1+3.. edited

1_Peruvian context: the related conditions in which a new structure and program gracefully interweaves with the site, inhabitants, and their culture.
3_Creating and maintaining a healthy relationship between a building and its environment requires a lot of attention in a culturally heavy and extreme natural environments. Ideas of blending the new with ideas of the context rather than competing with it can help with the challenges of gracefully weaving into a site and allow the user to understand the power of where they are. To do so the inputs of the context should affect the output of the design allowing it to harmoniously exist on the site.

W6_site...

W5_1+3+9

1_Peruvian context: the interrelated conditions in which a building exists with a site, inhabitants, and their culture.

3_Creating and maintaining a healthy relationship between a building and its environment can be difficult in a variety of culturally heavy and extreme natural environments. Ideas of blending the new with ideas of the context rather than competing with it can help with the challenges of gracefully weaving into a site. To do so the inputs of the context should affect the output of the design allowing it to harmoniously exist on the site.

9_The South American ancient Incan citadel of Machu Picchu located in Peru has extreme inputs of context. The topography of the site is harsh as it is located in the tropical mountain forest of the upper Amazon basin in the Andes Mountains with Rio Urumbamba far below in the valley. The natural threats, most noteworthy the threat of fires along with landslides and mudslides as significant threats need to be taken into consideration for the future of the site. These factors influence the fact that there are only two access points to the heritage site, one a road and the other an ancient Incan trail. Although there are so few access points, since the acceptance of Machu Picchu as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO, the tourism has endangered the serenity and power of the site with hotels, restaurants, boutiques, visitor centers, and the possibility of new intrusive access routes. The imposition of tourism on the site has not only had an effect on the site, but also on the indigenous people for whom it was a connection to their spiritual and cultural heritage because it is becoming less accessible to them as it becomes more geared for outsiders. Incan spiritual beliefs honor the natural elements, which can be noted in many aspects of the architecture and the fact that there were many temples and ritual spaces as a tribute of them. As a result, the Incas created a harmonious relationship with their context taking into consideration their natural environment, the people’s needs, and cultural and spiritual needs. To build on this site, and gracefully incorporate a building on this site needs to take all these factors into consideration.

W4_thoughts

-was looking at extreme environments
-was digging myself in a hole because it was becoming a system rather than something specific- too much variability
-took a step back and looked at my interests again other than climate on site
-and I’m interested in the relationship between topography and the building-so how a building is not just shoved into the ground but relates to its context
-I am also still interested in cultural context and being able to incorporate very local ideas into the building
-so I picked a location in South America because I’ve been there and I’m interested in ancient native cultures.. ex. Incas, mayans
-more specifically I picked one of the more researched and documented historical Incan sites, Machu Picchu
-the site has a lot going on within it, but also has had a lot of changes around it since it became a world heritage site because of the dramatic increase in tourism.

W4_site concept sketch

W4_Site Matters

This reading is a reminder to be looking at a site at different scales while analyzing its many attributes, both physical and nonphysical through a variety of representation techniques rather than reproduction techniques. It seems so easy to zone into the specifics of a location, but there are many other factors that interact with the chosen site to be looking at. As Kahn talks about looking at the site for different things at a variety of scales, it is easy to notice an overlapping nature of information on sites. It creates a location with no definite boundaries.. it makes sense that relationships of a specific location doesn’t diminish along a given line on a map and I appreciate the idea that a site has a fluid motion linking it to its surroundings. The idea that there is connectivity through the porous nature of the site edges and layering of information allows for more influence by a site rather than closing it off.

W3_concept sketch

will be added when i'm on campus!

W3_The Muses are Not Amused

Silvetti in the Muses are Not Amused focuses on four categories of form making in a more current academic setting that were looked at from a negative viewpoint. He specifically looks at programism, themeization, blobs, and literalism, and although I agree with some of his descriptions and the short-comings of following those certain patterns, in my opinion there is so much more to designing. Yes, programism doesn’t think out the necessary detail of spaces and circulation well (ex. Seattle Public Library’s need to be color coded to get through), and making blobs because we can, and even making them because we can and applying useless meaning over it is shallow and most often doesn’t work, but buildings that fit into those categories are cop-outs from my viewpoint. At the present there are also so many other groups of thought that current designs and designers can fit into and it is hard to judge them all because of the fact that they are so current. Even though we can assess our designs now and have a certain degree of insight into the building, it takes time to take a step back and realize all the positives and negatives of what is going on in a larger scope of things. I am sure during the time of baroque architecture there were bad designs as well, but now we don’t focus so much on all the short comings, as much as we look at the positive attributes of the time. In the future when this time period is looked upon I doubt that buildings that fit into the categories Silvetti described will be focused on for those attributes.

