Jury Buddy-ing

As a very similar but also quite different project one of my close friends Gülce had the wall and separation idea too. Her huge orange wall divided the building and created two units; one is for habitation and the other for events. These two parts connected and their transition is provided by the eating and cooking area, with the help of an opening in the main wall. The other thing is that by the help of a second orange wall she squeezed wet spaces between these walls. Hierarchically, the first huge and orange wall was dominant than the second one with its height and function.

After her oral presentation, the jury said that they really liked the project, but the thing that was discussed more was the orange walls. It was said that she needs to consider the design of the main orange walls, their relationships, shapes, and sizes. Since they are the main components of the whole design they have some sort of holiness so they need to be intervened carefully. The other suggestion was that two walls can be one as a whole because having the second less dominant wall may become unnecessary if it is just for creating wet spaces.

Since she had used many different angles and geometries in her project the jury said that rotating the mass in order to manage with different geometries may help her more. One of the jury members stated that the relationship between the whole building is successful but it would be better if the continuity of the topography is more legible.

In the end, the jury members thanked her so much for her efforts and having brave steps. It was a good jury after all and if you want to read more about her project you can visit her blog. Here is the link; gulcehalici.wordpress.com

GAPS | Final Jury

The habitation environment project has came to an end last week with a final jury. After the second prejury, all of us continued to improve our project by focusing on plans, sections, and models more. The end products were quite impressive considering the very first state of them. So now, as a complete project, I can explain the habitation environment project of mine.

The main idea was to have a large dominant public space at the entrance level of the building. This space was going to include both office part and presentation hall for outcomers. And these two spaces of two different but not completely separated functions were separated with the presence of a thicker and dominant blue wall. A mezzanine floor for both eating/cooking/dining and livingroom activities was located over the working area. In the second floor, two sleeping rooms/areas and a private bathroom for the people who live in the habitation were located two edges of the building. The second floor is designed as a junk space which means it was not strictly divided by separating walls but left as it is as a whole floor for different hobbies of people like yoga activities and playing piano. As an addition, a terrace part was created from the second floor for gardening activities. All the private and public bathrooms and toilets are put in the same vertical mass.

The very significant element of the whole design is the blue wall that divides the whole building into two part. This thicker structural wall not only divides the building into two but also allow penetration and transition between these parts by having some openings/slits on them. Also, two vertical volumes rise from the mezzanine floor and presentation hall separately and these volumes located two sides of the main wall. For the bigger picture that huge wall also defines the main entrance axis of the building and with its outer extensions it becomes the most dominant axis of the whole design. By the help of height differences of two parts, the presence of that wall makes itself legible with the masses. All the circulation system including narrow corridors and staircases are attached to and organized by the wall. Sleeping rooms’areas and toilet on the second floor are pushed two edges of the building and a narrow corridor is created between them due to the presence of this wall.

After the critics that I got in the second prejury, the relationship between the building and the topography needed to be improved and focused more. In order to prevent the building to sit on a completely flat site nearly half of the ground floor was buried to the topography and other parts of the topography were used for supporting the creation of outer gardens. So there are three outer gardens; one of them in the entrance part of the building, another one belongs to the office part and the third one opens from the presentation hall.

GAPS |Prejury II

After the first prejury, we all continued to improve our projects by working on programmatic organizations, section drawings, plan drawings, 3D models, topography models, and diagrams. At the and of that process we had the second prejury.

The initial idea of the project was to have a very large space, which is a mass participation zone, at the entrance level of the building. The mass participation zone divided into two parts as the office parts and public presentations zone. Public presentation zone is to introduce of the products that are produced in the office part to public. In the mid-level, there is another large space which functions as a combination of kitchen and living room. Two well-defined sleeping areas are located on the second floor with a narrow corridor between them and a private bath. In the third floor, there are no definer walls to divide spaces and the whole floor is a whole space that serves as junk space included various activities such as watching TV, reading a book, doing yoga and chilling. That unified space opens to a terrace that is located the south part of the building.

