Project Matrix
Project Matrix
House NA, Sou Fujimoto Architects
Key Concept
House NA is a 914 square-foot house
designed for a young couple in Tokyo by Sou Fujimoto Architects. The
transparent wall of this design contrasts the surrounding typical
concrete block walls, which most of Japan’s dense residential
areas are. The key concept of House NA is ‘living within a tree’, which satisfy
the clients’ purpose of living as nomads. However, there is no tree, branch or
leaf element within the design, Fujimoto separated the interior into 21
individual floor plates and arranged at various heights to create ‘a unity of
separation and coherence’. Because of these individual floor plates in various
height, the house can act as a single room and also a collection of rooms for
different users and situations. As Sou Fujimoto states, ‘The intriguing point
of a tree is that these places are not hermetically isolated but are connected
to one another in its unique relativity’, each platform connected by ladder
stairs allows a flexible movement through different programs for users. The
connections between the platform provide not only circulation but also seating
and working spaces. Fujimoto considered the white steel-frame structure is a
contemporary adaptation of experienced the ancient trees living, even it shares
no resemblance to a tree. Additionally, curtains have been installed to provide
privacy and separation in House NA.
Sou Fujimoto explored the opposition
between artificial and nature, the architecture he designed become the bridge
connected them. (Cathelijne, 2012）However, the solution to human activities and experience in his
design has not been valued, especially of this residential house in Japan.
Diagram of Tree within a Tree
Selected Design Element
For this architectural precedent, I choose
to do all the architectural elements, including interior furniture to explore
an understanding of the interior spatial relation. 21 individual floor plates
are ranging from 2 m2 to 7.5 m2 and linked by various stairs and ladders
(including fixed and movable steps), which is a furniture-like scale and
provide circulation, seating, and working spaces. The whole form of House NA is
similar to various stacked boxed, structured by white steel-frame, transparency
glass, and curtains. Fujimoto states the coexistence of different scales builds
a comfortable living space. Because of the continuous space without typical
concrete block walls, the exact activities’ space is decided by users, even the
furniture has been set. Thus, the arrangement of the floor plates will be focused
and defined at the beginning. In addition, the layout of interior floor plates is
confusion and unclear, even you read the sections and plans roughly. A detail modeling
experience will help me explode the interior movement and explore a deep
understanding of the living experience Fujimoto created in House NA.
The white steel-frame, glass, curtains,
floor plates, stairs, and ladders will build up the architectural form of House
NA. The furniture for guest rooms, bathrooms, storage rooms, kitchen, dining
room, bedrooms dress room, a small library, and drying room will be model to
simulate the human activities. The green decoration, like a potted plant and
small tree in front of the house, will also be modeled if needed.
Photo of House NA Interior
Reflected in the Design Studio
In the recent project I did in my design
studio, the most attention has paid on multifunction or big scale architecture.
I am not familiar and have not thought deeply about the activities,
circulation, and relation in residential building, the small-scale
architecture.
This project and Fujimoto’s concept have
been commended: ‘Filled with design ploys, these projects present themselves as
simple and essential structures.’ Thus, this architectural precedent, House NA,
is a great case study of contemporary housing, even I consider the concept and
design of it are extreme.
21 individual floor plates provide the
flexibility of the circulation and movements between functions for users, and
the exact activities’ space is decided by users, even the furniture has been
set. Without the clandestine fear built by typical concrete block walls in most
of Japan’s dense residential buildings, the structure and floor plates make the
house become a comfortable living area. Fujimoto considered, ‘all I do is give
the users their life form’, instead of finding a lifestyle. As mentioned before,
the clients required a nomads’ lifestyle within their own house, which seems to
be satisfied with Fujimoto’s concept of living within a tree. I just consider
if it is too idealistic, because the stairs and ladders may not be suitable and
comfortable for old and child. In another Fujimoto’s residential building in
Tokyo, which call House H, has a similar problem and safety net has been
installed additionally. Most of the time, life is not as simple as we thought.
