Thesis project and poster design

By Chhanya Nidal

For my thesis, I am doing a spiritual center that is going to be designed in my country, Nepal. I would like to explain briefly about my thesis project and the poster that we have designed last week in ARC-500, Arch Res Method & Programming.

Being emotional and spiritual sometimes, I ask myself that we struggle each day and work hard but for what? We may come up with different opinion on what we ultimately wish for. However, what I feel is ultimately one needs is the happiness and the peace of mind. Depression, abuse, criminal behavior etc. are so conspicuous in our everyday life. Today, people have money, they have power, are succeeding in every field, but lacking is the peace of mind and the medium to achieve that.

Most people when suffering from physical pain, tension or depression, seek a place or a medium to pour down their depression and weariness. They go to various temples and religious places mostly to worship and in search of inner happiness. Ultimately, one finds that the holy happiness lies in their peace of mind. And the peace of mind lies in spirituality and meditation.

This research proposes to develop a center which will offer spiritual living, teachings and practices that has ability to transform personal lives and make life meaningful. I believe, Architecture can help people to get the peace of mind through creating a spiritual environment. Spirituality and peace can be found in music, art, poetry, nature and in many other areas of life. Spiritual environment can be created by using the key elements of architecture like structure, form, space, light, colors and materials.

This project concentrates in providing space to realize, rest, contemplate, and to celebrate. This center will provide spiritual refuge for tired minds as most of people are in present context.

In this poster, I have tried to show that everywhere there is chaos and tired mind which is in search of holy happiness. And through spiritual practice and meditation one gets the peace of mind which uplifts his life and makes life meaningful.

My Digitally Fabricated World

By Donald Olsen

Issue 5- Fabricating my Thesis

 So I think it’s pretty apparent at this point that when I needed to approach the topic of my thesis that it had to have some link to digital fabrication. So I spent a while trying to think of the best way to incorporate the subject and take it in a direction that I could really get behind in the course of a year. Though there were some issues nailing down a specific topic that read well and made sense. For the most part the topics I choose were too broad or two small, but after much deliberation I settled on working towards developing homes that are a kit of parts, entirely digitally fabricated of course, that use little to no hardware to go together and instead use friction connections to stay together. The idea really only came to me because of the project we are currently working on in our studio course. We are designing a master plan layout for the 2030 Rio Brazil Legacy Olympics project. As we were working through the project context I noticed the close proximity of a favela to the Northwest. Though not part of our current plan, and slightly ignored by the winning design, I felt there was an obvious need to design a better affordable solution to not only that favela, but provide a solution that could work in a number of favelas or slums worldwide. Construction in favelas is completely out of necessity, but also follows a very interesting format. Since the favelas are lived in mostly by the poor people of Brazil, for example, they are built out of whatever they can find; scrapes, construction garbage, and cheap materials. The format for construction is what I found so interesting. A family is represented as a building, to me, in the favelas. What I mean by this is that a family will start as a  the family grows and the next generations are ready for their own space or there is need for more room an addition to the single story unit is simply added on top of the previous. So eventually after a few decades you may at one time have three to four generations of a family living in a stack. The whole idea behind my thesis is to develop a kit home that requires little to no building knowledge, is very cheap, and can be acquired quickly to aid with urban sprawl in cities like Rio. The last goal for the project is to work in a solar oriented façade with a passive solar panel or Photovoltaic system to power the units. Solar oriented façades, in my eyes, are a series of directionally changing walls that prevent the harsh direct summer sunlight into the building, while offering great ambient light and winter sunlight. There are a few companies at this time that are building or designing elements of this idea, but none that are bringing all these elements together and none doing multiple stories. One of the companies doing a completely CNC based house is Facit. The Facit house uses hardware to go together but it is an example of a home that is 100% pre designed and digitally fabricated on site. They simple have a shipping container with a CNC and a pile of ¾” plywood dropped off at the site and they start cutting a house.

As an example of a solar oriented façade design I’ll use the Modular Solar House by the Institute of Advanced Architecture of Catalonia. Here their goal was to design a modular unit the was again digitally fabricated, uses  design for its current location and site orientation.  

Next time I will discuss a few projects that utilize friction connections and discuss the benefits of that type of construction. I’m excited to see what this thesis brings and face the challenges as well. Till next time, keep fabricating.

