Mirror of Design. Professor Paul Emmons - Assignment: Touching Below and Sensing Above



11" x 17" FRONT

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E K P H R A S I S

TOUCHING BELOW AND SENSING ABOVE

INTERCITY BUS TERMINAL AND HOSTAL, Washington DC

Drum Studio Project Spring 2011

In a bus terminal many transitions take place. In this case, a transition between Washington DC and other cities, between the city and the building, between the building and the bus, between the dirty and the clean, between movement and pause. The journey and experiences of the different users to, from and around the terminal is also key in the development of the building design.  In addition, constant movement of cars, taxis, buses and pedestrians will define the outline of the scheme.

The site is a portion of where the old convention center was between 11 St. NW, 10 St. NW, New York Ave and H St. NW.

THE DESIGN

My idea was to draw this footprint as part of my design process. I wanted to study the different relationships present in the project.  First I studied the ways and places from where people would be coming from since I the building should receive them properly. The flow of the buses was important too, which was the ideal place for them in the project. Studying the program was important as well since it would impact the experience of the users and bring new functions, new consumers and employees to the equation. The building would host 7 buses at a time unloading and loading as well as a couple more parked, and administrative office, a ticket office, and information booth, convenience stores, bars and restaurants.

Since the beginning I focused in the importance of the creating enjoyable sidewalks. The area lacks of cafes or bars that open to the sidewalk and that give life and security to the streets. Also, a sidewalk that promotes the traffic of people will make the bus station a safer and more enjoyable place.  I studied throughout the cities successful streets in the city to see how I could use proportions, textures, trees, street furniture, scale, openings etc. in favor of the a prosperous sidewalk.

THE DRAWING

I took the sketches and models created for earlier studio pinups to start the footprint. First I created a volumetric 3d model that synthesized the earlier process. I started thinking on heights, what spaces had a direct relationship with the sky, what spaces needed more height or several levels and the different textures of the exterior grounds. In the watercolor paper I printed the site plan and made cutouts where the enclosed building would go representing where there would be a major impact on the ground. I added real images of the surrounding blocks to represent where the building will have a mayor relationship with the city. in some cases at a closer scale and in others further away where the building should act as a focal point. I emphasized with graphite where there would more likely column weight and the weight from the buses as well.

In a second layer of a transparent sheet I printed out the roof plan as well as the upper parts of the trees. I made a cutout to emphasize a corner where I want extra light and connection to the sky.  I added then magazine cutouts representing the use of the spaces and the material of its roof enclosure.

Mirror of Design. Proffesor Paul Emmons - Assignment: Synaesthetic

18" x 24"

E K P H R A S I S

SYNAESTHETIC PRESENCE

INTERCITY BUS TERMINAL AND HOSTAL, Washington DC

Drum studio project spring 2011

 “The irruption of energy in the universe of architecture smashes its crystalline images, shakes its mute silhouette, and gives it a definite place in the field of processes of life. Architecture can then be thought of as a transformation of the material environment by changing living beings, and artifact continuously altered by use and circumstances, in constant degradation and repair before the aggression of time, permanently perishing and renewing itself.” [1]

An important component of my project was its atrium. Users tend to converge in the atrium. The vast vestibule is also de main entrance to the terminal when arriving and departing Washington DC. It is also a focal point as seen from the exterior, being the most transparent and traslucid section of the building. It projects the character of the building to the external audience. The goal is for it to increase commerce, to promote interaction between terminal users, and to create more pleasant and safe surroundings. How is it possible to enhance it? By appealing to the human senses through improvement the materials, the forms and the colors.

Synaesthesia is when two or more senses are connected.  The goal of the drawing was to study how materials, forms, colors and light can enrich the sensorial experience of the atrium, its surroundings and its projection to the city.

Deciding how the floor would look and feel like in the atrium and the surroundings was important to me. I decided to divide it by sections. Using a map of the city and pictures of the building’s model I created a different collage for each section. Each collage would help me understand what I wanted the section to transmit.

Playing with the transparency, translucency and color would allow me define the permeability of the skin. It would also help me state how light comes in and out and how information is being shared or reserved.

Color played an important role in this drawing. I used color to express character. I used red and pink to represent a higher level of human activity and/or circulation. Yellow represents fire or energy, the core of the project, the hearth. The atrium is the core of the building and where energy is generated. White and beige represent silence, pauses, and barriers. It also represents the bone structure of the project. Its presence is important and obvious yet quiet and sutile.

In addition, making the drawing helped me realize the possibility of projecting the hostel volume to the sky. This would reinforce together with the atrium, the projection of the building towards the city and would give the developer an increase in square footage.

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[1] Luis Fernandez-Galiano, “Architecture discovers Fire” in Fire and Memory: On Architecture and Energy (2000).

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Mirror of Design. Proffesor Paul Emmons - Assignment: Folding Corners



18" x 24" FRONT

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FOLDING CORNERS

INTERCITY BUS TERMINAL AND HOSTAL, Washington DC

Drum Studio Project Spring 2011

One of the challenges I faced while designing a bus station located in downtown DC was to bridge the relationship between the building and the surrounding urban space, especially in how to bring about a sense of privacy and uniqueness to the different components.