Geometrical Description
The whole form of House NA is similar to
various stacked boxed and created an irregular geometric entirety. I prefer to
explode the form floor by floor and plate by plate. The project can be divided
into 3 levels. The main stair is located in the top left of plan. The ground
level includes a rectangle car parking area, a rectangle threshold area and an irregular
indoor area (entrance, stair, wc, storage and two gust rooms) and most of the façade
of indoor area is closed by curtain. The first level includes 2 exterior plates
for tree and an irregular indoor area (lounge, kitchen and bedroom), which
covered the top for car parking area. Few stairs are arranged in this level to
connect different plates, for example 2 stairs located in the corner of southern
to connect the lobby and exterior plates. The second floor includes3 exterior
plates and an irregular indoor area (bathroom, library, bedroom, drying room
and 2 storages) and the roof of each plates is in various height.
The structured of House NA is composited with
floor plates, white steel-frame, transparency glass, and curtains. There is
also thick wall located at the northern rear of the house and lightweight
concrete panels integrated within the side. In general, the indoor space is
covered in most of the west and north side and the window with timber frame opened
twice in each side. The HVAC and plumbing requirement are located in the north
side of the house.
Plan of House NA
Section of House NA
Proposed Scale, Material, Technique
Scale: 1:50
Material: 3D print material, screen board, plywood, transparency paper
Technique: 3D print, laser cutting, hand cutting, colour print
Time Commitment, Budget
Time:
Digital model: 10 hours
Fabrication file: 10 hours
Assembly: 30 hours
Budget: $ 200-300
Architectural Precedent 2
The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Steven Holl Architects
Key Concept
The expansion of The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art is composed of five interconnected structures, which formed new spaces and angles of vision to users with the existing building and its sculpture park. The five built structures, called ‘lenses’, extends along the eastern edge of the campus and transforming the Museum site into a new precinct of users’ experience. Rather than a single massive expansion, the new expansion by Steven Holl has a sensitive relationship to its context and contradictory contrast with the existing building, original and new, opaque and transparent, heavy and light, bounded and unbounded, single and multitude.
The façade of lenses is composed of multiple layers of translucent glass and transparent glass. The transparent glass in the ground level invites the visitors into the Museum, and the glowing glass volume drawing the visitors to events and activities into the lobby area in the nighttime. The multiple layers of translucent glass inject different qualities of light into the galleries to fulfill the optimum light levels for all types of art or media installations during the day, while glowing with their internal artificial light at night and present different attraction to the visitors. Holl utilizes sustainable building concepts to the expansion and its façade. Sun-heated air also gathered by these double-glass cavities of the lenses and be exhaust in summer. The special translucent insulating material in the glass cavities ensures the optimum light levels for art or media installations and seasonal flexibility requirements with computer-controlled screens. Nevertheless, illuminating five lenses at night is not very ‘green’. (Stephens, 2007)
Selected Design Element
I was attracted by the translucent glass façade when the first time I watched the photo of The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. I like the blurred shadow, the unclear boundary and soft white light present through the façade. For this architectural precedent, I would like to focus on one luminescent lens and its façade rather than all five lenses and original building. The lens I chose is a 3-4 floors building and connect to the northern part through the underground level. The green garden set above the underground connection. The façade of this lens is composed of translucent glass, transparent glass, and steel frame. The translucent glass occupied most of the façade and transparent glass form as one rectangle in each side of the façade, except the eastern side. The underground connection is full of transparent glass. The steel frame of this lens is not only structure but also present the interior floor arrangement. The horizontal steels are exposure and vertical steels are hidden behind the glass façade, which can see them blurred. To present the different qualities within the façade, I purposed to model the interior lighting to present the night mode of this precedent. The model will be a luminescent building with soft white light. Thus, the different performance of light through transparent glass and translucent glass will present much clearer. The simple interior elements, like walls and stairs, will also be modeled if needed.
