USC Architecture Xpo
This project explores Chaotic Order, where chaos is any disruption that disturbs the order of a clearly defined system. This disruption is seen in the change from one material to another, in the form of a play area cutting into a learning space, and in the form of certain rooms being lifted up or pushed back. These disruptions allow for intriguing moments where play cuts into the classroom, as well as the existence of both traditional and non-conventional learning spaces.
This project begins to explore the fragmentation of form while using seams as catalysts to create discrete moments of opposition. As the user enters the school, they are immersed with these fragmented levels that begin to mimic the hills located in the site. While walking along these steps, it is evident that the roof shifts with the slope of the paths in the space. In school, opposition is present with the use of materials. The repetitive use of concrete and glass, highlights key concepts of opposition such as fragility vs. durability, and solidity vs transparency. This fragmentation of the floor allows for an open plan, making the school feel grand and open which allows the students and faculty to be one with the beautiful nature around.
Symbiotic collision investigates spatial, material, and movement-based instances of architecture. This concept refers to a condition where the borders of indoor and outdoor space become blurred, accentuating natural light, transparency, and the outdoors. All collisions within the project build together symbiotically to create these spaces of dynamism throughout the schoolroom.
This project investigates the idea of Incomplete Completeness, which arises from the original design of the Venice III house by Morphosis. This paradoxical condition can be seen with the existing interior allowing for clear, intentional navigation through the space, in a state of completeness, whereas incompleteness is shown in the various forms of intrusiveness in the building, with the change or absence of materials and the disruptions resulting from misaligned walls and irregular spaces. However, in the design of this kindergarten school housed within a clerestory shed, Incomplete Completeness becomes more about the intrusiveness that arises from the transitions between the different conditions throughout the school in both the horizontal and the vertical directions on the macro scale as well as the stepping of the levels on the micro scale.
This project investigates the condition of unique ordinariness that elevates the mundane and the banal of architecture in order to foster both learning and social interaction. This idea is demonstrated by repurposing materials of a typical industrial butler building in Arts District, Los Angeles, into a fully realized classroom, and subsequently, a schoolhouse. The fragmentation and mirroring of steel frames, the grid as a framework of organising space, as well as the introduction of unconventional materials such as corrugated plastic and wood not only elevates the ordinary shed typology, but also encourage learning and a sense of community.
I began this semester by analyzing the Petal House, focusing on the idea of opening up roof structures through rotations and manipulation of density and porosity in different parts of the house.
Through unrolling, hinging, and rotations, I wanted to create a kindergarten that stimulated spatial awareness with a focus on programmatic flexibility and dis-programming. Each element in the shed such as the walls or trusses are delaminated and geometrically manipulated through shifting, turning, extruding, such that each acts a system of their own and engender different activities and spatial configurations.
When the panels are locked in their open position, the facade dissolves and the ‘interior space’ of the classroom expands to the common area. When classes are not being held, opening these members create a permeable space that transforms the whole kindergarten to ‘play.’
Further, parts of the bow-truss and walls are cut out and hinged to create platforms, playground, and rest area while undergoing material transformation. As such, characteristics inherent in these materials paired with varied programmatic configurations allows the students to learn in a tactile and exploratory school environment.
The language of the cruciform is manipulated and transformed to create distinctions between programs and to demarcate space and establish circulation within the kindergarten. The cruciform, which is derived from project two utilizes the vertical and horizontal structural members to create permeable boundaries where light, sound and air may pass through. The interpretation of the cruciform is less catholic where lines, L shapes and T shapes account for the distinction of space as much as the true cruciform allows.
This project began with somewhat of an abstraction of the idea of a classroom through the form of a latticed scaffolding, which was then extended throughout the structure to create the rest of the kindergarten. The wooden studs make up the primary framework of the scaffolding, and follows the grid of the building’s original steel beams and girders to both work within the existing structural system and interrupt it at several instances to compete for dominance. The primary function of these studs is hold hold up a series of platforms, which are made of various materials sourced from our investigations, such as kitchen tile, perforated metal, and triangulated fabric. Additionally, wide-flange steel beam fragments function as a system within the wooden system, serving as circulatory members by being climbable as ladders and crawlable as bridges in order to get from classroom to classroom and platform to platform. In the classrooms, platforms can either be climbed on top of or under to create different experiences and spatial effects, but in other parts of the building, such as the offices and bathrooms, these platforms designate areas to be walled off and enclosed beneath them in order to create private space. The flexible gathering space is completely devoid of any scaffolding or platform elements so as not to prescribe any one particular program or arrangement to the space, and is instead filled with construction site materials that make up the rest of the building so the space can be customized and items can be put together in whatever configuration is needed.
Inspired by Louis Kahn’s Mother’s house, I created square shaped programs for project three. Each program occupies a single individualized space with a different rotation. The shed is formed by eleven main blocks which are related one another to produce spaces of different shapes and sizes. I created a set of cuboidal modules with hollow interior. The composition and layout of various sizes of wood modules creates different experiences for the students, such as stairs, bookshelf, chairs and climbing wall.
This project focuses on the act of disrupting the existing state of the Petal House by Eric Owen Moss and the Triple Pitch shed in Los Angeles, which was inspired by the large edition Moss added to the original Petal House, to form a kindergarten. In Project One, I created my reconsidered drawing by changing the shape, size, and material of each instance of twinning so that no two sections of the building were alike. For Project Two, I used pieces of my reconsidered Petal House to “crash” into the idea of a typical classroom. In Project Three, the disruption comes from the unusual shapes of both the classrooms and the main hallway, which forces users to walk a specific path and experience the entire kindergarten.