DEEP MASSES
Spring 2016
Advisor: Dylan Baker-Rice
Acknowledgements: Sonia Ho, Yvonne Yuen, Jayla Lai, Gavin Ng, Christie Ma
THESIS STATEMENT
The graduating thesis explores new ideas of a typology that can cumulate atmospheric affects of ambiguous depths. The thesis aims to undertake a detailed examination of a sports complex typology as one part, hybridized with other smaller modules of the same typology as the other.
The variegated mixtures are combined to form new complex wholes. These accreted masses mediate the loose fits among the envelope, the structure and the interior, while defying the distinctions between surface and depth; solidity and plasticity; ephemerality and monumentality; or apparentness and obscurity.
The thesis is tested through an array of aggregate composition in a massing configuration.
PROJECT RECOGNITION
Semester GPA: 3.88
- Nomination, Dissertation Medal Award,
2016 RIBA President's Medal Student Awards,
London, United Kingdom | 2016.12
- Honourable Mention
- Nominated HKU participant for
'TEAM 20 兩岸建築與規劃新人獎', Taipei, Taiwan
2016.7.28 -2016.7.29
- Nominated reviewee for Public Review
Thesis Projects for Master of Architecture, The Faculty of Architecture, HKU | 2016.6.11
- Nominated thesis grouping presenter for
Public Forum: Mid Semester Design Studio Symposium
Spring 2016 Special Event, The Faculty of Architecture, HKU | 2016.3.21
- Interviewed by U-Vision, TV channel for the University of Hong Kong | 2016.6.17
- Selected project for Degree Show exhibition at the University of Hong Kong | 2016.6.18 - 2016.7.4
DEPTH AS A SPATIAL AND
EXPERIENTIAL QUALITY
The proposition of this thesis is to challenge the ‘loose-fit’ relationship of the flat-horizontal envelope, the structure and the interior of a building, by inducing affects through depth in ways such as layering and figural performance in the tectonics of the section.
The word ‘deep’ in the architectural discipline can refer to (1) the extension from the top such as the roof, or a surface such as the envelope, from a point of reference or in layers, which in turn produces qualities of thickness and volume; (2) the qualities of obscurity, complexity, darkness, immersion, etc.
Depth in architecture is perceived as both a spatial and psychological quality experienced by the observer through a static position or by movement. Depth is usually related to the sequence of independent negative spaces of a mass, or the psychological feeling of mystery or delight through light and darkness.
The notion of depth can be involved in construction by choreographing the interplay of material affects with the medium of light and sound. Apart from material and physical properties of literal depth, conceptual depth of an architectural object can also be considered to engage with the flexibility and the sustainability of the socio-cultural realms through hybridization and customization. Interstitial spaces and voids in between the external and internal silhouette could leave traces of uncertainty, monumentality and various sorts of aesthetics and meanings, from the ancient Roman Coliseum or the Grand Bazaar in Tehran to the modern stadium or station concourses.
The simplest form of depth is one that is consistent and infinite. On one hand, depth could be framed and objectified in relation to thresholds. On the other hand, the observer could also become the subject that induces the perception of depth through movement. Depth, therefore, could generate through both the passive and autonomous architectural object, and the active influence of various forces such as light and circulation.
This test case involves the uncertain and widely debated future of the infrastructural spectacle of a sports complex in Kai Tak, Hong Kong. After losing the competition for being the host of the Asian Games, issues of obsoleteness in the massive urban void began to pose questions with respect to how this area would be developed.
My primary method of analysis is to explore the architectonics that dissolve boundaries of the roof, wall, floor and envelope. Graphic media employs the use of parallel projection and worm’s eye axonometric drawings, augmented by colors and textures, in a way to demonstrate the two-fold qualities of depth and how they could produce an exemplary case of a social complex that is adaptive, flexible, sensitive and responsive to the typical podium typology in Hong Kong.
DISCIPLINARY BACKGROUND
SYNOPSIS:
The envelope has been considered to emerge from a mere wrapper to a more volumetric and projective mass. The function has evolved from shelter in the ‘primitive hut’ to induction of sentiments through changing human perception.
BUILDING SCALE
DISPROPORTION BETWEEN SECTION AND PLAN:
“The envelope operates also as a representational device in addition to its crucial environmental and territorial roles. “ [1] The envelope has been regarded both as the most apparent symbolic face and the performative skin of a building. “The building envelope forms the border, the frontier, the edge, the enclosure and the joint: it is loaded with political content…The envelope is the surface and its attachments.” [2] The envelope is considered as a whole with the structure, the massing and also closely related to the autonomy of the architect both politically and culturally.