Reflected in the Design Studio
The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art is a reference of architectural façade for my design project suggested by studio’s tutor. My design project is a performance art school, which takes the advantage of performance art to help students learning second language and experiencing other countries culture. The theater and exhibition area are also able for community and inviting public for performance art events in the nighttime.
Depends on this pedagogical, I proposed the façade of this project will also be performing and present interior activities to public and community, since I consider the most attracted thing to cause curiosity is people’s activities. And then, the translucent façade is what I found perfectly fit my requirements, which can present the interior activities, but also protect the privacy of students; which can provide enough daylight into inside, but also avoid intensive directed sunlight in noon; which can be fantastic in the nighttime, but also peaceful in the daytime.
After discussing with my tutor, the translucent façade of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art is a great example not only the use of translucent glass, but also the combination with transparency glass. Because of the public program I arranged on the ground level, the various connection and communication between exterior and interior of ground level are necessary, and the translucent glass will block these characters. Therefore, the façade of my design project is transparency glass for the ground level and translucent glass for the above levels.
Geometrical Description
The form of the selected lens is a vertical prism with a polygon base of 35 m, 49 m ,43 m ,35 m ,48 m and 50 m length of each side. The height of the selected lens is 30 m from the ground and the measurements from the green garden are 28 m in south and 23 m in west. The height of the ground level which connected to surrounding lenses is 17 m. The northern side of the connection level is form as a rectangle and directed connect into the selected lens. The southern side of the connection level has a slow downhill toward the middle park in the west side.
Plan of Selected Lens
As mentioned in the Selected Design Element paragraph, the steel frame of this lens is not only structure but also present the interior floor arrangement, and the horizontal steels are exposure while the vertical steels are hidden behind the glass façade. The horizontal steels on each side are not in the same levels, but the transparency glass take the responsibility to connect. The western and eastern steels are similar with 3 levels, and the northern and southern steels are 3-4 levels. There are 3 transparency glass each formed in rectangle at northern, western and southern façade.
Proposed Scale, Material, Technique
Scale: 1: 250
Material: translucent acrylic, clear acrylic, box board, blue foam, grass powder, cold coloured LED
Technique: laser cutting, hand cutting, CNC
Time Commitment, Budget
Time:
Digital model: 10 hours
Fabrication file: 10 hours
Assembly: 40 hours
Budget: $ 250-350
Architectural Precedent 3
Church on the Water, Tadao Ando
Key Concept
"I believe that a sacred space must
be related in some way to nature, which has nothing to do with animism or
pantheism." (Ando, n.d)
As the master with light and nature, Tadao
Ando designed the Church on the Water in 1985 and built in 1988. This building
is one of the most celebrated achievement of Tadao Ando, in which light and
nature has been involved in the design. Tadao Ando combined the opposite
elements in this design, like artificial and the nature, the enclosed and the
exposed. The Church on the Water is located to Tomamu, in northern Japan. The
church is surrounded by hills and tress in the west, and a resort hotel set in
the east to provided related services. The church itself is based on two
overlapping cubes and faces a large pond, which excavated by Ando to connect
down towards a small river.
In Ando’s design, the notable feature is
the relationship with nature. In that sense, the Church on the water has the
most successful performance, which involved nature as the live scene replace
the wall of the temple. Ando used nature as a performance screen involved in
design of western façade, which changed from autumn to summer. (Frampton, 2003) The forming ‘L’,
located to the east and south, separated the church from the resort hotel and
encouraged visitors to discover the church while entering and going around.
