My Spring term studio started, and is done by an area firm YGH. Below is the overall goals of the studio, which is more abstract in nature than my previous studio projects.
IDEA:
The studio will begin by examining three program activities in detail (mine=a place for reading). The goal for each student will be to understand as clearly as possible the spatial structure suggested by one of three interactions: reading/media, viewing/display, viewing/performance. Students will attempt to discover a fundamental structure to these interactions through a process of research and analysis. They will then use that analysis to develop the abstract concept into a spatial construct that is focused, and grounded with the physical, empirical realities of scale, sensory focus, light, shadow, texture and space.
CONTEXT:
The project will occupy an urban site in downtown Portland. Students will analyze the site context in terms of scale, light, shadow, texture, boundary, orientation, access, circulation, culture, microclimate, history and ecology.
APPLICATION:
Th construct developed in the IDEA phase will be examined relative to the site/context analysis, and a narrative written to describe some of the myriad ways in which the two could interact. This should result in a clear understanding of what conflicts occur, how the program/site are complementary, and finally, a set of hypotheses about how architecture can emphasize the positive interactions, and mitigate the negative. Programs will be provided that are focused on one of the three typologies set in the same site and program, with similar support spaces. As architecture exists as mediator between the realms of site and program, empiricism and narrative, history and mythology, it simultaneously binds and contains the pragmatic and the poetic, the technical and the profound. This studio will explore the degree to which a clear initial concept or archetype successfully informs and binds function and form.