‘The inclusion of “habitats” rather than “environments” reinforces the idea that these spaces are individual specific, but also part of a greater whole’

-from one of my first posts on conceptualizing OSL

SONY DSC

The Dream:

As I have said before, I view great architecture as a marriage between a complex & experiential understanding of organization, and the initial, abstract “dream-stuff” that shapes your mind’s eye view of the project (the stuff you can see in your head but never fully explain to anyone, and which takes years and years of practice to translate to paper).

This quarter—with an emphasis on a program that itself was very complex in both it’s spatial implications and philosophical roots—I think I achieved the understanding of program that is necessary for a great design, but never really got around to the dream-stuff. As I discussed with Mark during our final interview, I felt as if I never got to the point of freedom one finds in the interim, between wrapping one’s head around the idea and parsing out the pieces of a building. For many this unchained spatial exploration can happen at all stages of design; but for the methodical and meticulous mind, learning to “let-go” can be difficult, and this is definitely a struggle I would identify with.

Thus the following will contain mostly ideas about boundaries: the organizers of space, as well as the organizers of thermodynamic systems. In this part of the design process I think I excelled. As professor Foote noted during his critique of my project at final review, he saw a great deal of experiential organization—just not as much spatial exploration.

Habitual Boundaries Plans-01

The Concept:

The overarching theme of my design is to create habitats. Thinking back to my initial concept diagram, the intent was to create a place where learning was both self-motivated and exploratory. For me this entailed giving the learner a space he or she can call home (hence: the educational habitat).

Open Source Threading-01Initially I had linked these “habitats” to the interest groups, under the premise that what you are interested in naturally prescribes what kinds of things you need and who you will identify with. But along with the development of the commons came an understanding of what this design was actually about, and how the organizational idea of a cluster could start to reference back to that. If the overarching theme was to create habitats, then the overarching concept was the creation of sharing between them. After-all this is about “open-source”.

This re-inspired view led to the change in use of the cluster—instead of creating three 150-student cohorts connected with the three interest groups (leaving out organizational design pretty much all-together), I proposed the creation of five 90-student cohorts that would become intrinsically linked to how one shares.

Habitual Perspectives

The five different types of sharing are identified by the ways in which they share their works. While someone building a robot may have you directly interact with his creation, someone studying art may pin-up their work and discuss it with you. In this way distinctions were drawn between interacting with and viewing someone’s work, and this became the basis for differentiation between these five groups. This organizing scheme developed spatially into a series of bi-modal boundaries that are meant to signify times of formal/inward focus, and alternatively informal/outward exploration.

Bi-Modal Clusters

At a larger scale these clusters of share-able habitats started to latch on to the common space that flows through the totality of the design. The result was a seemingly linear organization that would hopefully inspire irregular movement and wandering (another form of exploration). A secondary method I used in order to advance this idea of exploration was the placing of common labs in the design.

Shareable Space

The chemistry lab, the technology playground, the “smock studio”, and the kinesthetic studio are all spaces to be used by everyone, and by exposing them to the sharing spaces they can start to visually and audibly create interest between the focus groups—perhaps a culinary designer using the chemistry lab sees someone piece together their d-fab file in the project space, and their curiosity leads them to that space. The intent at a minimum is to facilitate movement, but the desire is to create curiosity. This was also the goal in the other theme of my design—porosity with the topography.

The Site:

At the midterm reviews (both San Diego and Cal Poly) one of the major critiques of my design was it’s lack of connection to the beautiful exterior of the site. Much of the critique challenged me to be more radical in the ways I responded to the topography and the idea of the “outdoor classroom” in general. Thus I began to develop as part of the design a porosity with topography; meant to blur the line between interior and exterior space.

Natural Space

The purpose of this natural space was not only to provide connection with nature, though; it was also meant to act as a formal gesture that followed the natural topography of the hill upon which my design was situated. The large green space created in the center of the building could become both an untouched element of the site pouring into the design, and also an amphitheater-like space for large gatherings. At the top of this gathering mound the second story of the building becomes exterior , continuing the gesture of open air up and over the first floor. In my final section, you can see this terrace space on the right, acting as a node that connects the garden with the kitchens and the gathering space.

Habitual Section

At the final review the critics liked this formal movement of “the natural through the built”, but suggested that I could be even more radical with the gesture. In further developing my design I would hope to instill a greater sense of blur between the in and the out; as my design stands now I have managed indeed to include the idea of porosity, but the boundaries of such are still rigid and apparent—hardly blurred and open-source. Another critique was that this gesture impeded on the unity of the commons, by essentially splitting it into two. Perhaps a reevaluation of this formal split could achieve the same function while also re-uniting the two “halves” of the share-able space.

The Future:

Looking ahead I hope to re-evaluate my design over spring break and the first week of next quarter in the hope that some dream-stuff will find its way in. Looking back I can see how my design process in itself was very abstract, formal, and experiential—it just didn’t fully translate to the finished design. I think by taking the kind of intimate focus I had put on the individual habitual-boundaries and scaling that up to the larger formal and spatial aspects of the building, I may be able to create something that feels more necessarily linked to my concept. Exploration through both section and loose perspective was something I didn’t fully embrace during the quarter (partly because of my methodical nature, partly because of timing), but I hope to use these tools in this further design.

So, I think I’ll end this post with some images of my process—past-inspiration for what’s ahead…

Habitual Process Combined