Mid Term Reviews

      Mid-terms were on Wednesday. We had two reviewers come in and critique our work done to this point in design. Their comments were insightful, and I think they will prove very helpful moving forward.

     

      You may recall this image from an earlier post. The parti illustrates two main axis of pedestrian circulation through the site and building. Our form and parti are generated along the continuation of existing elements from the library. A main idea of this concept is currently lost in plan. The circulation under the barrel vault is broken by the new entrance created. The area where the curved wall terminates in the new wing is also an issue. It doesn't agree with its counterpart in the existing building, and could be adjusted to make the form more in line with our concept.

      Reviews were good, and I look forward to continuing this project.

Little Things And Not So Little Things

      “If walls could talk,” is the old expression. News flash - they do. Some walls are boring, and do not have much to say. Some walls speak volumes by nature of unthinkable blandness.  Some walls walls say just enough to get you interested. It’s true. Everything single object has some sort of intrinsic meaning and message. Materials cost money. Some of them are quite expensive. The true value of a material, however, is not found on the price tag in Home Depot. It is found in the message that material sends. 

      When humans first began to build, they did so for simple reasons, and their buildings were made quite simply. People need shelter, so they made their shelter with what they had. Examples of this can be seen throughout history. Native Americans in the Southwest had Adobe houses. Pioneers across the great plains had sod roofs. At the time, people were just building what they needed with what they had at hand. As time passed, however, these materials began to take on meaning by virtue of their context and their very existence. Adobe bricks conjure images of the desert, with its empty spaces and beating sun. The modern equivalent of the sod roof is, perhaps, the green roof. In addition to the environmental incentive of a green roof, we also have the cultural context of the prairie and its sweeping plains. There are so many subtexts within a building. Every piece of it contributes a unique element to the whole. Every piece has a story of its own.

       Today we are able to process information and draw connections faster than ever. The context of materials grows more and more complex as we continue to use them in different capacities. The dialogue between materials is one that has been built up over centuries of design and millennia of construction. This leaves designers with a difficult challenge to face. The bar has been both raised and lowered simultaneously. We have the ability to create with more freedom in all aspects, but the information age is very good at pointing out our mistakes.

       Let’s take a look at an example. Here we find a symbolic contradiction of forms, no matter how we look at it. Notice the bell towers on the first image, with their curved cornices and tightly grouped columns. See the similarities with the lantern of the second building? As one may have recognized, the building on the left is St Paul’s Cathedral in London. It was designed by Christopher Wren for many good reasons. One of them was to be the headquarters for the Protestant Church in England. This church on the right is Sant’Ivo alla Sapienza. It happens to be designed by Francesco Borromini, who happened to be a principal architect for the Roman Catholic Church in the Counter-Reformation. This shared form was practically trademarked by Borromini. Sant’Ivo was consecrated fifteen years before construction on Saint Paul’s began. Do you see the problem here? St Paul’s is a beautiful church and a monumental achievement by Christopher Wren, but you can’t help but cringe at the unfortunate connection between his design and Borromini’s. This is the kind of thing that an architect would like to avoid doing. 

    I don’t think my work as a student and aspiring architect will place me in any context with the potential for disaster on as grand of a scale as described above any time soon, but it is always good to stay prepared. Knowing is half the battle, I suppose. Every little piece does matter, and if we’re not careful, they can matter a whole lot more than we would have ever liked them to. Every building has a story, and these stories are told by the materials we make them with. They all contribute a sentence or two, if you would. It is up to the designer to make sure that once these sentences are put together, they actually make sense. If we fail to do this, we may end up creating a building that costs a lot of money, but has no real value. 

The Long Dark Tea-Time Of The Soul

      I spent a fair amount of time reading this book. That's not to suggest that I did not like it. In fact, I thoroughly enjoyed it. However, I'll be damned if I don't make at least one solid blog post out of it.

     As I mentioned, I really liked this book. It was "delightfully weird", to steal a thought from The Boston Sunday Herald's thoughts on this work. I thought that the zaniness and absurdity were great. In my opinion, it is hard to overdose on either of these things. The scene where Dirk steals the mechanic's tow truck in order to provide the man with an incentive to repair the detective's old Jaguar was one of my favorites. I also quite liked the image of an aggravated eagle instantaneously transforming into a fighter jet and exploding through the front door of house. Events like this, as preposterous as they may seem, are commonplace throughout the story.

      Once the reader has adjusted their mind to be more in line with the world Douglas Adams has created, the story is rather easy to follow. On a surface level, this book is about a family feud. Thor, the Norse God of Thunder, gets frustrated with an airline employee, so he does what any Thunder God would do. He forces the check in desk to spontaneously combust and turns the aforementioned employee into a Coke machine. This is all bad behavior, especially for a God. Thor's father Odin decides that Thor must be disciplined, and so he arranges for Thor to be glued to the floor. As one can imagine, Thor's pride is severely injured when he wakes to find that he not only passed out on the floor, but was also physically attached to it. Queue the feuding.