Selected Design Element
"You cannot simply put something
new into a place. You have to absorb what you see around you, what exists on
the land, and then use that knowledge along with contemporary thinking to
interpret what you see." (Ando, n.d)
From the research, most of the diagrams and
pictures of the Church of the water have been taken from the interior view of
the church area to the metal cross in the middle of the pond, which means
visitors involved the surrounding trees, land and environment as part of their
experiences as well. According to Tadao Ando’s key concept, the Church on the
water involved nature in its design. The surrounding site should be part of its
experience for visitor. In addition, the different season scenes viewed from
the front wall of the chapel are mentioned in various references. The growing
flowers in spring, the green shades of tress in summer, fallen leaves in autumn
and white snow in winter have been involved into design, which provide live, colorful
and unpredictable scenes to visitors. Especially the winter scene, I am really inspired
by a picture of the view from the interior church area to the metal cross, and
the pure white snow landing on the top of cross and surrounding trees and land.
I can feel incredible clam and peace from this picture and the presence of
nature and the sacred as well.
Thus, the design element I selected to
focus on in this architectural precedent is the nature site surrounded the
building itself and constituted the whole design experience in snow scene.
Reflected in Design Studio
In recent project I did in my design
studio, the most attention has paid on building itself, because of the multiple
and complex programs in multifunction building. Most of time, I have no rest to
think deeply about the relationship or connection between the surrounding site
and the building itself, even I thought I should do. This study on Tadao Ando’s
the Church on the Water and his concept of nature and architecture inspire me
of the relation and the position between nature and architecture. In my
previous opinion, nature has been considered as the landscape or incidental
element to architecture to improve and mitigate people’s experiences in an
artificial object. However, in the Church on the Water, nature become the part
of the building itself, even can consider it as one of the exterior walls for
the Church. Imagine that, you stand in the middle of the church, an artificial
space, but you still can see the integral nature scene in your front, smell the
leaves and feel the wind. It is mad and contradictory. I gain understanding of
the important position Ando put on nature and how deeply involved nature within
his design, just like Ando said, ‘You cannot simply put something new into a
place.’ Ando’s concept and design of
the Church on the Water improve my architectural critical thinking and help me explore
the relationship between nature and architecture. I believe it would be very
helpful in my architectural career.
Geometrical Description
The Church on the Water located in Tomamu,
Japan, sloping down towards a small river and surrounding by beech trees. This
church is bases on a clear geometrical form, two overlapping cubes (the big
prism with a square base of 15 m2 and 3 m height, and the small cube of 10 m
per side) and share a 5 * 5 m area in the corner. The church occupied almost
520 m2.
The top of small cube is built with glass
and steel, and four large concrete crosses stand inside created a sacred space
toward the cardinal points. Each 500 mm thick crosses are arranged and
separated by 127 mm in their end. The concrete porch next to the chapel is 6.2
m high and holding an extended 9.15 m beam.
The pond in front of the church is a 45 *
90 m rectangle excavated by Ando and his team. The pond is divided into 4
platforms, each has 15-meter length. Each of the platform has a 150 mm distance
in height, which provided a gradually extended to small river and nature and
prevent physical contact between users and nature. The metal cross located in
front of the church about 7 m away and crossed by 3 m and 4.5 m steel frames.
The chapel, which separated the church from
the hotel, forming an ‘L’ located to the east and south respectively. Two arms
of it are 40 m and 75.5 m length.
Proposed Scale, Material, Technique
Scale: 1: 500
Material: screen board, clear acrylic, box board, blue foam, gypsum powder, grass powder, foam powder, spray paint
Technique: laser cutting, hand cutting, spray paint
Time Commitment, Budget
Time:
Digital model: 10 hours
Fabrication file: 10 hours
Assembly: 60 hours
Budget: $ 200-300
Reference:
Cathelijne,
N 2012, How to Make a Japanese House, Netherlands Architecture
Institute, Netherlands.
Stephens, S 2007, ‘Nelson-Atkins Museum of
Art', Missouri (Steven Holl Architects)’, Architectural Record, 2007
Jul, Vol.195(7), pp.92-10.
Frampton, K 2003, Tadao Ando: Light and
Water, Monacelli Press
评论
发表评论