This mini-studio was a purely coneptual exploration of the use of computers in creating architectural form. The focus of this exploration was the amalgamation of a work of art with a work of architecture. Initially each student chose a painting to transform, with the ultimate goal of translating it into three dimensions. I chose a still life by Georges Braque, as the cubist language seemed appropriate for such a transformation. My initial explorations were analytical and confined to two dimensions. They focused on identifying the elemental forms of the painting. Using this as a framework for further development, I began a process of extruding the painting into three dimensions. This started as a relief of intersecting planes, and through continuous revisions it morphed into a three-dimensional sculpture.
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The second part of the process was to choose a work of architecture to analyze and transform in a similar manner. I chose Rem Koolhas's Maison a Bordeaux, a villa known for its elevator platform which connects three very different floors. My analysis of the villa was a straightforward distillation of its forms, focusing on each floor of the house as a separate form with it's own language and rules. The ground floor is carved out of the hillside and features dark spaces and organic forms. The first floor is a piano nobile in the absolute, with no interior walls and glass all around. The top floor features angled interior walls and porthole windows which created angled sight lines.
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ground floor plan |
1st floor (piano nobile) plan |
top floor plan |
exploded axon with vertical circulation |
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ground floor axon |
1st floor axon |
top floor axon |
elevation diagram
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table as roof garden, axon |
roof garden, elevation |
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table as piano nobile |
piano nobile, elevation |
The final phase was the union and subsequent transformation of these two forms. My analysis here took two divergent paths: the still-life "table" as an added third-floor roof garden, and the table as an occupier of the piano nobile. Though the former is perhaps a better extension of the villa concept, I further developed the latter as it offered the possibility of more interesting formal development.
As the piano nobile became filled with a collection of Braquist forms, they stretched themselves above and below, altering the form of all three floors. In the final transformation, the top floor becomes a plastic surface that is pushed and penetrated by the forms below.
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