Facit House Photo Credit: http://www.3ders.org/articles/20120116-digitally-fabricated-houses-of-facit-homes.html

Modular Solar House Photo Credit: http://webecoist.momtastic.com/2012/09/21/geometric-prefab-solar-pavilion-soaks-up-maximum-rays/

New Atlanta Stadium

By Patrick Londrigan

The next stadium on the list is the Atlanta Falcons new stadium that is currently under construction.  The stadium will be located directly next to their existing stadium, the Georgia Dome.  The Falcons lease at the Georgia Dome is set to expire in 2020 or when the bonds financing the facility are paid off, which could be as early as 2017.  A new stadium would create a long-term solution for the football team, as apposed to renewing a lease with the Georgia Dome and renovating it to current NFL standards.  If the club were to renovate the existing Dome it would cost upwards to $859 million, which is not a great difference in price than to building a new facility.

Figure 1: New Stadium Design Rendering

The new stadium design is to create a long-term stadium solution that will allow the Georgia World Congress Center (the owners of the stadium) to remain competitive in attracting premier events to its stadium.  The architect Bill Johnson, of 360 Architecture, wanted to create a stadium that was completely integrated, the seats, the skin, and the roof and the way it moved all had to be one idea.  They wanted to create a new retractable roof that has never been seen on a stadium today.  They looked into history for iconic buildings that have interesting roof structures or lighting effects.  They found the Pantheon, which has a small hole in the center of the roof that sends a beam of light throughout the room and creating a type of spotlight affect.  Johnson thought it would be neat to incorporate this affect in the stadium at the center of the field right on the Falcons logo, only to get larger and larger.  Creating the idea of bringing all the energy and light to the center and to the game.

Figure 2: Rendering showing the roof structure.

Another addition to the new stadium is the new complex scoreboard.  To start, you would have to no longer call it a board.  A scoreboard would typically tell you that it is rectangular an either on or in the seats of the stadium.  The new scoreboard attempted to integrate the video, with the roof, the opening, and the seating, to make something different.  The idea is to take the opening of the roof and “ring” it with screens to get a 360-degree experience while being in the stadium.  The idea would be, if you were sitting at the 50-yard line you would be able to see the action on the field.  Then if you looked to the scoreboard you would be able to see the view from the opposite side of the field.  Giving the visitor an experience that they cannot get from watching the game at home.

Figure 3: Perspective from the interior

Thesis Research

By Sean Williamson

Before getting into the design of my hurricane resistant mixed-use structure, I need to further my knowledge within this field of hurricane resistance. Within this blog post I will explore various case studies related to hurricane & cyclone resistance and begin to analysis what works and doesn’t work within each design.

The first case study I came across in my research was a prefabricated wind resistant circular home designed by Deltec (see image 1). The shape of this home works very well against the high winds that come with a hurricane. The circular structure of the building transfers environmental loads most efficiently with a high degree of redundancy which provides the support needed during critical events. Material selection was also key in the design of this home. Machine rated 2400 psi framing lumber makes up the structure. Reinforced windows with impact glass prevent wind and rain to enter the structure. Because my mixed-use design will be a high-rise, I will obviously have to choose a stronger material for the structure. This structure will most likely be steel, but there is a possibility it could end up being concrete.

This next case study is very interesting to me. The Stamp House, located in Australia, was designed to withstand a category 5 cyclone (see image 2). It was designed by Charles Wright Architects and is both off-grid and carbon neutral. The entire roof area is harvested into a 250,000 litre in-ground water tank integrated with all hydraulic systems. In this case study, concrete is the structural component. The concrete structure is ideal for the location due to its inherent long life cycle efficiency and material properties to deal with the harsh, corrosive wet tropical environment. The angles on the roof and facade of the structure are very interesting. Within image 3 you can see the roof and facade angles. Another component of the design worth mentioning is how the architect expressed the structure of the roof. You can see in image 4 how strong the structure is throughout the interior. This exposed structure is a very strong concept within the design.

Peter Eisenman Lecture

By Nicholas Bosman

            Yesterday, I went, along with some students from my studio, to a lecture in St. Louis Missouri at Washington University. The lecturer’s name is Peter Eisenman, principal of Eisenman Architects. Before the lecture, however, we wondered around the university to explore a bit. The architecture building was in a nice area, with a plaza space between it and the art museum. The art museum had contemporary art, and architectural drawings. There were drawings from Zaha Hadid before she was as huge as she is today.

            When it was time for the lecture, we all met in the auditorium in the architecture building at the university. The room was filled with people. I sat on the stage very uncomfortably but I got through it. When the lecture started, he sat down and did not use any slides of pictures for the first half. Before he talked, he did something interesting. He said to put away our pens and sketchbooks while he talks. I could see the look of horror on everyone’s faces as their sketchbook was a sacred thing they never want to put down, especially in a lecture. He went on to talk about the so called “selfie”. He went on about thinking deeply about the reason why people feel the need to take these “selfies”. He broke it down as think about one’s self as other.

