Embed Size (px)
Citation preview
Concept Diagram
ARCH 201 – Studio III ILLINOIS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY COLLEGE OF ARCHITECTURE
Conceptan abstract ideaa plan or intentionan idea or invention to help sell or publicize a commodityidea, notion, theory, conviction, opinion
The “Big Idea” that underpins your design or building.
Calatrava Turning Torso Malmö, Sweden 2005
Concept doesn’t need to be a singular gesture, it can be a combination of ideas: organizational, material, functional, formal. It can be based on
pragmatic criteria such as above, or an ideological principle.
1A TransitionsDesign Problem:As a marker for transitioning out of first year into your second year of study, we will be reusing your full-scale wood constructs into full-scale shelter that provide protection or relief. How you define “protection” or “relief” is up to you and your group.
• It can be protection from environmental elements, like rain or sun.• It can relief from others, like friends or foe.• It can be protection from one’s self or the metaphysical.
Ultimately, your definition will be the basis for your design.
How to begin?Building Issues:• functional zoning• architectural space• circulation and building form• response to concept• building envelope
Design Values• ordered vs. random• structured vs. unstructured• objective vs. subjective• one answer vs. multiple solutions• creative vs. conservative• specific vs. general• man vs. nature• complexity vs. simplicity• design for now vs. design for the future• patterned process vs. random process
Design Philosophy• artistic vs. scientific• rational vs. irrational• personal vs. universal• visual vs. non visual• needs vs. wants• individual vs. society
The "sponge" concept transforms the building via a series of programmatic and bio-technical functions. The building has five large openings corresponding to main entrances, view corridors, and outdoor activity terraces. Large, dynamic openings are the lungs, bringing natural light down and moving air up.
Steven Holl Simmons Hall MIT 2002
Gather and assess all of the parameters for a given project
• Site Parameters• Local climate• Prevailing winds• Solar orientation• Vegetation• Building context• History• Special liabilities• Opportunities• Building code/zoning
• Client Parameters• Beliefs/culture• Preferences• Agendas• Politics• Budget• program
• Building Typology• Type of building• Precedent study• Problems to solve?
Inventory of practical constraints can seed or incite the Big Idea
NL Architects WOS 8 Utrecht 1997
“WOS 8 is the village square wrapped around a box”
Design Problem factors to consider:• function• form• space• geometry• context• human factors• economic constraints• enclosure• limits• opportunities
“a cocoa bean that had an elongated shape and distinct ribs”
Build your concept early• start brainstorming!
Break it down• Review building issues and design
philosophy
Establish your concept by understanding the problem• Make a diagram of the problems• Make a diagram of the solutions or
your ideas
Sketch
Study your precedents
Objectives• A concept is what distinguishes “capital A” Architecture from architecture• Helps us frame the questions we need to ask to solve the problem• Guides the design process• A good concept will reverberate throughout your design
DiagramWebster’s defines the diagram as a ‘graphic design that explains rather than represents; especially a drawing that shows arrangement and relations (as of parts).’
In contrast, the Oxford English Dictionary describes the diagram as ‘a simplified drawing showing the appearance, structure, or workings of something; a schematic representation.’
Diagrams are selective representations. They demonstrate, through abstraction, a particular subset of the fullness of reality.
They are an editorial explanation of the project:
• organizing and sorting project direction and thoughts• clearly demonstrate the parts• analytical explanation of
• program, • space organization, • connections, • boundaries• hierarchy, • enclosure, • construction elements, • structure
PartiA Parti diagram shows a concept in it’s simplest form.It focuses on the key structural and relational features of an idea.
The term PARTI refers to the concept or primary organizing idea of a design.
By tradition in the ÉCOLE DES BEAUX-ARTS, the PARTI identifies the Big Idea, assumed to derive from the French prendre parti, literally ‘to make a decision.’
Other critics suggest the term ‘commanding form’ as a description of the visible expression of the Big Idea. Both refer to the principal organizing aspect of an architect’s design presented in the form of a basic diagram or statement of intent.
Balmer, Swisher: Diagramming the Big Idea: Methods for Architectural Composition 1st Edition
Compare the conventional plan to the images of plan view diagrams. The sequence of examples demonstrates all three types of diagramming:• Reduced drawing• Abstraction• Drawing with overlay
Balmer, Swisher: Diagramming the Big Idea: Methods for Architectural Composition 1st Edition
Three primary categories of diagrammatic form:• ENSIGNS• FIGURE-GROUND elements• GESTALT strategies
Ensigns most direct and readily identifiable elements within our taxonomy
• The arrow is a universally recognized ensign• A light bulb• A radiant sun
We borrow the term ‘ensign’ from heraldry and thus include emblems as well as icons, symbols and signs.
