Summer Project – Observatory Museum

By: Ken Hodwer

The overall concept for this project was to design an open-aired museum to host five different architectural exhibits, each having significance historically and similarity in some form. The site for the project is located in Illinois on roughly thirty-three acres of land. The site contains several variations in terrain – including direct access to a lake. The architectural exhibits will be organized on the site with respect to their original orientations as well as their historic timeline.

The visitors to the site will be directed along pathways to each individual exhibit. There will also be a centralized entry building to accommodate typical utilities such as restrooms, a food service, galleries, workshops, and administrative offices. The entry building will host galleries meant to enhance the users experience for each individual exhibit. These galleries will hold smaller items with significance to their respective architectural piece. Therefore, the galleries will be separated into five different areas – one for each piece. 

            The individual separations will take form not as large galleries for the exhibits, but rather smaller (or medium sized areas) with direct views toward each exhibit.  Therefore, the angle of these rooms and their windows is an important part of the make-up of this particular concept feature.  The viewing areas will be spread out through the entry museum building, and each area will have multiple windows that have direct access viewing toward their respective piece of architecture that they wish the emphasize for the exhibit.

            The building will also host several of the needed amenities for staff and museum visitors.  A café lounge will be incorporated into the design for all to have a snack or even a full lunch meal.  Within the building, there will also be designated areas for repair and preparation of exhibits, maintenance facilities, a gift shop, and adequate administrative working areas.

            The design of the building will be that of representing an artistic style of a museum.  Of course, the style will also be determined by the actual exhibits themselves – pulling features from each to make up the aesthetic appearance, façade, and building make-up.  As for design concepts, the initial idea is to allow for crescent shapes – as a way of representing the sun angles that most of these exhibits are meant to track.

Designing within a Group

By: Josh West

One of the most difficult things a lot of people have during their time in Architecture school is trying to design with a group. Getting randomly picked to be paired with others you do not know much about. Communication within the group is low and the overall picture of coming up with a design scheme that works for your project and for the entire group to agree on the entire situation is difficult. Sometimes groups work good together and the entire design process goes smoothly; while some fall quickly. I know from experience that when you are put into situations like this, the first overall objective is to understand the group you are working with. They may not be your friends, but we are all in this together and have one goal in mind; to have a good design….well to also get a good grade as well. One of the biggest things that has helped me, is to understand what the other group members like to do. What do they like to design? Do they prefer sketching or doing completely all of their work on the computer? Do you like designing high rise buildings or low income housing? Understanding what they like to design and how they do it can extremely help in the long run with completing the overall design.

Another thing that has helped me within the past, is to keep your group members motivated! With working long hours, day in and day out, some people lose motivation and overall work ethic on some projects. This ends up to be and incomplete project that doesn’t help the group out at all. It is always important to talk within your group and see how everyone is moving along. Communication is key within any project. By checking up with your group members, you can either help them move along and help them off their working plateau or get something fixed within their design to help the overall master plan.

The last method that will work and I have used this semester is to just let your group work. Leave everyone along, come up with some designs and then re-group as a team and see what everyone has come up with. Sometimes doing this, your entire group can brainstorm on a couple of schemes and in the end, create a good design. This has helped me and my group this semester as we are still finalizing components to our master plan. By using these methods when working with a group on a project, it will just help that much more when completing your entire project. 

