Reading Response # 11- Modernist Architecture

Lovell Health House & Lovell Beach House

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"Tecknik = type based on human laws.
Art = variation seen through a human mind."

—Rudolph M. Schindler. from his notebook, as cited in Esther McCoy. Five California Architects. p167.

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- Schindler Started off his career working for Frank Lloyd Wright before branching out on his own.
- His designs set the tone for architecture that America had never seen before.
- The Lovell Beach House was the first completely steel framed house in the united states.

- All the prefabricated elements were bonded together in less than 40 hours.

- His houses were not a house in any traditional sense and from below appeared to look like the underneath of a bridge.

- The surface of the house itself was defined by glass and white steel panels.



Lovell Heath House exterior view with a style reminicent of Frank Lloyd Wrights design in Falling Water even down to being located in the landscape and incorporated into mountianside itself. 



Heath House Interior with vairng cealing heights and windows that bring the outside in.

Lovell Beach House
"The house was not a box, However, but a complex structure with extended balconies and sleeping porches on the upper floor suspended from a  powerful roof beams above." (Ching, 722)

Schindler's design style helped to create a modern style that we are still looking to for inspiration today. this style is still cutting edge and stands out from the mass amounts of houses striving for modern.

[sources]

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Lovell_Beach_House_03.jpg

http://www.neutra.org/tours.html
http://www.eichlernetwork.com/fnc_steel.html
http://www.greatbuildings.com/buildings/P._Lovell_House.html

UP, UP AND AWAY

When i found out about this i think i almost fell out of my chair so i figured i would share it with the world and incase anyone would like to know i aspire to live in a house that flys just like this one.

(all thanks go to anna hambly for telling me about this)

Reading Response # 10- GRANDER INTERIOR SPACES

 The Paris Opera House

- Designed by Jean Louis Charles Garnier (1825-1898).

- Best known example of Beaux Arts Style.

- Source of the style was the teaching at Ecole Des Beaux-Arts in Paris. The main focus of the school was "...the simplest possible circulation into a building as well as the expression of the character of the function being housed (Roth,499)."

- Conservative style inspired by French classical architecture in the 17th and 18th centuries.

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Inside the Opera House at night. The lighting is making the space possess a sense of grander and elegance which made the common people feel respectable and gave them a sense of power.

"The interior decoration was marked by lavish use of carving, gilding, rich marble and extravagant lighting well suited to provide a atmosphere of Granger (Massey,13).

Even the interior of the Auditorium itself makes people feel the ornateness of the space and almost makes them feel like they have a higher class than just being the common people of the time. In today's society the Opera still holds this level of class and social hierarchy that is derived by the design of the building the opera is housed in.

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The Paris Opera House still stands as this iconic image of social rank and class and even inside the building itself cclass is shown by the stacking of the balconies on the sides of the space. Also the ornate carvings are more focused on the walls around the individual balconies and this elevated the people in them to a higher standing than thoes sitting in larges groups benieth them.  However the opera was originally a place of entertainment for the common people and that paralells the movies in our society today. The movie theaters are made to look like they are a special place through all the heavey textiles and moldings even down to the lighting. Overall the Paris Opera house serves as a rule book on how to design a space to elevate thoes who enter it and that elevation eventually elevates the building itself and the activitie within it over time.

[sources]
Massey Chapter 2

studyabroad.duke.edu

spad1.wordpress.com
terencegilbert.com

Blog Post # 10

THE CANDLE

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The object that i believe represents revolution is the candle because over time the uses for the candle have changed but candles and the light they give off is still very important to our society. The candle started off as a object used to light a room at night when there was not electricity and in doing so had to be portable and simplistic. As time moved on the object that held the candles evolved , for example the Chandelier that held many candles verses the single candelabra that was portable. Over time the uses for candles have evolved from one of necessity to the modern use of fragrance and decoration.  Candles are still used for their original purpose but the reason for using them is drastically different since in today's society the candle is used to freshen a space and sometimes serve as mood lighting for a dinner party or gathering.
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Candle Stick

Candle Chandelier

Colored Decorative candles

[sources]
celticmythmoon.com
etc.usf.edu
designboom.com

Blog Post # 9

Throughout history there have been many things borrowed from different cultures and adapted into another culture and expanded upon. This adaptation opened the gates for many ideas that soon become very different than the original idea and then those ideas and uses for the object, building, and place change with the culture.

