Pass the Corbusier (or Architectural Analysis 002: Villa Savoye vs. Villa La Roche)

Comparative Analysis of two houses designed by Le Corbusier--Villa Savoye (in Poissy) and Villa La Roche (in Paris).  Axonometric and plan drawings reproduced from literature from Le Centre des Monuments Nationaux and the Le Corbusier Foundation.  Sketches and photos are mine, as are the really high-tech red overlays.

Initial Documentation

Central Ordering Devices

Fluidity and Dynamism

Relationship to Exterior

Completed in the Spring of 2005 for the SARUP Florence-Paris program with Professor Kyle Talbott.

Walking with Haussmann's Ghost (or Urban Space Analysis 002: Parc Citroën vs. Parc de la Villette)

Comparative Analysis of two modern Parisian parks.  Site plans reproduced from park literature.  Sketches and photos are mine.

Paris (Satellite Photo via Google Maps)

Initial Documentation

Ordering Systems

Crossing Paths/Vertical Connectors

Integration of Urban Context

And as a little carrot... evidently you've gotta get up to get down.  One of the many reasons I love Parc Citroën:

Parc Citroën Cross Section

UPDATE: Apparently the editors at Project for Public Spaces (PPS) don't know a good thing when it smacks them in the face.  Thankfully the readers dropped the knowledge in the comments section.

Completed in the Spring of 2005 for the SARUP Florence-Paris program with Professor Kyle Talbott.

The Church of What's Happening Now (or Architectural Analysis 001: Santo Spirito vs. Amiens)

The first in a series--this time, it's architectural: a rudimentary comparative analysis of the Church of Santo Spirito (in Florence) and Amiens Cathedral (in Amiens, France).  For those of you on the edge of your seat after this nailbiter, further exploration of Amiens will follow at a later date.

Initial Documentation

Materials, Order and Delineation

Spoken into the Void: Adolf Loos and the Search for Truth

Art, which made the floor under the ancient's foot and the vault of the church ceiling over the Christian's head, is now cramped onto boxes and bracelets.  The times are worse than one thinks.   

- Goethe

The evolution of culture is synonymous with the removal of ornamentation from objects of everyday use. 

 - Adolf Loos, "Ornament and Crime" (1908)

The outspoken critic of ornamentation, who nevertheless could not quite live up to his own ideal. Adolf Loos: the declared foe of the Viennese Secession and the German Werkbund. Pevsner’s “enigma.” While his texts, when taken as individual essays, are chock-full of inherent contradictions, Janet Stewart contends that the complexities and contradictions of Loos’ texts are a reflection of the modern age of which he saw himself a part. She sees “a ‘new’ Loos, simultaneously ‘modern’ and ‘traditional,’ whose sense of paradox identifies him as a sensitive barometer of the tensions characteristic of Viennese modernity” (9).

Pi-Yahtzee! (or Urban Space Analysis 001: Santa Maria Novella vs. Santo Spirito)

Dear Loyal Readers (all 4 of you),

Today marks the first in what I hope to be a continuing series of explorations of successful urban spaces.  To get things going, I'll start by reaching back into the vault to grab a few analyses--gasp--I've already done.  Future posts might be a little more blog-friendly.  As it were, the initial analyses were documented somewhat on the fly during my '05 semester abroad.  Exhibit A: a comparative analysis of two piazzi in Florence--Piazza S. Maria Novella and Piazza S. Spirito.

For reference, a site plan of central Florence, with the two areas under consideration highlighted:

Florence (Satellite Photo via Google Maps)

S. Maria Novella: Initial Documentation

S. Spirito: Initial Documentation

The Fortress, The Warehouse and the Marketplace: 2005 Master's Thesis (Abridged Version)

The curious and purposeful individual is fueled in part by the idea that there are others out there like him.  He seeks knowledge and finds joy in learning, but he also knows that what he learns and what he values are intrinsically connected to what he does and what he produces.  He therefore views the library not as a place of escape, but as a forum and a resource integral to the course of his life.

This project is not a monastery, an intimidating civic palace, an egalitarian warehouse of books, or simply a digital resource center.  Why must the library act as a stand-alone civic institution?  It is my contention that the connection between thought and action, between the individual and the community, will most clearly be seen when manifestations of education and business are fused together within the same program, with the library serving as the mediating core.  Classroom space for a school for continuing education and office space for start-up businesses commingle, tied together by the library and ancillary public spaces (an exhibition hall, a lecture theater, a coffee shop).

Keeping in mind the parallel goals of social interaction and the possibility for isolated contemplation, I formulated two design strategies: embedding and porosity.  They enjoy a complementary dialogue, as the act of embedding elaborates not only upon the idea of solitary thought, but rooting the project in the city and in the site.  The embedded site and building are then rendered porous, as spaces are carved out and the enclosure is pulled apart.  These two strategies play off of each other to create a dynamic succession of experiences, alternating between the open forum and the contemplative realm.

Early Conceptual Sketches

View of South Entry Courtyard