      The story was both fun and funny, but I do not think that that was what this book is really about. Recall how I mentioned that the family feud occurs on the surface level. Here's what I took away from Mr Adams' tale.

      Everything really is connected. Okay, so I don't think that a butterfly beating it's wings in Asia will effect the course of a hurricane in the Atlantic, but the idea of fundamental interconnectedness is more real than most people give it credit for. In fact, I would venture to say that it is much more real than most people give it credit for, as I do not think that most people give any credit to this idea at all. Here's an example. Humans are creatures of habit. The habits that I am forming in University, despite an apparent lack of empirical evidence, may very well have a dramatic effect on my future successes and failures. Here's to hoping that these blog posts are a good habit.

      "Think beyond the next pig." Of all the ideas in this book, this passage resonated most with me. The scene takes place in Valhalla. The gods have gathered and are feasting as they await Thor's arrival. Thor has called Odin for a public confrontation of some sorts, which is evidently a regular occurrence in the alternate dimension that these gods inhabit. Roasted pig is a main attraction at these events. 

      "It's no secret that the gods have fallen on hard times," said the old man grimly. "That's clear for all to see, even for the ones who only care about the pigs, which is most of 'em. And when you feel you're not needed any more it can be hard to think beyond the next pig, even if you used to have the whole world there with you."

      Hot damn, that is a good passage! In fact, it is so good, I'm going to just go ahead and say it. I will, at a later time, write an entire blog post about this scene and particular passage, and it will kick ass. Mark my words. There is just so much in this topic that is begging to be written about, especially as it relates towards our previous reading and writing assignments, architecture, and life as a whole. I can barely contain myself from writing about it now, but it's getting late, and more importantly, my laptop battery is getting low, and I seemed to have misplaced my charger (Langford Architecture Center, Geren Auditorium, balcony level, middle row, one seat from the left). Perhaps this is just a sign that I was meant to expand upon this idea later. Losing my laptop charger may prove to be an advantageous twist of fate, rather than a temporary inconvenience. Everything is connected.

      How and Why. Forget Who, What, Where and When. They aren't as important as How or Why. These are questions that Dirk Bently asks again and again, both of himself and the world around him. I don't think it is a coincidence that these seem to be every design studio professor's favorite questions. I think that they are the most important questions in the realm of architecture, and possibly the world as well. How and Why? They lie at the true center of knowledge and understanding, and we must continue to ask them.

Aesthetics of Destruction

      Just a warning up front; I had a hard time following this lecture, so don't be surprised if you find me rambling. Brazilian artist Lais Myrrha came to the COA lecture series this Monday evening. She showed us one of her recent works, which was a memorial to the Tragedy of Gameleira (Brazil, 1971), and the lives that were lost there. From what I understand, Myrrha's work served to honor the dead, but also to find a sort of beauty within the destruction and chaos of a collapsed building.

     David Byrne said it best. Things fall apart, it's scientific. It should be understood that the job of an architect, on a very fundamental level, is to counteract the entropy of the universe. I, for one, prefer buildings that fall into the standing category. I do not see much use in a building that has collapsed, except to serve as an example of what not to do on a construction site. I do not think that they floor plan for the next project I work on will come from a bunch of sticks I dropped across the ground, either. However, if architects are supposed to counteract the second law of thermodynamics, then maybe we should concentrate on taking those piles of sticks and turning them in to something useful.

      Thanks for reading. Until Wednesday.

The Big Reveal

The goal for redesigning the Ringer Library, in the broadest sense, is to reconfigure existing spaces and to add additional space to the library that will allow it to better serve the demands placed upon it by the community. These leaves lots of room for interpretation. However, the audit within the RFQ offers some redesign “suggestions”, some of which are more rigid than others. Long term costs should be considered, staff input must be followed, and noise levels must be reduced. All spaces could use improvements in some way, but our team decided to use most of our resources, both literal and figurative, towards the staff and support spaces, the children’s and teen spaces, and the common areas and furnishings.

   

We created this form for additional space for a few reasons. We wanted to use existing elements of the library in our new space. We thought that the barrel vault (red) was one of the best elements of the current building. It continues to cut through the space and create a main circulation along the long axis of the building. The existing curve on the south wall lent itself to being extended to define a boundary for the new space. It continues to create interest along this face of the building. We wanted to expand in this direction because we feel that this area of the site has more intrinsic value with its proximity to the street and neighboring school. Mirroring the rectilinear portion of the library across the short axis in blue creates an opportunity for a new main entrance to the building. We feel this will provide opportunities for outdoor space on both sides of the building, create a better connection with the adjacent road, and the community as a whole. The new entrance will be more visible, accessible, and inviting than the previous one. It is our hope that this will ultimately increase library patronage.