W2_concept sketch

W2_1+3+9

1_ Architecture can use biological systems to help rebuild and maintain a healthy ecology in extreme environments.

3_ Extreme environments are areas that are severely affected by chronic natural disasters or drastic climate change. The ecology of these areas weakens through the constant attack from the situation leading to a hasty rebuilding process making the built environment more vulnerable. Implementing a regularized system based on working existing biological systems can help these areas deal with their situation in a better more planned out way.

9_ With the ongoing changes in extreme environments and the need for an adaptive yet rigid system, biological systems are a good precedent to examine. Biological systems each come with a sense of structure, surface and volume, but each system also has its own strengths and weaknesses. Exploring these systems and exploiting them for what they do well for themselves can be valuable while looking at the built environment. Looking at how nature sustains itself against the forces of nature can inform us how our built environment can better sustain itself against nature as well. The idea that these systems are rigid enough to uphold themselves but also have the ability to have variations and adapt to changes in their environment is enormously important to their benefits. Extreme environments come in all shapes and sizes, all with their particular needs, not to mention they are always changing, but also have similarities in how their standard of living is being threatened or destroyed in all. Applying an orderly system that can be implemented easily in times of need using local materials and building techniques to quickly and efficiently restore what has been lost is key in keeping these areas safe from an ongoing destructive cycle. The idea is that these systems, like biological systems can grow, change, be taken down, or added onto for the benefit of the environment and community. These architectural systems are something that have the ability to bring the ecology of the extreme environments to better standards .

W1_thoughts

Sooo… what I’ve been thinking about:
Well, to start off, I’m interested in extreme environments… and what I mean by that are environments that are coming upon new problems with the changes of the world (ex. Global warming, rising sea levels, hole in ozone), or places that are severely affected by natural disasters (ex. Earthquakes, tsunamis, etc.). So far I haven’t decided on a specific place or what their issue is, but two that I’ve looked at are the island nation of Tuvalu, and Ahmadabad an enormous city in India. Tuvalu is an island that is being threatened by the rising sea levels. It could very possibly go completely under leaving its citizens with nothing. Ahmadabad is a large city, packed with people, and is always threatened by the possibility of an earthquake. There was a large one a few years back, which destroyed so much of the city, and left a lot of people stranded. Buildings in the city were rebuilt in the same hasty fashion, leaving it vulnerable for a similar devastating disaster. I am still not completely set on either of these two sites or the environments that come along with them. If the fact of having been to them is a large influencing factor, well, I’ve never been to the first, but have been to the second, and don’t know many other places I have been to that fall into my category of extreme environments.

Beyond that, I’ve been thinking about the word ecologies and how that fits into these kinds of places. An environment that relates to its living organisms, or the interactions between the environment and its living organism. The idea of biological systems that can be adapted to the place and its needs, something that can grow if needed, or be assembled in a variety of ways to be able to relate to the immediate environment interests me.

I’m not really sure where I could go with that… or if it is a good idea to go with it because I’m not really sure how it becomes resolute if it has a variable. Is it okay to have that variability? Or is that a trap?

Do my words make sense, or am I just swimming in my head? Comments, thoughts, ideas, inspirational things are welcome!

W1_concept sketch

W1_How to Draw Up a Project response

Design is a process; this is an idea that’s been drilled into our heads for four years now. At first we deal with the phantom, or as we’ve always named it the concept. Then there’s understanding and organizing the pieces, establishing hierarchies, or as put in words we have heard since day one, creating systems. There is also the part of the process in which we give the project more definition, giving it details. I agree with Mateo that these are different issues that are dealt with during the process in a simplified description, but disagree in the sense that he gave the process a fixed direction. Rather than being linear, I believe the process has more of a roaming path in which back tracking, rethinking, and refinement is part of the iterative process. It never turns out to be linear as future parts of the process inform previous parts of the process.

As I panic about the idea that I am about to begin a project that is to last me a year and keep me engaged, and allow me to grow a tremendous amount in the direction I chose, along with many other things that go along with doing a thesis, I realize I’m not even sure where to start. How to Draw Up a Project, the title of this text seems misleading. The design process is something we understand; it is something we have been lead through many times. Yet I am still at odds with the idea of how to start. What is the first step in defining a problem for the project to associate with?