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 The colonial expansion had a great deal of influence on our design style today and our precedences. When the colonial expansion occurred the colonist borrowed many ideas from Ancient Rome, the first building that comes to mind when I think about a place that was an important place of Rome is the Colosseum since that’s how the masses were entertained and kept happy and preoccupied from the depressing world full of problems all around them. In Greensboro today the Colosseum is a place you can go and watch shows or games to take you mind out of our everyday worries.

Roman Colosseum
sacred-destinations.com



Greensboro Colosseum
uncg.edu

[Words] groups, stacks, arches, columns, circles

[Sentence]  The Circle of the Colosseum brings the culture together and surrounds them and distances them from the woes of their everyday lives.

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The Expansion also had a great deal of impact on culture outside of the U.S.A. Because as time went on our design ideas started to travel to different countries and they adapted the styles as we had done previously in history. One invention that is a prime example of our culture expanding past our borders if the invention of the plane. The Wright Brothers made their first flight at kitty Hawk and since then commercial flight has expanded into a large industry that connects all cultures.



First Flight
wright-house.com



Modern Commercial Flight
thegadgetblog.net



[Words] Wings, Symmetry, Propeller,  Light Weight

[Sentence] Flight made it all possible to spread culture and tie all people groups together instead of being separated by the vast distance of the ocean between continents.

A Pattern Language- Theory Reading 4

The reading of A Pattern language teaches me how i need to consider multiple factors in my design i think the concept that related most closely with the design of St. Marys House was the concept about intimacy gradients and how this gradient can be applied to design. This reading influenced how i set up my public and private spaces in my design and how i choose to shift the walls and place them at angles so they would block the line of sight to the Private areas so unless you were invited into those spaces you wouldn't necessarily notice they existed. Also this influenced me to place folding glass doors between the more Private area of the house and the public reading space so in case you wanted to separate the two you could. Overall this reading showed me that there are certain topics and things that i as a designer must be aware of and consider because if i don't then the spaces i design will not work as well as they were meant to. Design on paper is leaps and bounds away from how the physical space is and how people in that space react to there surroundings.

Reading Response #9

OLD DESIGN TRAVELS ACROSS THE OCEAN

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"...what had started as a search for economic freedom became one of Enlightenment's greatest moment.  In their search for antecedents, the American taste settlers saw themselves as paralleling the early Roman republic rather than the Roman Empire."

-Ching page 619

It is only fitting that the inspired settlers choose a monumental landmark of the roman society and integrated it into important buildings around the country. This building that was adapted into new architecture was the Parthenon.

The Parthenon in Ancient Greece

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Virgina State capital building with a Parthenon inspired front.  The front on the main structure contains columns similar to that of the Parthenon and the triangle space above to columns is also present in both structures.



This is the market in Charleston south Carolina where they bought and sold slaves.  The top floor of the building has many similarities to the Parthenon and even the repetitive windows on the sides of the building reflect to columns of the Parthenon.   



The state Capital of Tennessee is also reflective of the repetitive elements and the overall front face design except the state building has a second story.

The buildings from ancient Greece are adapted to many political buildings in the United States partial because they represent a scene of pure republic that our states with to have and they also stand as a reminder of all the great people who had influence at the time of ancient Greece and how they helped influence our way of thinking today. The building forms of ancient Greece serve as a reminder of how simplicity and repetition are important things to consider when thinking of design and how scale and shape of the columns themselves seem to relate to people which is fitting for a  republic buildings since it is the people the institution is representing.


[sources]
blogs.nationalgeographic.com
recivilization.net
mikebarr.us

New Header

I decided my old header was not reflective of me as a designer so i choose to create a new one using a photograph that i took while on vacation. To me this image shows the evolution of a object which parallels my design journey.

Reading Response # 8

FACINATION WITH CHINA
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"This interest in things Chinese lasted from about 1715 through the end of the century and manifested itself in country house interiors ans garden ornaments(Roth 456)." This interest in all things Chinese created a temporary design style that is most prevalently shown in Frederick the Great's summer Palace. 

- Western designers started using wood instead of stone in palaces
- Chinese style of ornamentation of columns
- Western use of blue and white tile roofs like at the Pagoda at Nanjing in China which was adapted and later used in the western design at the Trianon De Porcelan

Chinese Teahouse at Sans Souci Palace in Potsdam  (1757),  is one of the most famous adaptations of the chinese architectural style.  This is evident in the ornimentation as well as the choice of using wood over stone in material choice.