The section reveals the internal and external silhouettes of a building. The parts of the section, or ‘poche’, vary greatly in terms of formal qualities as well as height and lighting, such that the whole appears as a mixture of differentiated elements. The volumetric quality of the section and the more unified compactness of the plan, together demonstrate a disproportion or loose fit that shows more than the sum of the parts. The disproportion results in the deviation or interstice between the envelope and the interior that produces perception of depth.
ENVELOPE AS A MANIFESTO OF VISUAL DEPTH:
During the Renaissance, Francesco Borromini (1599-1667) experimented with visual illusion on the façades of San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane at Rome in 1646 and Oratorio dei Filippini at Rome in 1650, through the composition of various rhythmic coffered bays on a continuous wall surface that generates a forced perspective view. Borromini also employed perspectival visual distortion in the Galleria di Palazzo Spada at Rome in 1632 by diminishing the roof, the floor and the vertical colonnades towards the end of the gallery.
CONTEMPORARY DISCOURSE ON EXPRESSION:
Early International Style modernists, like Le Corbusier in his Five Points Towards a New Architecture, argued that ribbon windows and brise-soleils were most adaptive to the construction technology at that time. The undulation and sculptural play of depth on the envelope, beyond functionalistic and mass production terms, were considered as mannerist and ancient. However, Herbert Beyer (1900-1985), a pioneering Bauhaus architect, graphic designer and painter from Austria who later moved to America, looked at the spatial relations of perspective vision in 1935 and argued that the manipulation of full range of vision could enhance the spatial experience [3].
Depth as expression was emphasized again in Late Modernism or Critical Regionalism where the regional and climatic differences were responded with sun-shading considerations and the choice of materials; and in Post Modernism where styles collided and resulted with non-orthogonal surfaces and volumes.
Building identity is considered to be independent of its function, but established by ‘urban artifacts’ of significant monumental and referential values, as argued by Aldo Rossi in his book ‘Architecture and the City’ in 1966 [4]. The envelope and the massing are considered to contribute to the figural composition that induces collective memories. Through a typological change of the envelope in Luigi Moretti’s Corso Italia and Il Girasole both in 1949 at Milan, the deep volumetric push-pull effect which could directly confront the fragmented urban context with autonomy. However, Reynar Banham argued in his 1969 book ‘The Architecture of the Well-tempered Environment’ [5] that space could be ‘defined by functional demands, whose external boundaries are rather vague and therefore seldom regular’. The distance and discrepancy of the envelope and interior would become immaterial without physical depth.
DEEP TECTONICS AS VISUAL & SOCIAL MEDIATOR:
In his 1978 essay “Figures, Doors and Passages”, Robin Evans commented on the evolution of corridors that was based on views and spatial layering that dissolve the boundaries between rooms or programs [6]. The discourse of the deep envelope is augmented by Diller Scofidio in their Slow House project in 1991 at North Haven NY, where perspective vision is distorted with the element of the wall as a continuation of the exterior.
In Greg Lynn’s Korean Presbyterian Church in 1991 at New York, the undulation of the envelope could enhance not only visual effects, but also the identity of the structure between interiority and exteriority with the performance of light. The envelope as a projective instrument through movement has been diagnostic in identifying the new visual perceptions from the city and projecting new grounds for architectural experimentation on human circulation and traffic flows.
POLITICS OF THE LOOSELY-FITTED ENVELOPE:
In FOA’s Yokohama Port Terminal in 2002 and sHoP Architect’s FIT New Academic Building proposal in 2006 at New York, the rhythmic play of the sectional object produces mixed aggregates of surfaces that incorporates the program layout with the structure, with the intention to enhance the performativity of surfaces and facades which contribute to a diverse field of spatial experiences and atmospheric effects.
Alejandro Zaera-Polo in his 2008 essay ‘The Politics of the Envelope’ argued that the manipulation of depth can enhance existing programs as well as inducing mediating affects. “The envelope has become the last realm of architectural power, despite the discipline’s inability to articulate a theoretical framework capable of structuring its renewed importance.” [7]
Zaera-Polo argued for the role of architecture as a mediator among human relationships, politics and nature, and that the architect enjoys the greatest design freedom in envelopes and should develop rigorous approaches and discourses towards the envelope.
Depth, at first as a visual effect resulted from formal compositions, could be reconsidered also as being a political, social and psychological typology that establishes autonomy for architects to resist purely representational or merely utopian architecture.
