(I presume she is the mother) and the boy(the son) are smiling, and the boy seems asking something from his mother. You can also see the door is opening and lights coming into the room, which makes me think that the boy is asking for his mother’s permission to go out and play. She is a little worried, but since she has to do housework(which could be seen from the clothes she’s handling) and can’t order her son to stay in the house with her, she agreed, but telling him not to go too far away.

The text above is probably the main theme of my room, where the main elements that will be used are:

-An indoor space for both of them to live, and an outdoor space for the son to play, but with boundary to show how his mother didn’t let him to go far away.

-The interior space should be well protected to show how the boy is very safe when he is with his mother.

-Openings that let the mother see from inside to outside, so she could know what her son is doing.

-A play of scale which enhances the fact that the room is designed for both the mother AND son, therefore maybe there are openings that are very small and lets only the son to crawl in.

2nd Draft Narrative:

“A bedroom for a mother and son which is protected from the harm of the outside world, with an exterior garden for the son to play, after asking for permission, when the mother is busy with her housework.”

So maybe the interior space will be consisting of the bedroom and a kitchen/ laundry for the mother to do housework, which she could see her child from there.

Project 2: Room and Narrative-Draft Narratives

Peter de Hooch

“The Bedroom” 1658－60

……A child’s room with an outdoor playground for him to play freely and safely……

 

Jan Vermeer

“Woman in Blue Reading a Letter”

……A bedroom for a divorced woman who is desperately wanting her husband to come back……

Edward Hopper

Morning Sun (1952)

……A protected place for a blind(disabled) man, where he can feel the liveliness of the ‘outer world’, but could not dare to take the step out……

Hotel Room (1955)

……A private tower for a well known person(actress?) that hides her from the public so that she can be more relaxed in the space……

Sun in an Empty Room (1963)

……a hospital space for a ‘nearly dead’, where he starts to recall his beautiful memories……

Project 1: Artifice-WIP(DRAFT)

 

These are the draft partis I drew for the first try. I was a bit confused on how the partis should be and these drafts didn’t went so good.

The circulation was too detailed, which makes people lose track on identifying the main staircase. Therefore I left the rooms blank to help people stay on focus while reading my parti.

The geometry was made put dividing different rooms into blocks, which shows the different level heights, but it seems too complicated.

Through my first try of the partis, I feel very confused by the complicated floor levels, therefore I started to make a draft model first, which really helped me on underdstanding the relationship between different floors.

While I was doing the model, there is sudden beam of light coming through the window and falling on the model. Therefore I took a photo of this moment.(I only cut out the exterior walls and the openings are not even cut out yet)

  PAIN. A disadvantage of whitecard is that the card bends easily so even if we cut the card right, they don't fit tight because of the slight bended surface

The floor plans placed together. After cutting the plans there are often bits and pieces that are small and often disappears. A strange thing is that no matter how hard we find we still couldn’t find it, but when we leave it alone it suddenly pop out of nowhere. Strange…

 

These photos are taken about a week before the submission. It was at midnight and we are trying to place(not stick) together first to see if everything fits(because we cut slits to place the plans inside). You can see how the different levels are put together already, even the internal walls are not yet put together.

This is taken when we have all the levels placed together and tried to place it as a entire building. We are so excited when we could finally see a shape of a building, because we never place all the elements together yet, and it is at about 3:00am so we’re excited about nearly everything, even we still have the internal walls to finish off.