Below I have listed my examples and showed the elements that stand out to me in standard parti or mass format. From looking at these structures I recognized that their elevations (the photos which triggered my mass sketches) are far more interesting then their plan views. Typically every building was very modular, having certain sections of their giant rectangle divided up into smaller rectangles. Only two of my examples used a structure that broke away from the blandness that this type of structure seems to follow. For me thats a point to note that most buildings follow a mold and when we begin to design I plan to recreate the image of a recreation center.
You are off to a good start with your precedent imagery. These are rather interesting recreation centers on the surface. As you observe, they are all pretty straight forward in their programmatic and volumetric organizations. Even the ones with "interesting" facades, there is not a whole lot going on conceptually. Also, the preponderance of University case studies is worrisome as you are not working within an educational setting. University facilities are generally limited in their evolutions as the NCAA and/or university requirements drive most of the development. As their are way more stipulations and needs expressed up front, the goal becomes enclosing the closest facsimile of the vast programme as possible, eliminating the ability to explore other aspects of the space.
ReplyDeleteYou could benefit from looking more to Europe for some deeper, more insightful deployments. If you can find some information, look at the competition for the King Alfred Brighton and Hove competition (Brighton, England). Although Gehry won, all of the entries were very creative in their arrangements of a waterfront community/recreational center. Gerhy's subsequent project builds on the organizational strategy mutually exclusive from the formal envelope approach.
Also look at German and Swiss community swimming facilities from the last 5-10 years. They are published regularly because of their ambitious investigations of boundary conditions...public/private, wet/dry, exercise/relaxation and the like.
To speak to your partie presentation itself, take another pass at diagramming what it is that you seek to present. At present, there is nothing that i glean from the black and white linework that accompanies the photos and architectural drawings.
You've got a nice collection of precedent studies. This is always an important time in the phase of student design work for you to take a hard look below the surface of the imagery and understand the relationships between plan and elevation. While elevation is intrinsically more pleasing to look at for some, the building design should be taken in as a whole. Be careful to dismiss a design because it may appear 'bland', for many of the driving factors are budgetary and material availability. Due to the nature of the program of each of these, which is driven by codes, we can conclude that many buildings of the same use/typology do tend to show similarities given the necessity for certain spaces such as gymnasiums, office space and other supporting departments.
ReplyDeleteI would agree with the above post by Mr Fastman that you could look to Europe for some more examples that seemingly make greater leaps in their artistic expression. To this I will say however that European nations follow a rigorous code structure as well, which in turn dictates the outcome of the work. I think where the difference comes into play, between Europe and the US, is context or setting of the specific design. Overwhelmingly, European designers are working within an environment of extreme contrast. You have cities that are well over one-thousand years old, and back to Romans and further, that must interact with some of the newest and latest methods in building technology of today. Out of this comes striking design that shows off a multitude of layers in time and technique. What is meant by all this, is simply that Europe tends to demonstrate more of a departure, (or span between) from its historic contrast given that their historical pallet is so great. Here in the United States we have seen a steady morphology of our cities and suburban developments over a shorter time span, thus showing less contrast between our historical works and the post industrial revolution evolution of our building technology. Another issue still is the variation in building types as seen as a reaction to climactic difference geographically. A recreation center in Finland, or Lisbon for example, will have quite a different group of climactic forces acting upon it than would something in Chicago or Minneapolis.
It's early in your studies, and you should keep going with your enthusiastic research. What you should take from this is that it's vital to understand the whole context of the why, where, how of a building's design. When the focus is broken down to simply a fancy facade versus a boring plan, we miss so much of the inherent meanings and reasons behind what we are looking at. Good luck. acg
I think the organization of your presentation is great, but I do not see the parti diagrams. You will need to really look at these buildings and figure out what the architect was thinking when they designed the building. What was there "big idea" or inspiration. Remember that buildings are 3-dimensional and so may be the parti.
ReplyDeleteGood research and analysis of form as massing. I find the diagrams to be clear, but more analytical line drawings than partis' representing the essense or conceptual theme of the buildings...perhaps because you are using the same language of representation for each, in spite of the variety they are presented rather homogenously.
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