Arc. 103 Portfolio

ARCHITECTURE 103 - Introduction to Architectural Design

In Arc. 103, students will be introduced to a wide range of elements and issues of Architectural Design, including human scale and an understanding or spatial organization and behavior in 4 related exercises. Students are expected to learn basic principles of organizing spaces to be used by people. The course will introduce them to proportion, scale, the use of varying materials, color and light and how there are used in the design of architecture. Students will be introduced to the analysis of architecture through case studies of significant buildings. The exercises are interconnected and the final exercise will ask that students demonstrate their knowledge of the basic principles of architectural design in the construction of a full size model.

EXERCISE 1 - Case Studies

In this exercise, a team of 3 or 4 students will examine one significant building in the architectural history of the 20th or 21st century, and its architect. Students are expected to examine, analyze and present the building in detail in a comparative method, to illuminate the general and individual architectural principles and properties they demonstrate. The analytical exmphasis lies on space, composition and plan to section relationships; it is therefore relavant to understand architectural drawings particularly section, plan, axonemetry as instrument of dissemination and communication of design intentions.

The house my team is assigned to do is the Tugendhat Villa by Mies Van der Rohe. Thi is a simple house with a boxy shape. However, the interior walls in the house are perpendicular to each other, and the intersect each other a lot; therefore, it creates various spaces in the house which create a free flowing movement in the house. Through sections, plans and axons, we can see many spaces are divided into different smaller areas.

EXERCISE 2 - Mapping Chimareas

Students will learn to architecturally and graphically interpret concepts and display them exhibiting some knowledge of the use of composition, aggregation, mixing. There are three steps: step one is the development of an exploded axon for their case studies. The choice of angle, the selection of parts and the spacing of elements on the paper is elemental for further composite aspects; step two asks fro students to apply the geometric analysis of exercise 1 and align it with the exploded axon to form once again a discreet composition; the last step requires students with the aid of the instructors to identify a new key visual element with the approximate size of 2x2’. This newly gained unit will be used for an aggregate deployment with the emphasis on composition through rhythm, density and intensity.

I only use the exploded axon and figure ground of the second floor of the Tugendhat Villa because I am more interested in the plain interior walls which are organized on the grid system. Their multiple intersections also create a very interesting range of various sizes of rooms or spaces. I believe it will be creative way to map this axon with the figure ground which I include the whole floor as a  whole rectangular shape. Besides, I use different graphics to represent the various spaces of the floor and their intersections.

For the last step, I pick a patch that has all 3 different graphics that I use only in the previous drawing. I create many different versions of this patch in terms of sizes and angles. The connection of all the patches creates a continuous pattern.

EXERCISE 3 - Exhibition Space

In this project, I have to design an exhibition space of 16.5’x85’x18’ to exhibit and honor the work of the architect I studied in the previous exercise. The scale of the model is 1’=1/2”. Other requirements are that the designer has to extract a suitable module from exercise 2 and transform it into a 3D object (aggregate, unit, cell). For model construction it is recommended to work with chipboard or white Bristol. Final requirement is the basic drawings, including plan, section and partial axon of the model.

The material I use for the model is the chipboard, and the modules are the basic rectangular plains/ panels. To make the design more interesting, I add the transparency to the design by using the spacers which are composed of 2 small chipboards glued together. Also I add wave shapes to the design so that the model will look more organic.

Partial Axon of the Model

Plan and Section

EXERCISE 4 - Full Scale Model

This exercise is based on the previous exercise. The main focus of it is to use the same module system used in the design of the exhibition space in order to construct another full scale model. However, the model is just a partial design of the exhibition space. The challenges of this group project are the selection of the materials used for the model, limited budget for making the model which has to be up to 500 dollars only, and lastly another brand new design.

The material for the design is pine wood. In the design, we use all the same 1x6 inch and 4 foot tall rectangular plains. All the plains or panels are screwed together with 4x6 inch spacers. In the design, we incorporate two kinds of waves together: one is vertical and one is horizontal. The repetition of the spacers and the panels give a sense of rhythm and order.

Front Elevation

Side Elevation

Plan View

Axon

Rendering Drawing