Post discussion design

By: Jeremy Clow

Now over eleven weeks into the semester the design phase has progressed and the feedback becomes an important part of moving forward. Specific elements not foreseen by the designer but prevalent to the exhibitor can be vital for a fluid design. The hotel design is set back into the hill side with two levels of parking below grade attached to a tunnel that passes behind the hotel; this provides protected access to the hotel and facilities from underground eliminating the eye sore of increased traffic above grade. The back side of the lobby stands three stories tall overlooking the waterfront. The lobby level one is at the level of the waterfront’s boardwalk, at the front of the lobby shops, information, and a bar can be found. Level one provides direct access underground too the train station and additional hotel, this path is also lined with shops. The passageway is above the vehicular traffic in the tunnel and below the above ground traffic. Level two is attached to the porte-co-chere where the valet and drop offs are located for the taxis, busses, and all other vehicular traffic. The level three overlooks the lobby with balconies and windows from the conference center and casino. Above these levels dedicated to all patrons of the establishment is the base of the hotel rooms. The lobby in the main level provides key card access to elevator banks that protect the hotels rooms from persons who are not staying within the establishment. One major central elevator bank can be used by all visitors for all levels including public spaces ie: restaurants, bars, etc. Hotel levels three, four, and five are accessed only by those staying on the floors and are higher security. All patrons have access to the rooftop 360 bar as well as the hotel levels one and two due to their access to the pool mezzanine, bar, and restaurant. Two additional elevator banks on each side of the complex allow hotel visitors direct access to the lobby, casino, and additional hotel levels. The hotel containing a casino provides a number of rooms dedicated for casino participant and/or discounted rates for other visitors. These rooms are less desirable due to their location, view, or high amount of foot traffic passing by. Luxury rooms located on the corners, upper levels, or with personal balconies provide an experience worthy of a higher rate. All rooms meet five star requirements; the hotel design also has facilities to provide a vast amount of twenty-four hour services. These services include a fitness center, room service, laundry, dry-cleaning, and a spa. The amenities must be provided to keep a five star ranking but what is more important is the service, quality, and establishment that bring the consumer in. The casino and conference center will provide multiple opportunities to draw the customers in but also the views created, the curiosity of this grand establishment constructed on a manmade waterfront with a dedicated area for forestation developing over the years. The amount of vehicular traffic on the site is limited and optimal forms of public transportation are provided. The short distances from structure to structure as well as protected pathways increase the opportunity for pedestrian traffic. All items in place provide a large open space to the north and west from the hotel making it stand out with minimal pieces blocking the view. This provides curiosity from the ground level, enticing the viewer to experience the establishment. The open areas also provide extended views from the hotel. To the south and east there aren’t any structures blocking the view, providing and endless picturesque view of nature.  The other facilities on the site are minimal in height; almost all of them are shorter than the first level of hotel rooms. With exception of the adjacent hotel connected to the train station. The additional hotel though not in the program provides additional rooms necessary for the likelihood of large conferences at this remote location.

Architectural Software Programs

By: Hunter Wilson

I am Hunter Wilson, a student currently studying in the Southern Illinois University Masters of Architecture program.  I began my education at Vincennes University located in my hometown of Vincennes, Indiana.  After receiving an Associate’s Degree in Architectural studies, I transferred to SIU where I earned a Bachelor’s Degree and still study today.

            There are multiple different computer programs available today to help realize architectural projects.  AutoCAD and Revit are great construction documents tools and also have rendering capability.  Rhino and 3ds Max have great modelling capabilities.  Another tool that helps visualize architectural projects is Lumion.  Lumion is a virtual environment in which you import your building model.  Your building model may have been constructed in other programs such as the ones listed earlier.  Lumion helps visualize a project by adding materials to the model in real time 3d.  With Lumion’s tools, graphic renderings can be produced to create a realistic scene of your proposed piece of architecture.  Now, Lumion is “not” the best rendering program.  But it helps those in the architectural profession, especially students, in different ways.

            What this program helps with the most is time.  The materials are added in real time which means you have a preview of what certain materials, such as wood, will look like on your building model before you even produce a rendering.  With other programs, you must apply a material and run an actual rendering just to see the results.  You can see how this would help those in the architectural profession because time might be the most important factor in the business.  After your scene is set, you will want to produce a rendering of your final product.  Lumion produces great renderings, but definitely not the best.  The best rendering can be produced by using programs such as 3ds Max along with VRay.  The deal with VRay is that, to produce a high quality rendering, it may take multiple hours to complete.  With Lumion, a high quality rendering can be completed within 20 minutes or less.  Lumion’s rendering may not be up to par with other programs, but it produces enough quality to look very professional.  Again, you can see how the time management may inquire one to use Lumion over another program. 