Figure-Ground– a gestalt term – makes visual the solid-void relationship of architectural reality. At its largest scale, it identifies that ‘here is a built form’. At smaller scales, it distinguishes form from space. The polarity may originate in visual phenomena, but the analysis that it fosters is broader. Figure-ground has the grace to clarify the intent of any composition under study. Thus, openings in a wall might best reveal a pattern when distinctions between a door and a window vanish.
Figure-Ground AmbiguityFigure-ground identifies our perception of edge. It is how we establish order amidst visual ambiguity. It is the visual framework that helps us locate an object in space with our eyes. We mention this psychological term because it affects the practice of drawing. Ordering visual ambiguity is how a drawing becomes a coherent image. In order to comprehend a drawing, we must respond correctly to its formal qualities. Ultimately, comprehension also involves us in a cultural framework of convention and expectation, but all of that follows from perceived visual order.
A term borrowed from psychology, gestaltrefers to our perception of an overall form or composition rather than our separate assessments of its components. For design, it provides a coherent language of description.
Combining Simple Diagrams
The final diagram includes information of procession (the arrow), orientation, and shade and shadow, added to a display of organizational geometry.
Examples
Sculpted by the angles of the sun, 40 Tenth Avenue explores how shaping architecture in response to solar access and other site-specific criteria can expand its potential to have a positive impact on its environment. Located at the edge of Manhattan between the High Line park and the Hudson River, the building takes its unique form from the geometric relationships between the allowable envelope and the sun’s path.
Studio Gang, 40 Tenth Ave., NYC
OMA, House in Bordeaux
Methods used: poché, figure-ground
Methods used: poché, figure-ground, line weight, line type, ensigns
REX, Seattle Public Library
https://www.ted.com/talks/joshua_prince_ramus_on_seattle_s_library?language=en
In a suburban street by a splendid nineteenth-century park in Utrecht, two separate families share one single site. Both wish to combine the finest views of the park with easy access to the street, the garden and the roof. By proposing the house with the least imaginable depth, the program can be ‘stretched’ up to four or five stories while keeping the garden as big as possible.
MVRDV, Double House, Utrecht
Methods used: poché, figure-ground
Methods used: poché, figure-ground, ensigns, text
BIG, Mountain Dwelling, Copenhagen
https://www.ted.com/talks/bjarke_ingels_3_warp_speed_architecture_tales?language=en
UNSTUDIO, Möbius House, the NetherlandsIn 1993, a Dutch couple commissioned a home that could structure different aspects of family life, such as sleeping, working, playing and dining, around their daily routines. In response, the MöbiusHouse was designed with an intertwining trajectory that aligns the working spaces and bedrooms, with collective areas positioned at the intersections.
Located in Het Gooi, a green residential area near Amsterdam, the site is surrounded by meadows and tall beech trees. The curved and angled lines of the spatial loop reflect the varied landscape, while the glazed surfaces interact with the spectacular natural surroundings.
The concept of the Möbius House references the Möbius Strip, a non-orientable surface made up of two continuous lines that intersect to form a double spiral.
The floor plan consists of a loop of two interlocking lines that integrate programme, circulation and structure. The two axes represent the two main materials used in the house – glass and concrete. As the loop unfolds itself, the materials pass each other and interchange.
The intertwining trajectory of the loop relates to the 24-hour living and working cycle of the family.
As the loop inverts, the exterior concrete shell transforms into interior furniture and the glass facades become internal partitions.
Methods used: line type, ensigns, text
The design of the Möbius House is a direct response to the request to shape this family home around the daily lives of its occupants. Responding to the flows of their working and
family lives, while integrating the surrounding natural landscape, were paramount design concerns from the outset and ultimately resulted in a highly bespoke family home.
Methods used: poché, figure-ground, line weight, line type, text
The diagram is a form of modeling. A MODEL, after all, chooses particular characteristics and places them in relation for common study and comparison. It translates select properties of a system or object into an alternate framework. In mathematics and the sciences, models make the very large and very small manageable and graspable. They act through representation.
Categorizing the diagram as a subset of the model clarifies its principal role: analysis, during or after the design process. A diagram attempts to understand something by selectively defining and isolating specific components. To analyze, after all, means to unbundle or pull apart, thereby enabling us to abstract the relevant from the whole. By utilizing only a fraction of the data available of its subject, the diagram operates with a high signal-to-noise ratio.
It makes things obvious.Balmer, Swisher: Diagramming the Big Idea: Methods for Architectural Composition 1st Edition
