Midterm Learning portfolio

Yue Dai Arch--101 Spring 2015 Instructor: Jerry Lum

Content Diagram

Breaking the Ice

Attempt Change the material

Photo documentHand drawings

Repetition+Transformation

Create spaces+Narrative

Split the whole circleFind the climate

Frame + Surface

Transformation fromCircle to polygon

Defining Spaces

Drawing of the spaces inside

Ice Breaking－Week 1 Malevich-inspired

construction

Our fist assignment is to make our first model related to the Kazimir Malevich’s “Suprematist Composition 2”, on the right side, a two dimension pattern. We need to have a brainstorm to promote it in to three dimension model.

I considered this picture to be the top view of the land form. My approach was changing these rectangles to be the cylinders in the 3D world.

The squares was changed to be the cubes. The combination of cylinders and cubes could be much more interesting than the mere boxes or mere cylinders.

I chose this part to start making my 3D model, because there are 3 major rectangles locked with each other which combined the complex and succinct.

Iteration 1My first iteration, three-dimension locked cylinders, was made of white paper because I did not have any other materials yet. From the left drawing, I realize the beauty of the contrast between huge and small.

Week 2Drawing + photographing as analytical tools to

promote design process

Iteration 2My iteration 2 was changed the material of these cylinders. I was satisfied with my first iteration, so I didn’t change to much structure this time. I thought the new material could give my model more texture. However, my teacher said this changing-material attempt make this model lost its contrast between huge and small, thickness and thinness because this material has the same thickness everywhere.

Week 3The Narrative as a way of increasing &

deepening intentions & focusing process--Iteration 3-Repetition

with color

I regain the contrast that I lost in the second iteration and use a lot of repetition to give this model more hierarchy. However when I give this model narrative, I was stuck. there is few open and flat space to start a journey. When I introduce the circles there is a series of elevators, my instructor said my design is more like an engineering thing.

Therefore I opened these geometries and created three spaces, letting an abstract handwork towards real architectural way. 。 Iteration 3 has three cylinders and one rectangular pyramid as the major part. I changed one of the slant plane to be horizontal, rearranging these geometries and letting them have the relationship with each other. The relationship could be the path between them.

A closed cylinder

Cylinder with transparentWall all around

A plate with no created space

Change a slant plate to be horizontal

Week 4Exploring proportional

options to develop beauty

Iteration 4--In this iteration, I created three different spaces to let people stay or move. People can take elevator to the second floor, passing through these three spaces. Some paths are inside the space, some of the paths are outside the whole building.

In this iteration, I also added several small decoration to make this building have more complexity. The transparent and semitransparent material also made these space have more modern sense. Although this iteration created spaces, there are some problem with the designing language.

In the class, my instructor and classmate said this model is like the future spaceship in cartoon due to the use of whole circle. The whole circle made this architecture looks cute but not formal. Therefore I need to make some transformation on these circle..

When I started doing my next iteration, I made some transformation about the whole circle. I split it, cutting it in to two pieces and adding a square hole in the middle.

Whole circle Divide in to two pieces

Split in to two partsParallel with each other

TOP VIEW

BASE TRANSFO

RMATIO

N

This step is an important step in my designing process, because it helps me to break the imprisonment of using the circles, and I was ready to change my obsession and willing to give up the weak points in my model.

Week 5Developing a Story Board

to Enhance Narrative & Focus Design

Iteration 5 is a milestone of my designing process. It paved a way with a much more specific direction for the following iteration. The strong point and weakness became much more distinct. When I designed a conception about the narrative, my teacher said I need to design with purpose. What I want people to feel when they step in to my creation and why I made these changes for my building.

“On the top of the hill, a huge building was in front of my eyes. The sunlight was from the east side of the sky. The shade of the columns lay gown on the west. I walked across and touched the columns, from the relief gap. I could see the cable behind the wall. Then I came to the overhead glass pyramid. Standing in front of the glass wall, I have all the view of the cable-stationary shell.”This is a part of my narrative. There are also some drawings which show the view of this building from inside and from the distance. People in the pyramid is in the climate of the whole journey of visiting my building. However, in fact, form my real model, people in the pyramid can not see the view of my imaging drawing. There is a visual blind zone. The celling get in the way of people’s line of sight.

When I was gazing my drawings and model, I decided to make a further transformation. Actually, circle can transform into lots of shapes. A perfect circle came form a polygon with several sides. Circle made people feel happy but not solemn or respectful. But polygon could attain this purpose. I can lengthen any sides of the polygons and combine them. When people are inside a space which have irregular angles, they would fell interesting and curious about the complexities which irregular polygon show.

Week 6Frame Expression & surface

to promote tectonic language

In iteration six, I created two closed space and a half-open space. I chose a plastic board and wood stick as the material. I wanted to find all the strong points from the previous models and combine them in to the iteration six such as the lock, relief and complexity. However, I didn’t notice the continuity of the wood-sticks lines and plastic-board lines from surface to surface.

The photos on the right side above are the building’s front side and back side. The first space in the front side contains a huge windows which play a variation of the relief.----Give a dark and closed space a crack to let light in. This building has tow floors. When people stand on the second floor, they can see the street scene through the relief window as I show on the drawing. From the back side people can see the combination of planes, which create this space, change their shape, degree and direction. It is very interesting when I connect these polygon planes, a small change on degree can make infinite possibilities .

The iteration seven indicates the frame and structure of the iteration six. I did made some change to let this model show more hierarchical layers of structure.

Then I added surface on the frame structure with tracing paper

Responses to natural forces:From the frame structure, the risk of this creation exposed. There are lots of dangles using in my structure. This problem let the building unstable under the natural force. In order to keep the design of this frame and increase the stability of this building in the same time, I found some technics which can deal with this dangle problem. This equipment on the picture left side could be used on the angle-connection node.

ConclusionAt this stage, I have all my work laying in my table. When I look each of them I can feel a strong sense of accomplishment. I have never thought I could do these things before. I’m always terrified of making ugly things, so once I start, I must try my best. This mentality made me suffer, but that is what I want. Life should be like this, pain but happy. Pain because sometime I can not put my ideas together or an elaborate model was not successful. However, I will never give up. This portfolio represent my growing process in these 9 weeks. At first, I proceed without specific goals and strategies. In time, after gathering feedback and seeing work of others, I focus my portfolio to reflect more accurately what I learned. Similarly, my design works started in fragment of ideas and approaches. In time with each iteration, it becomes clear in terms of what the problem is, what the solution can be, what refinements can fully satisfy all level if the problem.Arch 101 is not a easy class but it push me to walk further. It helps me to look this world in a different way and to find meaning behind them. Now when I walk on the street, I will ask myself the designing purpose and meaning of everything that I curious.

In addition, My teacher said I need to have a strong heart. I have always stay in my safe world. Although thinking a lot, I never talk. I afraid I can not express my idea perfectly, and this behavior will ruin my original intention, so I chose to be silence. However, when my teacher force me to show my work, I indeed learn something from speaking and communicating. The idea became more clear when we talk about it. Maybe in the future, I will conquer my personality-weakness and be a strong person.