            Another positive is the use of processing power and visual graphics power on the computer.  To produce a high quality VRay rendering, the power of the computer must be very advanced.  The higher the computing power, the lower the rendering time.  The lower the computing power, the rendering time could increases by hours.  Many students are not exactly wealthy enough to purchase a high power computer.  So many students are not able to produce a VRay rendering because to run one on their computer could literally take days to complete.  For Lumion, high processing and graphics power is still very beneficial.  But for students who are unable to gain this computing power, Lumion is still very doable.  The thing is that where a VRay rendering on low computing power could increase the rendering time by hours or days, the Lumion renderings would probably only increase by the half hour or a couple hours.  This still allows for great time management and productivity. 

            These architectural programs are wonderful for visualizing in three dimensions.  But these programs cannot produce the human element that makes architecture connect all people.  Hopefully the future will not eliminate the skills and tools that are used to make architecture the true craft that it is.

https://forum.lumion3d.com/gallery/vray-vs-lumion/

City as a Playground, Aldo Eyck

By: Hanan Rawashdeh

Architect Aldo Van Eyck from the Netherlands was one of the most influential protagonists of the architectural movement Structuralism. But what Aldo was most know for and wrote a book about “The shape of Relativity”, is his design for children’s playgrounds.

 It was during the time after the world war two when Aldo first worked on the needed city expansion. Post war urban planning in the Netherlands took the ideal of functional separation, meaning that housing, work, traffic and recreation where to be functionally separated and integrally planned. This approach led to a city clogged up with car traffic.  “Functionalism has killed creativity”, van Eyck stated in an article in the Dutch magazine Forum, “it leads to a cold technocracy, in which the human aspect is forgotten. A building is more than the sum of it’s functions; architecture has to facilitate human activity and promote social interaction”. His focus later on in his work field was directed to creating children’s play areas, especially with the birth peak of the postwar baby boom, whereas almost no space for children was available, neither inside nor outside the house.

Aldo argued that the need to create spaces for children was essential. That a city implies “the people that live there” – not “population”, therefore a need to create spaces for children is a fundamental aspect. Aldo wrote in his book, The Playgrounds and the City, “If they are not meant for children, they are not meant for citizens either. If they are not meant for citizens – ourselves – they are not cities.” He also said that a house is a tiny city, a city a huge house.

When Aldo was asked to design his first playground he took a very minimalist approach. It consisted of a sandpit with four round play stones and a set of tumbling bars. The play center was in one corner of the lot across from more tumbling bars and surrounded by trees and benches. He believed that designing simple geometric forms for children to play with stimulated their minds more. He once said to create an aluminum elephant for children to play with does not work because it is not real. By designing with an abstract approach he offered children the chance to explore, navigate, use their imagination and interact with the playful structures unlimitedly. His playground design was a success, and led him to designing over seven hundred playgrounds for Amsterdam. Places of large modular and simple basic equipment such as sandpits, tumbling bars, stepping stones, chutes, and hemispheric jungle gyms were nestled in the dead spaces of the city making it more social and human friendly.

  Aldo also took care in implementing an unseen element in his designs, which was the open space. His designs always included an open space for children to run, jump and gather in, stimulating their minds and expanding their interaction with the play area. These playground designs played a huge psychological role in enhancing and lifting the children’s spirits after the hard times of the world war. To replace tension and stress with fun, fighting violence with enjoyment was a transitional opportunity served to the children of Amsterdam.

Once again architecture has proved that it plays a huge role as a way of living and affecting immensely on how we interact with each other and our environment. Either architecture was expressed as walls and shelter or simple skeletal structural forms arranged in a seemingly spontaneous way inviting us to engage with!

“Naghsh-e-Jahan Square”- Iran-Isfahan

By: Faezeh Ensafi

Previous week in the Research methods class, Craig asked me if I have experienced that a place or in the better word, an architecture made me cry. The first place that came to my mind was “Naghsh-e-Jahan” square, one of the most inspiring place that I have ever been in my life, in my home, Iran-Isfahan.