            When he started the slide show, he showed one main project. It was his firm’s winning proposal the City of Culture competition. This project strived to replicate the landscape. There are six buildings that wave up and down like the landscape of Galicia, Spain. The whole outside of these buildings was cladded in stone. Even the roof was full of stone. There were stone facades on the south sides, and glass facades for daylighting on the north facades. Since this building flows from the ground, it creates spots that are very attractive to skateboarders. He even said, they did not design it to be used, it just is. That made me wonder how he could build something like that and not realize that what he is making is a giant skate park.

            I guess the main reason is that skateboarders see things differently than architects do. Skateboarders see a handrail as an obstacle to ride one while architects see it as a walking aid for pedestrians. I will know, when designing something, whether it will have a problem with skateboarders wanting to skate it. I think that is an advantage, however small, that I have when designing buildings. 

Externship #2

By Robert Musial

My last blog I wrote about my first externship. This week I am writing about my second externship which took place over my senior year spring break. The externship program was through the Southern Illinois University Alumni Associate. For this externship I wanted to do something different, I wanted to gain experience in the real estate development field. I have spoken to Professor Norm Lach about my interests in the real estate development field and he was able to contacted one of his former students, Zac Stover, which has started an investment and development firm out in San Diego.  For my second externship I was placed with InDev: Invest + Develop out in San Diego, California. One of my first task while working at InDev was the site analyze for a new development.  One of the thing I had to make was a five block radius map of the new development to show what building were in the surrounding area that would be effected. I also had to make a site visit and take pictures of current building surrounding the future development. The pictures were used to have a better understanding of the context around the development. Next, I was able to sit on a funding and investment meeting. This were I got dip my feet into the business side something that you never see in architecture school. I had learned how they were able to fund these kind of project. One of the last thing they had me do was design an eight unit complex for potential development. With the design of the building I have learned that a lot of the codes in San Diego govern how the building will look like.  With designing the complex I had ran into many problems but Zac was able to guide me through them. Before leaving San Diego Zac had taken me on a tour of all the building InDev had built in the area. On the tour he had explained the design of the project and the efforts it takes to build a development. I have include a picture of InDev (Left to Right: Clinton, Matt Mellos, Zac Stover, and Robert Musial) and a picture of Black Beach in San Diego.  I would like to end this post with something Matt Mellos said to me at the end of my first day of work, “ Robert, never show up in slacks and tie again.” You have to love that lay back California life style.

Image1: InDev Externship by Robbert Musial

Image 2: InDev Externship by Robbert Musial

Image 3: Black Beach San Diego by Robbert Musial

Central and Eastern Europe Part I – Prague, Czech Republic

By Ryan Kinports

     In 2012 before I started this program I took some time to see more of a region that I have been drawn to for many years. We will begin this seven part series in Prague, a city that is referred to as “Little Paris”.

     I took my spring semester abroad in Prague in 2009 after deciding that I wanted to go somewhere other than Western Europe or Australia. My school offered a program through Charles University in Prague so I signed up. I fell in love in the first week I was there despite the cold January weather.

Image1: Overlooking Central Prague from the Royal Gardens

Prague escaped the devastation of both World Wars having never been a target of a bombing campaign or major confrontation. This is immediately obvious as you travel though the city and see modern design adjacent to buildings dating from the 900’s. There is incredible history on every street in downtown Prague. 

 Image 2: A book dating from the 800's in the Ancient Baroque Library

 Image 3: Exterior of the ambulatory of St. Vitus Cathedral

In every part of the city there are details that are a rarity in the U.S. Buildings are hand carved using processes that have been in practice for over a century. Damage to historic buildings is repaired in a manner consistent with history. Art is a substantial part of everyday life.

Image 4: The metro (subway) is adorned by statues

Image 5: Even something as simple as a storm drain is ornate

When warm weather came in 2009 I began exploring the city every day. I spent almost all day outside of class walking the streets, usually not returning to my dormitory until shortly before dark. When I went back in 2012 I was afraid I might have run out of sights and experiences, but I’m not sure that will ever be the case for Prague. It is an intellectually stimulating city. It is also stimulating to my stomach which for me is a critical part of travel

Image 6: A typical $4-10 lunch

I am heading back this December to spend the Christmas holiday on the Vltava and I find it hard to wait. When I arrived in 2009 I had the same feeling I do when I arrive home after being gone for months. After spending time there I know a city can hold meaning beyond the physical forms it contains even to those that are not native. I’m sure I will be back many more times in my life.

All images courtesy Ryan Kinports.