Also it is important to remember the goals stated in the competition packet:
- "explore the many varied functional and aesthetic uses for steel as a building material
- [explore] the ways in which the reclamation of an underdeveloped waterfront [as] a prime opportunity for the designer to create a city focal point.
- keep in mind the current needs of the city,
- the compatibility of the new structures with their historical neighbors,
- and the building's ultimate acceptability into the existing urban fabric"
2 comments:
Ok, I’ve read through the competition brief and much of your blog thus far. It seems that you are well on your way to getting a handle on the program, but I am wondering how you are organizing the 5 of you to push forward. For me, the first question will be how all of you will push the conceptual development of the project so that you can address siting and program organization, and perhaps most importantly, based on my reading of the competition brief, the development of structure.
So, I would suggest that you actual begin to work in smaller groups to develop unique approaches to structure making. Create an assignment for yourselves that explores the idea of steel, in other words, bending, folding, rolling, casting, suspending and combinations thereof. Innovations in experiments could lead to a structural idea that becomes the basis for the form, structure, and can influence siting, etc. such an exercise suggests you might be interested in CNC bent steel tubing, CNC rolled steel plate, suspension structures or a combination of these technologies.
Other investigations might explore the phenomena of steel as a molten material, one that oxidizes, a material that has a certain degree of memory or one that explores a surface condition that is a consequence of material manipulation (perforating, water jet cutting, rusting, pressing).
As smaller groups or individuals you could really go far and have tons of experiments that gives you a self created material and structural library from where to draw from. You would not necessarily need to use steel, but you could achieve any of these techniques using representational materials (copper, wood, string, pasta)
I recommended to Jason earlier that you should all make different models using different kinds of pasta, from linguini, angel hair, lasagne – perhaps egg pastina which is in Pittsburgh’s famous wedding soup if only it were long. It would be a good idea to include one other material, such as fishing line, pins, etc, that might suggest a particular tectonic but remove you from your comfort zone and preconceptions. A charrette you develop might emerge from something you already know about the history of steel, the site, or something else that pertains more specifically to the project and its environs. If you would like me to elaborate more, suggesting a particular assignment I can.
I suggest you take advantage of the 3d printer and laser cutter this semester to an extreme.
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