 "The gilt columns, which support the roof, are in the form of palm trunks opening out in luxuriant sprays of shoots as they meet the entablature. Life size gilt Chinese figures sit at the base of the columns, playing musical instruments and engaging in animated conversation (Ching,580)."



This shows the Traditional style used in Chinese architecture. The layers of roofs add to the overall emotion of the temple making both the inside and out seem grand and more consuming of the tall landscape.

The Gardens in Sans Souci reflect the temple roof design used in Chinese design and how the layers take control of the landscape.

[sources]
http://www.flickr.com/photos/dalbera/2731358138/
http://wanderlust-omnibus.blogspot.com/2009/10/potsdam-school-orientation-berlin.html
http://www.planetarium-berlin.de/pages/sundials/Potsdam-e.html
http://chestofbooks.com/travel/china/John-Stoddard-Lectures/China.html

Blog Post # 8

The Nautilus Shell is formed by the animal that lives inside and as the animal grows it creates a new part of the shell slightly bigger to allow the animal more room to grow. This is also true in design since we take design practices from the past and build on them making improvements as we move forward.

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(1)
Design started off with the circle at Stonehenge
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(2)
this circle soon became a column at the Parthenon in Greece
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(3)
 the column became a blue print for the Colluseum in Rome
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(4)
 this form evolved into the dome/cupola in Hagia Sophia in Constantinope
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[sources]
http://shells.tricity.wsu.edu/ArcherdShellCollection/ShellCollection.html
sights-and-culture.com
traveling-piont.blogspot.com
planetware.com
webuildpages.com

Dining Project

We were ask to design a dining room to celebrate the eradication of hunger and include attention to how social media influenced our design and also keeping in mind the summer and winter solstice. This project started of with looking for precedence and inspiration and ended in a fully designed dining room with a side board and dining table. While looking for precedence i was forced to look at objects and spaces for the little details that i could use in my design.

[Precedence]

For SOCIAL precedents i looked at a outdoor space exposed to the elements made people feel and i decided that this flow between the inside of a house and outside was very important to me as a designer. Also for social precedence i choose to think about how fairs bring a child like nature out in people and how all the stimulation from the lights and sounds effect us. In looking toward a RITUAL precedence i choose to look back to the beginning of times at Stonehenge and how the sun was the most important thing to this space and how that importance translates into my consideration of the solstices. I also thought about how wedding dinners are well planed and thought about every little last detail so i choose to look into wither i wanted a formal or informal dining experience. DINING precedence lead me to think about Asian dining practices and the clean lines of their dishes and utensils and how that clean lines make the food experience simplistic and places a importance on the food served not the decoration.

 [Parti]

My parti shows how the atmosphere of my dining space and how the soft natural tones matched with layers of colors make the space warm and inviting. While still offering a formality to the space.

[Sketch model]

 

In my sketch model i wanted to work out some of the lighting plans and overall structure and i found that i needed more separation from the rest of the house.

[Final Model]

Top View

Angled View from the Kitchen space

View from Kitchen

View showing the hallway to the rest of the house

Social Media Wall used to dine with people in other cultures and share the celebration of eradicating world hunger.

[Presentation Boards]

In the final design plans the room itself is simplistic and doe not have extra stuff without a purpose since it is celebrating ending world hunger. The sideboard and table design also accommodate the celebration as well as everyday dining since the round table is designed so the side table can slide up to it and once this is done the table and sideboard switch roles. The table is also lower than the sideboard so that when using the table for the sideboard the food bowls wont block peoples faces from the screen being used to combine the dining experience with other families around the globe. 

Social Media Device

This project was given to us as a way to research and design something that would benefit our culture in the future since social media is becoming such a huge part.  My decision was to take the normal everyday screen and make it into interlocking hexagonal panels that could be shaped in any way the owner decides. These panels could be used as a single screen or a wall installation you could even create a igloo shaped object for Young children and since the device has web cam technology then if a kid is playing inside the parents could keep a look on what they are doing.  I believe these panels add a aspect of design and interest to the everyday computer screen and by allowing it to be installed anywhere makes it a great addition to technology we already have.

Parti Board

Inspiration image that led to the choice of the hexagonal shape.

This is a simple model of the panels and how they would lock together.