URBAN SCALE
Depth on an urban scale, considered more as a typological understanding rather than a visual quality, has been approached with the exploration of the underlying typological reasoning of urban ‘types’ and ‘typicalities’, and how they develop against time. ‘Type’ usually refers to the use of the building, while ‘typicality’ refers to the situations or typical qualities related to the ‘type’, such as natural/artificial forces and sentiments. In order to produce more depth and breadth in the understanding of urban types, the discipline requires more detailed examination beyond classification by use.
TYPOLOGICAL FIELD OF DEPTH AS
THE AUTONOMOUS URBAN ARCHIPELAGO:
‘The word type presents less the image of a thing to copy or imitate completely than the idea of an element which ought itself to serve as a rule for the model.’ – Quatremere de Quincy (1755-1849), “Type” in ‘Encyclopedie Methodique’ (1825) [8]
The conditions to reconfigure an urban type can be considered upon a deeper understanding of its tectonics and essential elements.
In O.M. Ungers’ Berlin Archipelago in 1977 [9] and Pier Vittorio Aureli’s ‘Toward the Archipelago’ in 2008 [10], typological mapping of urban situations could reflect the individuality of the urban artifact as an urban archipelago, which tackles the issues of infinite expansion of urbanization and the lack of ubiquity in the urban block.
SERIAL OPERATION ON
URBAN TYPES OF DEEP TYPICALITIES:
Dominated urban types, are considered as the most typical and common elements that establish the distinctive qualities of the city. Christopher CM Lee has been looking at the serial operation on political urban types like the city wall, in his teaching and works, where typological reasoning could allow the emergence of ‘deeper and richer structure of typicalities’. [11]
Civic or institutional buildings, is explored beyond its use or stereotypical form, in order to produce unique qualities and definitions for the city.
VALUES FROM THE PERCEPTION AND
THE UNDERSTANDING OF DEPTH:
Depth is closely associated with lightness, clarity, and unity within an architectural object on one hand. On the other hand, depth is generative in the combination with such ‘positive’ qualities. In fact, depth is an ambiguous field that engages both tangible (visual, spatial) and intangible (psychological, social) forces.
These forces and qualities can be categorized under four types in the following:
1. INTERACTIVITY
Various continuous forces present from lighting, users, movement interact with architecture rapidly to produce various perceptions of depth. Massing should be reconfigured by allowing these forces to generate effects. Such forces shall compose a heterogeneous mix of elements that goes beyond the standard orthodox perception of aesthetics.
2. COHESIVENESS
Tectonic elements of walls, roofs, extrusions, cantilevers, arches and vaults are arrayed or transformed into aggregated mixtures that dissolve the thresholds and boundaries between figure & ground, and the designated program ‘boxes’. For example, a wall is no longer a vertical surface alone, but a volumetric space mixed with the roof and the floor.
3. PERFORMATIVITY
The envelope is no longer a fixated screen or mask, rather, a porous entirety in combination with the structure and interior. Program is flexible enough such that the Deep Mass is an intertwined matrix of urban scenarios.
4. TYPICALITY
Conceptual depth of an architectural object involves the social expansion which embrace engagement and participation through not just affects alone, on the other hand, the rich typicalities of the dominant type allows for autonomy for the profession and discipline.
The envelope as a deep mass, as a projective type, could be redefined upon its coupling of part/whole, tiered levels, place of arriving/gathering, interiority/exteriority, wall/entry, etc. In this way, the notion of depth could be utilized fully and opportunistically by mediating between the human and non-human boundaries.
Notes:
[1] Zaera-Polo, The Politics of the Envelope, 3.
[2] Ibid, 4.
[3] Joan Ockman, “The Road Not Taken: Alexander Dorner’s Way Beyond Art” in R.E. Somol, ed. Autonomy and Ideology: Positioning an Avant-Garde in America (New York, New York: Monacelli Press, 1997), 102.
[4] Aldo Rossi, The Architecture of the City, MIT Press,1984.
[5] Reynar Banham, The Architecture of the Well-Tempered Environment, UChi Press,1984.
[6] Robin Evans, Figures, Doors and Passages, in Translations From Drawing to Building , MIT, 70-79.
[7] Zaera-Polo, 6.
[8] Quatremère de Quincy, “Type” in Encyclopédie Méthodique, vol. 3, trans. Samir Younés, reprinted in The Historical Dictionary of Architecture of Quatremère de Quincy, London: Papadakis Publisher, 2000.
[9] Florian Herweck and Sebastian Marot, The City in the City - Berlin: A Green Archipelago, Lars Muller, 2013.