The various angles of the principal walls in the plans actually take reference from topography lines. The building sits on a highly flat site after changing the topography lines. By the help of topography lines that were pushed from the center to the edges, some natural walls can define outer gardens around the building. However, the connection between the topography and the building needed improvement, instead of creating a very flat surface building to sit on there is the emergence of harmony between these two. The other thing that requires revise was the flat huge structural walls of the building. In order to break the flatness of them, dividing and shifting operations can be used and it also prevents the prismatic appearance.

Vertical Volumes

Since I achieved a rich spatial organization and consistent programmatic organization, after that I need to improve the problematic parts that were stated in the jury.

Ground Floor Plan

First Floor Plan

Secon Floor Plan

Ortographic Drawing

GAPS|First Pre-Jury

After all the preparations, as the term project, we were assigned to work on the design process of a habitation environment considering the certain program. Also, we were expected to interpret the program to diversify the spatial definitions and organizations. The site was given to us and we were asked to work on mentioned points in sections. The program that I chose included service kits, regenerative bundles, spaces of displacements, power stations, mass participation zones and junk spaces as programme components. In order to explain everything without a question mark in minds, I think, it will be better if we clarify what are these components, how are their spatial qualities and what functions and activities they can have.

Regenerative bundles are the components that are highly related to the act of laying and sleeping. Since the activities, they can host are somehow close to the idea of individuality/privacy they are defined well. They are distantianted from the main circulation.
Service kits are like the supporter programme elements to regenerative bundles. They can host activities like cooking, eating, bathing, toilet needs, and dressing. They can change their characteristics and spatial definitions considering which other programme components they are connected to.
Junk spaces are in-between spaces. In other words, they are spaces of uncertainty. Because they can host various activities, they are also dominant in influencing the spaces that they are connected with. In order to provide flexibility, they are generally larger than service kits and regenerative bundles or they can have to change spatial definitions in the spaces.
Mass participation zones are the parts that can get circulation from more than one space and they are suitable for crowded activities like playing group games, workshops, exhibitions, mini-concerts etc. They may have a very large volume and long vertical distance.
Power station can be assumed as the part that takes the people from the outside and starts the main circulation through the different parts of the building. It can host activities like meeting and chit-chat while walking. Since it takes people from the outside of the building it may be highly connected with the topography and can be open space.

In the proposal and sections, I suggested creating units that include regenerative bundles and service kits. In that way service kits supported the regenerative bundles which are fro sleeping/laying activities with activities like bathing, cooking, and cooking. In order to differentiate them regenerative bundles were shifted up or down from the main level. After creating three units with some variations, they were randomly distributed and the connections between these units were provided by the appearance of junk spaces between these units. In order to maintain the privacy and characteristics of regenerative bundles, junk spaces were connected to the service kits and these connections can result in a change in spatial definitions, qualities, and activities of the service kits (future interpretation).

After distributing units and connecting them to each other, a central space started to be defined due to these design decisions. Actually, this result was the main strategy of my project and because this uncertainly defined central volume can be in a relationship with every unit easily and its vertical boundaries are not certain, it is the mass participation zone.

Habitation Projects Analysis

To start designing something always require serious, various and curious research and analysis before it. Because of that before we start to design, draw and make something we were assigned to make some analysis on related examples. We were given many architectural projects which all include habitations in different scales, and have different concerns in terms of programmatic organizations. We were expected to analyze the buildings considering their diversity of spatial and programmatic organizations. We tried to understand their organizational strategies, programmatic possibilities, and interpretations, spatial definitions resulting from different programmatic approaches. Since many of these buildings were quite famous ones from famous groups or architects, it was very fun to learn about them and improve our knowledge. Lastly, all the main points, analysis were shown on sections or drawings that we produced.

