Site Analysis

An analysis of the various surrounding zones. Site 3 is highlighted in pink. I identified that a lot of the pedestrian access would be coming from the trainstation, to the right of the site.
drawings made at the site

Project 2: Room and Narrative - Final Submission

Painting:'Card Players in a Sunlit Room' by Pieter de Hooch 1652

Narrative: A widow alone in a vast space surrounded by memories

Pieter de Hooch decides to portray the full length of the scene, from the bottom of the floor to the top of the ceiling. This provides a large, tall frame for the activities of four characters - the three men are focused towards the lone woman, who despite the company looks detached and absorbed in her own thoughts. I thus deduced a narrative of a widow, like many elderly people, constantly living in the past. Memories possess their present.

My design is located in a forest clearing, a landing in a staircase - a thoroughfare. This means that people are constantly passing through this space, but rarely stop to linger, corresponding to the sense of a woman surrounded by movement and people, yet lonely. The glass panels, representing memories, are the same height as her, suggesting frames of people, which obstruct and guide the circulation through this space. The huge glass columns form a canopy, reacting to its forest surroundings, while also suggest a sense of structure and protection. However, the transparency of the materials is exposing, it imbues a sense of vulnerability and solitude. The translucent roofs provide comfort in the fact that they are there and can be seen, but in reality provide very little shelter. Much like the painting, this space is a skeleton of a house, but not a home. The tiles create a sense that this is a 'gathering of memories,' - they gather around the columns, columns group around others, trees group around this space. In this space, memories collide to create a realm between present and past.

Final Model Images

Week 3 Final Submission

Week 2 Progress

Drawings

Model

Research

I was particularly inspired by Frank Lloyd Wright's Lenkurst Electric Company Building, its canopy-like columns achieve a similar effect to my intended design of an overwhelmingly tall, glass canopy in a forest clearing.

Izzo.Laberto, Frank Lloyd Wright-Three Quarters of a Century of Drawings, London, Academy Editions, 1981

I decided to look at the architectural style of my site - Holland. I found that Danish architecture has a preoccupation with framing, something which I intend to incorporate in my final design.

Fisker.Kay, Modern Danish Architecture, London, Benn Publishing, 1927.

Developing my concept

My Concept

The invisible and visible, absence and presence, although contrasting in idea, coexist to create the spaces we live and work in and how they operate through time.

A thoroughfare, a forgotten corridor, visible and invisible.. it is not its physicality but the emotion it invokes on the people who pass through it everyday.

The widow is caught neither here or there, in the present or the past. Light streams into the open space, but she still feels enclosed in the vastness of memory.

Tiles on the floor, disintegrating outwards

Panes of glass represent people passing through and also provides barrier to the elements.

Initial Sketches

Looking at the geometry of the painting, I identified the main elements and the grid formed. Through this I tried to look at the proportion of this room, and the relationship between the size of the people, the door and the window.