[10] Pier Vittorio Aureli, ‘Toward the Archipelago’ in Log, No. 11 (Winter 2008), Anyone Corporation, 91-120
[11] Christopher C.M. Lee, Type in The City as a Project: A Research Collective, 2011.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
01 THEORY
1. Aldo Rossi, The Architecture of the City, MIT Press,1984
2. Anthony Vidler, ‘Terres Inconnues: Cartographies of a Landscape to be Invented’ in October, Vol. 115 (MIT Press, 2006), 13-30
3. Florian Herweck and Sebastian Marot, The City in the City - Berlin: A Green Archipelago, Lars Muller, 2013
4. Pier Vittorio Aureli, ‘Toward the Archipelago’ in Log, No. 11 (Winter 2008), Anyone Corporation, 91-120
5. Herbert Bayer, Diagram of the Field of Vision, 1930
6. Erik L’Heureux, Deep Veils, ORO Editions, 2014
7. Alejandro Zaera-Polo, The Politics of the Envelope, Log 13/14, Fall 2008
8. Kurt Evans, Iben Falconer and Ian Mills, Perspecta 45: Agency, MIT Press, 2012
9. Monika Minsova, Oxymoron & Pleonasm: Conversatiosn on American Critical and Projective Throey of Architecture, Actar Publishers, New York, 2014
10. Theo Lorenz & Peter Staub, Mediating Architecture, AA Agendas No. 11, AA Publications, 2006
11. Brad Cloepfil, Allied Works Architecture/Brad Cloepfil: Occupation, Gregory R. Miller & Co., New York, 2011
12. Ana Jeinic, Amselm Wagner, Is There (Anti-)Neoliberal Architecture?, jovis Verlag GmbH, Berlin, 2013
13. Jonathan Hill, Immaterial Architecture, Routledge, 2006
14. Jane Rendell, Jonathan Hill, Murray Fraser and Mark Dorian, Critical Architecture, Routledge, 2007
15. Alejandro Zaera-Polo, The Sniper’s Log: Architectural Chronicles of Generation X, Acta, New York, 2012
16. Yvonne Farrell and Shelley McNamara, Dialogue and Translation (GSAPP Transcripts), GSAPP Books, 2014
17. Diller Scofidio + Renfro, The Ciliary Function, Skira, 2006
18. Paul Bentel and Howard Hopffgarten, Monumentality and The City (The Harvard Architectural Review IV), MIT Press, 1984
19. J Mayer H, Could Should Would, Hatje Cantz, Germany, 2015
20. Mansilla + Tunon, From Rules to Constraints, Princeton School of Architecture, Lars Muller, 2012
02 TECHNICAL
1. Farshid Moussavi, ‘Watching Sports 1927-2012’ in The Function of Style (ActarD Inc, 2015), 470-519
2. Christopher C.M. Lee & Sam Jacoby, AD Typological Urbanism: Projective Cities, Wiley, 2011
3. Neeraj Bhatia and Mary Casper, The Petropolis of Tomorrow, Actar, 2013
4. Todd Gannon and Ewan Branda, A Confederacy of Heretics, Sci-Arc Press, 2014
5. Barbara Burren, Martin Tschanz and Christa Vogt, The Pitched Roof, Niggli, Zurich, 2008
6. Valerio Paolo Mosco, Naked Architecture, Skira Editore, Milano 2012
7. Mark Muckenheim and Juliane Demel, Inspiration: Contemporary Design Methods in Architecture, BIS Publishers, Amsterdam, 2012
8. Geraint John, Road Sheard and Ben Vickery, Stadia: The Populous Design and Development Guide (Fifth Edition), Routledge, 2013
9. Michelle Provoost, The Stadium: the architecture of mass sport, NAi Publishers, Rotterdam, 2000
10. Ulrich Pfammatter, Building for a Changing Culture and Climate, DOM publishers, Berlin, 2015
03 RELATED PROJECTS
1. Herzog & de Meuron, Chelsea FC Stamford Bridge Stadium, UK, 2015
2. Herzog & de Meuron, Bordeaux Stadium, France, 2015
3. Grafton Architects and Paulo Mendes da Rocha, Architecture as New Geography, Venice Architecture Biennale 2012
4. Peter Cook, Abedian School of Architecture, Australia, 2013
5.Herzog & de Meuron, Flinders Street Station, Melbourne, 2013
6. Atelier Deshaus, Long Museum, Shanghai, 2014
7. Mass Studies, DAUM Headquarters, South Korea, 2012
8. Johnston Marklee, Vault House, California, 2013
9. Diller Scofidio + Renfro, Penn Station 3.0, NYC, 2013
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