themis a ligned

Faculty Advisors: Andrew Atwood, Renee Chow

Master of ArchitectureThesis 2015-2016

University of California, Berkeley

Yan Xin Huang

This thesis explores misalignment as a design strategy to generate opportunities for communal interaction in the form of collective housing.

table of content

abstract

tectonic studies

formal studies

collective zone studies

elevations, sections and plans

structure and material studies

cut away isometric drawing

model

preliminary studies

1

3

9

17

28

42

46

62

75

1

Houses today are organized in a very regular, orthogonal and highly repetitive system. Embedded in this system are isolated spaces created by boundaries between street and house, between neighbors and between programs.

In the San Francisco Marina district, strips of almost-identical duplexes line up on the two sides of streets, creating distinctive zones separate by the serial repetition of volumes, facades, walls and floor plates.

As these elements of a standard duplex unit are misaligned against the established order, distinctively contained spaces are interrupted and overlapped, opening up new spatial opportunities and creating richer mix of uses and collective living situations.

Through misalignments, spatial divisions are manipulated and social arrangements of the single-family living style are challenged.

3

tectonic studies

4 5

Misalignment only occurs within an existing established order or an expected standard.

6 7

Four duplexes from the site are chosen to misalign. The base forms of these duplex

units are anipulated and misalign from the established regular order to create

interlocking and pulled apart spaces, generating new sizes and gaining new natural

elements such as daylight. The original architectural elements such as stairways

and extruded bays remained in place, which are then further misaligned to remove

redundancy and to allow unexpected spaces to generate behind them.

Floor plates and parti walls that divide private collective zones such as living rooms

are also misaligned to create connectivity in the space and generating a higher level

of collectivity.

8 9

formal studies

10 11

Four volumes rotated displaced rotated

12 13

four volumes displaced rotated displaced rotated

14 15

four volumes displaced rotated displaced rotated

16 17

existing collective zone studies

18 19

two families, one entrance

Existing collective elements in each duplex are identified, manipulated and exaggerated through

misalignment: public collective zone bounded by the façade and sidewalk is extended into the

duplex. Collective zones already shared by two individual units in a duplex are subtly displaced,

widened, and extended beyond the boundary.

20 21

public collective zonecollectivity @ city scale

collective zonecollectivity @ building scale

private collective zonecollectivity @ unit scale

private Individual

22 23

extend the public collective zone public collective zone merges into collective zone

rotate public collective zone to encourage direction toward stairs

24 25

extend the collective zone displace and rotatedivision to extendcollective zone into private collective zon

expand collective zone

26 27

misalign private collective zone miasalign private collective zone

merge private collective zone

28 29elevation

The general form of the design is a product of combining formal, tectonic and spatial misalignments.

30 31section A

32 33section B

34 35section C

36 37plan ground

38 39plan second

40 41

42 43

Going beyond architectural and spatial misalignments, materials and structures are also

considered in this design. These types of misalignment are intended to relax the hard

boundary edges created by the meeting of walls and floors. Edges of material change is

unexpectedly unregistered with tectonic edges, thus avoided the reinforcement of the

boundary, this allows occupants to question the boundary between tectonics, uses, spaces,

programs, and even privacy. Sometimes this misalignment could be used to create useful

elements such as tabletops and shelving units.

structure misaligned

44 45material misaligned - trim molding becomes table top structure misaligned - exposed studs becomes bookshelf

46 47isometric

48 49

50 51

52 53

54 55

56 57

58 59

60 61

Subtle misalignment of forms, tectonics, spaces, materials and structures removes

redundancy on solid hard edges and boundaries, allows occupants to constantly reimagine

the use of spaces based on their how they enter and encounter them.

62 63

model

64 65

66 67

68 69

70 71

72 73

74 75

preliminary studies

76 774x4 House | Kobe, Japan2003 | Tadao Ando

78 79HP House | Meguro, Tokyo, Japan, 2004 | Akira Yoneda

80 81Church of Light | Osaka, Japan, 1999 | Tadao Ando

82 83House Tamatsu | Osaka, Japan | Kenji Ido

84 85

Sittsville Public School | Ontario, Canada | Edward J Cuhaci and Associates