Among the cities of Iran, Isfahan holds an extremely distinguished place, originating in its emergence during the Sassanid period before the birth of Islam. During the reign of Shah Abbas, the new square of the city, a wide straight thoroughfare, the new quarters and the complicated networks of bazaars are the four strongest points for evolution of Isfahan 

The city's most splendid time began in 1598 when Shah Abbas the Great (1587-1629) decided to make it his capital and rebuilt it into one of the largest cities of the world. Previously, the old central square of the city lay besides the old Friday Mosque dating back to at least 1200 years and was believed to have been built on the site of Zoroastrian fire temple. Gradually, royal urban planners under Shah Abbas created the new heart of the city to the south of the old city center named Naghsh-e-Jahan square, an open space between the older Seljukid city center and the river. The considerable size of the square is about 1700 feet in length and 520 feet in width.

The orientation of Naqshe Jahan square is 45 degrees different from "Qebleh"'s ( the orientation which muslims must pray ) orientation . So the architect does an odd job : the two " minarets " which are visible from the Naqshe Jahan are just to introduce the entrance to the mosque , and to complete the symmetry with the opposite side of the square. When you enter to the Mosque, without even feeling it, the orientation changes to the Qebleh, so when you enter the main yard you can't recognize that the interior walls of the yard are not parallel with the walls of the Naqshe Jahan square. You see two other "Minaret" in the yard, and you can't believe your eyes when you see you are not the same way as you entered .

The scale of the mosque and the yard is very meaningful, to make you fall on your knees against your god . There is another interesting and strange fact about this place, and that is it’s acoustics. There is a point in the middle of the mosque which every whisper could be heard in every part of the interior space. It was used for the times that the Mullah of the mosque had a speech to make and everyone in the mosque could hear it .

Get out the hood

By: Daniel Roman

            Last time I wrote about the transition I went through from going to a community college to a four-year university.  I did not really mention the importance that it was for me to change my living location and how that helped my architectural knowledge.

            When I was in community college I had a professor that was very out spoken, said what was on his mind and usually was right. He became a mentor for many student for which he was always happy to assist anyone that reached out to him. Professor John Madsen, he is originally from Detroit Michigan, he went to Lawrence University, during his time, you where allowed to obtain an Architecture license with a bachelors in architecture. He had many sayings, one that designated with me was “get out of the hood” which was his way of saying to get out of the city and go explore. Many people in our studios had never stepped foot outside the metropolitan area of Chicago, let a lone some had never left Chicago. He always stress the importance of going out and exploring other locations, for these adventures made you realize many different things and allowed you to grow as a person but more importantly as a designer.

            Professor Madsen was all for student transferring to Southern Illinois University, he approved of the program, and teachers. He encouraged students to the idea of moving six hours away from Chicago and explore different location even if it was still in Illinois. I had a very strong idea that I wanted to come to Southern Illinois University eventually, but I was nice to have reassurance that I was making the correct decision from someone that I trusted.

            It is now that I realize how important it truly is to move around and explore other locations. Even though it is only six hours away and still in the same state, the cultures are different, and most important the architecture is different. Architecture truly evolves with different locations, it changes, it changes the way the architect may think of a project just by location.  I truly believe I have grown as a designer by simply, “getting out the hood”. This has allowed me to feel more comfortable and willingly to take a job in almost any location in the country, having that drive of wanting to travel and learn more. The idea of being able to learn new designing tips due to certain climate changes, or ordinance codes.

            Something that I have romantize about doing for a long time, was to do a grand tour of Europe and its rich architecture. Visiting the great pyramids of Egypt, the amazing infrastructure from Roman and the beautiful buttresses of the Gothic Cathedrals. Professor Madsen saved his money right out of college knowing that he wanted to do his Grand Tour during the early stages of his career, and once he had the money he went and accomplish his goal. He talks about how inspiring it was to see these amazing structures and how inspirational many of them where even though they where hundred and thousands of years old already.

            At this point in time I have taken every opportunity I have had to travel and see a new town, city, or village, and I plan to continue to explore in search of new knowledge that will benefit me and my designing capabilities.