The staff space needs to be redesigned for a number of reasons. Our class’ case studies showed that most community libraries have a larger percentage of space dedicated towards staff area than Ringer Library does. During our visit to the library, employees lamented their current space quite heavily. Although this was something that one might expect during a tour for a proposed redesign, the staff workroom really does have lots of room for improvement. We would accomplish by incorporating several adjacent “dead” spaces into the staff workroom, and reworking the current space that exists. There are two meeting rooms next to the staff room. They appear to be seldom used. We would like to make these areas usable staff work space. There is also a courtyard outside the staff space, to use the term generously. The courtyard isn’t a usable space as it stands. We would convert the courtyard into a conditioned interior space for more staff work area. This would increase the square footage of the staff area by at least 300 square feet, or 25% of its previous size. Creating a better staff space should allow employees to work more efficiently. This follows staff input, and would effectively reduce long term operational costs by allowing staff to do more in less time.

    Both the children’s and teen spaces would be relocated to a new wing of the library. This would be the space that our group has added on the eastern side of the building. Staff members made it clear that children comprise a large portion of library patrons. Ringer Library plays host to a number of events and camps for children throughout the year. Current children’s spaces cannot adequately meet the needs posed by these events. We would like to move the children’s space to the new wing of the library. This is a more sequestered space, and could easily be divided by a partition or curtain wall if desired. Doing this should greatly reduce noise levels throughout the common areas of the library. The current reference desk in the children’s space would also be moved to the new wing of the library, adjacent to the new entrance. This would allow librarians to monitor the doorway and the children’s space without requiring an additional staff member to be assigned to a new area.

    The common area would now have open space along the north wall where the children’s area used to be. These areas could now contain meeting rooms, stacks, and seating space. The furnishing throughout the commons would be replaced. Today, there are too many large tables in the library. During our visit to the library, every one of these tables was occupied by a single person. Providing more individual seating in the commons will allow for the same number of people to be seated in a smaller area, effectively creating more spaces for stacks and meeting areas.

Let's Get Down To Business...

      Did you think that I would say "to defeat the Huns"? Nope. No Disney references here. I am referencing the fact that my two previous posts, while being interesting and thought provoking, have had nothing to do (directly) with renovations for Larry J Ringer Library in College Station. Here's where my brain has been, when it hasn't been pondering flowers made of animal organs or the future of architecture.

       I will spare the details, since I imagine I will be pouring over them in length in posts to come. I am excited for what this scheme for renovation may hold. I think it has a lot of opportunity to add value to the building on a variety of levels. Please, don't go away.

Writing Assignment 3 - Mass Unemployment I Mean Customization

    I find the idea of mass customization within the realm of architecture to be exciting, but also somewhat of a threat towards my future employability. However, I have not come here to be selfish and myopic, even though this post may devolve into nothing but the above. I will do my best to avoid this, so let’s get to it.

    “Refabricating Architeture” uses its final two chapters to make projections about the future of architecture in design. They construct a future from hypothesis in which Boeing now makes prefabricated modules for building construction. These modules are constructed very similarly to how the book described the assembly process for cars, ships, and planes in previous chapters. To make a poor analogy, the kitchen is now to the house as the dashboard has been to the car. We choose our kitchen module to be assembled off site, and then it is “installed” at the place of final assembly, or in this case, our property. This is “Refabricating Architecture’s” take on the future of mass customization and architecture.

    The “future” in which the authors make this projection has now become our past. The book is not terribly dated at all, but we know now that their hypothesis has not been proved entirely correct. I do feel it has been, in some regards, and this where I will digress into self pity and fear for my future job prospects.

    As stated above, mass customization has found its way into construction at a fair scale. I do not know what exactly this scale may be, but I have a decent idea. I can see entire homes rolling down the highway on flatbeds when I travel. I do not think that most of these structures were designed by architects, and I don’t think that the bathrooms inside have beautiful hand picked and custom cut granite countertops. I would imagine that their interiors are comprised mostly of these prefabricated modules that “Refabricating Architecture” speaks to. Perhaps the entire building is a prefab module. Having noted all that, I think it would be foolish to rule out the possibility of these modules being present in buildings we spend our every day in. I imagine that this trend will continue to grow. That leads me to a question.

    Where does this leave the architect? If somebody can flip through the pages of a bathroom magazine (not the kind on top of the toilet tank) and pick out a vanity, and choose the mirror, and the color of the marble, and the cabinets, and be told how much space it takes up, and the ideal counter height for a sink, then they will probably be able to do this for lots of other things in their home. Would they even need an architect anymore? Would architects just become glorified interior designers? Anyways, enough fretting. I’m sure you’ve had enough.

    It is my hope that mass customization in architecture will be the type seen in Chapter Six of “Refabricating Architecture”, and that architects will always be around to put compose our spaces. I believe that mass customization in architecture will trend towards the more technical and functional aspects of building. I think that this leaves more area for creating high performance buildings, instead of buildings that are just easier to design. This is where we can change relation of Quality and Scope being equal to Cost and Time, to QxS is greater than CxT. That was not a very eloquent ending, but I hope we get the point.