Villa dall’Ava [OMA]

Habitat 67′ [Moshe Safdie]

Villa Curutchet [Le Corbusier]

House and Atelier [Atelier Bow-Wow]

 

Sketch Problem/ Plan as a Section

Just like all of our sketch problem assignments till now, we were again face to face with something we even could not have an idea about what we are going to do. A plan drawing of an unknown house was given to us, and we were asked to think this plan as not like a plan, but a section. Here comes the confusion. As a plan it was pretty clear that we could understand the definitions of spaces and their characteristics, however, when we hold the paper in a vertical way, it was very hard to think something two-dimensional can be extended to every axis and become something three-dimensional. While extending the plan drawing as a three-dimensional model, we needed to push our limits to understand how can it be changed through a model but still had a certain section.

Stairs feat Spaces

The second assignment related to the site trip (Kerpe cliffs) was to choose a part from our group model and to design spaces considering the topography qualities, characteristics, also to enrich and diversify spatial experiences and definitions with staircases/stairs. In this case topography, spaces, and stairs were going to create a whole based on a strategy.

We had the chance to change the topography a little bit like carving it out and shifting some topography lines.

The idea was to make people experience both the outside and the inside of the cave but experiencing the inside part of the cave somehow limited because I did not want to intervene that part too much. In order to achieve both limited and rich experience in the cave at the part that the volume changes its direction, a central space was defined. At that point, the other spaces whose scales are smaller in comparison to the central one were the sub-spaces. While all these spaces are defined, instead of direct wall-like elements, topography was used. The main circulation starts from the very bottom of the topography, climbs to the entrance of the cave, goes to the central space and after that, it starts to branches to the outer parts of the cave. The stairs also contribute to the definitions of many spaces and they provide a non-linear circulation throughout the whole experience.

Kerpe Partial Topography Model

After our site trip to Kerpe cliffs in Kocaeli we, as a group, were assigned to produce a partial model of the topography. In the part that we worked on, there is a big cave with a quite large entrance opening and the cave continues through the mass part of the cliffs. The cave was actually hard to reach from the other parts of the topography because of the wavy and layered form of the cliffs. After we produced the part assigned to our group we put all the other parts that other groups produce.

Kocaeli/Kerpe Field Trip

As a first-year architecture student, we had heard that second-year studios are taken to different cities for a field trip which is going to be the huge part of their term projects. And yes, now, as a second-year student we were also taken to a one day trip and study on a particular site which is Kocaeli Kerpe cliffs. Of course, all of us search it on Google to see what kind of trip is waiting for us and before the trip, the whole studio was quite amazed. “Oh my god! There is sea! Lets take our bikinis with us!” but rather we took sketchbooks and pencils with us. (Sad)

The first impression was fascinating. The cliffs have various forms and shapes that make it hard to believe that this is an artwork of nature. Furthermore, layers in almost consistent proportions and the whole that they created were impressive. The Black Sea made the view even more amazing and hard to focus.

Different parts of the whole site were assigned to the groups to make sketches for understanding the proportions of the area and analyzing other potentials. In the part we were assigned, there was a large tunnel-like cave and reaches to a nearly sea leveled open space but I discovered it after an hour because the cave was far away from the part we stand and is safe. By taking the risk of falling to the water we took the very narrow linear layer to reach the cave and climb to the entrance of the cave which is extremely risky and hard. Actually, it had the potential to be improved and provide a safer and experiment based designs.

Interior of the cave was suitable for human scale (2,6 m width, 10 m height). Because of the sinuous formations of levels in the cave (mostly in upper parts), there was the potential of various different spatial experiences.

Layering condition in Kerpe also can be thought as variations of steps combinations in many parts of the lower levels so it enriched my ideas about staircases, their relations, organizations, interactions, and proportions.

Lastly, even it was an exhausting trip, we had time and energy to have fun and take cool photos with my friends. As the first field trip of mine, it was a very good experience for me. Including a real topography for the term project, surely, must be a significant step for architecture education so it makes me excited. Pretty little lovely Kerpe, you are so beautiful to be a part of this world, but good enough to be the topography of my project.