Models

HKS Design Fellowship

On a brief hiatus from my thesis work, I have been selected to participate in a design charette integrated with the design firm HKS. The program is called the 2011 HKS Mid-Atlantic Design Fellowship. It is best described on the website:


This spring the HKS DC office will be hosting its first Design Fellowship. This is an intense, three-day charrette where professionals and students from local universities join with the community to address a local or regional challenge. We would be honored to have you nominate the top 2-3 students from your Architecture, Interior Design and/or Art programs to apply for the distinguished honor of being a fellow.

The intent of the Mid-Atlantic Design Fellowship is to focus on DESIGN, SUSTAINABILITY and COMMUNITY by cultivating and showcasing emerging design talent, and to stimulate new design approaches by solving a challenge affecting the DC metro area through design; all while building relationships with regional schools and the community. The HKS Mid-Atlantic Design Fellowship is modeled after the company-wide HKS Design Fellowship and the HKS Detroit Design Fellowship, adapted and evolved to meet the specific situations of the Mid-Atlantic regional offices. Fellows will be selected from the HKS Richmond and Washington, D.C. offices as well as local universities.


I would like to thank Susan Piedmont-Palladino for writing my recommendation later on such short notice. The charette will be hosted at HKS next weekend. The representative from HKS has told me that the charette usually pulls an all-nighter from Saturday to Sunday, so another fun weekend ahead. I will post my results from the charette as they become available.

Productive Day

Today, I produced two sections and a plan, meaning that it was an extremely productive day. Tomorrow I will begin studying my buildings skin a bit more heavily. I want to create a form that is a bit more organic, treating the individual panels as cells rather than a thick exoskeleton. I have been researching Melbourne's Rectangular Stadium, which uses tessellated dome structures to cover the outer perimeter of the stadium. The use of a strong steel frame allows each individual panel to have the option of becoming translucent, which has been a problem for my building skins thus far. Hopefully tomorrow something fruitful will come of this.

Melbourne



Sections

Section Model

Its rough, but a start...

Spider Stadium

I have decided to use a repetition of solid and translucent to compose the skin of my stadium. The solid skin will be able to go up and down in a folding manner, seen in this piece done by architect Andre Kikoski.



The facade, found in Brooklyn, closes and protects the store fronts behind it. When opened, the facade provides an awning over the storefront. My building will use these doors to open and close the stadium to the public.


After I built a quick study model, it seems that my building looks like a arachnoid of some sort. I am spending the rest of the day, going back and looking at my site to re-invent my building.

Updated Spring Lecture Poster

Here is the updated Spring Lecture Series:

Theoretical Backup

I have been trying to grasp my thesis the past few weeks with some success and some failure. To summarize, I am looking at how technology can be used in an architectural format to better the urban environment. In reality, it is the spatial reaction that can be utilized through new technologies and information systems that I am most interested in. The problem with this is that all of my research has been done studying new building systems and products rather then writings and theories from the past. No longer. My chair, Paul Emmons, has lent me a book, "Rethinking Technology", which is a collection of articles from architects that discusses how architecture should embrace technology. These articles range from Frank Lloyd Wright to Le Corbusier to more modern writings. I will be using this book mostly for quotes to support my thesis. It is 450 pages long, but given the short amount of time I have on my thesis, I will try to read all of it the rest of this week. Good luck to me.....