Hence, the purpose of my project was to showcase the debatable assumption that the sum of the parts make up the whole. Each “part”—or scene—merge corner by corner to eventually form the “whole” drawing, but each part—and the convergence with other parts through the corners—has a story of its own. Take for example perceptibility of corners. A takeaway from class is that corners, when appreciated externally, can spur uncertainty and mystery, and a sense of incoming change. Inversely, when appreciated internally, corners can spur a sense of intimacy and confidentiality. Also, a corner can be perceived an ending-point and a starting-point, much like a bus terminal.

As shown in the video, I deconstructed the bus terminal drawing into 10 scenes. Some scenes were pictures I took from a Studio class final review model, and some other scenes were renders of an earlier 3D computer drawing. I worked on each scene separately. The process started by defragmenting each scene, and evolved by cutting pieces off and gluing pieces in, by changing each scene’s texture and depth, and by adding transparencies and collaging images.

The white foam board is a representation of an impermeable and structurally strong façade. The textured layer—without the shiny skin—represents a tangible, real-life façade as is seen and felt at the pedestrian level. Sections of the scenes are collaged cut-offs of pictures from my photography class. One picture was a warm-lighted picture of my husband walking from the bathroom to the bedroom with the morning sun shining in the floor and through his legs. I used fragments of this picture to embody the warmness and humanity that flow inside, outside and throughout the building’s walls or its “skin”. The other picture was of a bright blue sky. I used it to represent and bring-about a sense of freshness about the building’s “skin”. I insert it where I thought the building needed to breath or connectivity to the exterior at an indirect level. The yellow transparency represents the window or opening from the outside looking into the building’s skin, much like how human eyes represent the window into a person’s soul. The more solid and traslucid material was used where interior spaces required privacy but would gain from the elements of the exterior world coming in. This material permits light to come in and be affected by movement–such as rain, wind, airplanes, a subject walking by, the city lights, etc. On the other hand, the city can participate by perceiving the activity from inside the building, thus provoking a feeling of unity and security.

As I played around with each scene’s planes in the 2d drawings, I became aware of their unique character. Each plane has a personality of its own, but would lack completeness and congruency without the other planes. Through corners, these planes and it’s fragments become a whole. These 10 scenes—and its planes, corners and fragments—narrate a story about the existence of the bus station. Then on, the bus station and the surrounding buildings form together a bigger story… and so on.

Mirror of Design. Professor Paul Emmons - Assigment: Seeing Through

E K P H R A S I S

SEEING THROUGH

INTERCITY BUS TERMINAL AND HOSTEL, Washington DC

Drum studio project spring 2011

I started this drawing-model after the Studio’s class final reviews. At that point, I decided to take into consideration the faculty and students’ comments, and my own reflections about the project. My rationale in moving forward was that if I improved my physical and psychological connection with the project, I could concomitantly improve the lack of connection between certain parts of the building.  Therefore I designed this drawing-model as an opportunity to dissect and analyze the “inner organs” of my building and improve its functionality.

As studied in class, before the 16^th century a section was represented as a wound in a building or as a building in ruins. A section may be perceived as carnage-like and show internal elements that could generally go unnoticed in our profession, or that I personally did not perceive beforehand. For example, to name a few, the cooling and heating system, the electricity, the plumbing, the insulation, and the variance of a material’s thickness. It assimilates to watching an x-ray or an autopsy of a building.

I chose a section of the building that was functional but I felt it as “coldish and desolate”. This section comprised many of the project’s components. The first level included the loading bus area, the waiting area, and the commercial spaces that faced the waiting area on one side and the street on the other side. The second and third level included more commercial and office spaces. A hostel was located from the fourth to the sixth floor. I printed out a white over black color layout of the section that looked like an x-ray. By looking at it I immediately noticed several weaknesses. I noticed that hostel hallways, common areas and rooms needed more “personality and life”. Bus terminals are sparked by constant human interactions, so I wanted to incorporate changes to maximize the human experience. Also, I wanted to improve the experience of city viewing without removing a sense of safety and homeliness. Finally, the section helped me better appreciate study light.

Hence, I overlapped in the drawing a structural wall that served both as a connector and circulator, which converged different functions of the building. Why did I find it optimal to include this wall in the drawing? According to Guillerme and Verin, “The geometrization of existing forms was certainly desirable and feasible. Geometry by itself, however, cannot alone justify necessity: why choose one form instead of another? If among possible forms there exists an optimum model, it is not geometry but physics that can determine what this might be.”[1] My understanding of the project is therefore maximized by having a representation of the physical sections. My understanding would have been more limited with the original flat section. 

In the end, I decided to print the original section and glued it to the back of the drawing to compare my “patient” before and after “therapy”.

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[1] Jacques Guillerme and Helene Verin. “The Archaeology of Section” 25 Perspecta 226-257.

Photo - Assemblage

Capilla en M.I.T. Eero Saarinen

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STUDIO SPRING 2011: Bus terminal/ MIDTERM