COLLEGE OF ARCHITECTURE + PLANNING UNIVERSITY OF UTAH. Architecture 4011 Architectural Design IV Spring 2008

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1 COLLEGE OF ARCHITECTURE + PLANNING UNIVERSITY OF UTAH Architecture 4011 Architectural Design IV Spring 2008 William Miller, FAIA, Professor Office hours: 9:30-10:45 am, MW, and by appointment Office phone: ; miller@arch.utah.edu web page: STUDIO OVERVIEW This Spring semester will be devoted to a comprehensive project that will involve significant pre-design activities (such as precedent studies, site analysis, and program development), as well as schematic design and detailed design development. An important goal for the semester is to generate enthusiasm for architectural design as a responsible and creative act. You must be willing to suspend pre-conceived beliefs about architecture and its processes. Each of you should be willing to generate a variety of architectural concepts and to explore and examine them as part of the process of design inquiry; exercise the full range of graphic and verbal communication skills available, demonstrating their appropriate use within the design process; be self-disciplined as well as self-generating in the production of work; and cultivate critical dialogue and insight about the work through seeking and offering positive dialogue and criticism within the studio milieu. As architecture is both an intuitive and rational activity, involving an intense iterative process, each of you must seek to discover through your architectural maturation, the unique balance of the intuitive and rational which informs ones personal process of architectural discovery, inquiry, and self-criticism. The processes of architectural design demand intense involvement, so pursue excellence, even though one may not accomplish it. The design studio is the environment for discussion and debate about ideas and their realization it is the place to exchange and examine concepts and their potentials it is the civic plaza or main street of architectural discourse, and I encourage you to use it and draw from its collective strength. Architecture is by definition a chaotic adventure. Coherence imposed on an architect s work is either cosmetic or the result is self-censorship. Rem Koolhaas, OMA, S,M,L,XL It is when rationality and irrationality compromise each other that the art of architecture acquires its first liberty of growth. Amos I. T. Chang, The Tao of Architecture It is expected that all students will engage in the majority of their design work in the studio. There will be a variety of formal and informal feedback processes desk crits, studio pin-ups, sit-down juries, and walk-arounds and all are important settings for learning. When there are settings involving visiting critics, it is expected that all students attend these reviews for the entire duration of the review. In addition, as I want to ensure that each student has an appropriate amount of time for their review, I may 1

2 begin reviews before scheduled class time and complete them after the scheduled period. The schedule for each review will be posted ahead of time informing you of the time expectations. Students are responsible for making additional site visits necessitated by the project, and to participate in any other studio activities taken engaged in during the semester. In addition, students should attend all lectures and programs assigned through the course or scheduled by the College. EVALUATION In principle, evaluation in the studio context is not grading as in the grading of fruit, vegetables or other products. It is a process to help in one s understanding of what they know, how they are learning, and how one might expand that learning. Evaluation is a step in the development of critical thinking capacities. Evaluation is constantly being conducted by oneself of their work, and by others. Evaluation comes during group discussions and critiques, or in debates over the merits of a design. The best evaluation is critical, yet constructive, diagnostic, and fully explained. Grades in the studio context are symbols and summaries of faculty perceptions and understanding of your processes and their development. They punctuate and focus a steady stream of critiques and commentaries. Many students do not view grades as symbols of an evaluation which they seek to understand and value. Rather they often see grades as symbols of personal self-worth, which is unfortunate as it inhibits learning and necessary risktaking. Learning corresponds with doing... failing... redoing... failing... and redoing yet again. Progress is an iterative process. I am doubtful whether architecture, musical composition, or writing can be taught in the sense that we teach the multitude of instrumental skills and crafts. This is so because all artistic work is fundamentally existential, I believe, and it revolves around the core of one s self-identity. The understanding of identity, the perquisite for creative work, comes through a tolerance for actually an engagement with silence, solitude, even boredom and uncertainty.... All work, in my view, is a form of reinforcing one s sense of self. As you start a design project or a writing project, you never know where you will end; this is the rewarding aspect of the essential uncertainty in the creative endeavor. Juhani Pallasmaa, Landscapes in Encounters: Architectural Essays PRECEDENT STUDIES As part of the pre-design activities this semester, you will begin this project by engaging in precedent studies and site analyses. While a presentation on both will be given, for this project you will be engaged in precedent studies that will focus on the issues of space and form, as well as light and materiality, and be experiential as well as analytical. The precedent studies will involve your analyzing a building assigned you, in addition to one that you pick on your own (with instructor approval). While the one selected for you by the instructor will focus on the chapel typology, the one you choose can be to analyze any particular constituent qualities of interest to you. In particular, you will analyze the designs by articulating their concepts and organizing principles, as well as the experiential qualities of the lighting strategies and the materials used, and how the materiality contributes to the quality and experience of the Architecture is a concrete phenomenon. It comprises landscapes and settlements, buildings and characterizing articulation. Therefore it is... concerned with something more than practical needs and economy. Christian Norberg-Schulz, Meaning in Western Architecture 2

3 lighting and spatial and formal expression of the works. The buildings that will be assigned by the instructor include: The Kauniainen Church (Finland) Juhani Leiviskä The Mourning House (Mexico City) Pascal Arquitectos Church of Saint-Pierre de Firminy (France) Le Corbusier Paper Church (Kobe, Japan) Shigeru Ban Catholic Church Complex, St. Amant (LA) Trahan Architects St. Maria of the Angels Chapel (Rotterdam) Mecanoo Architecten Spiritual Center, Boston Office da Mortensrud Church (Oslo) Jensen & Skodvin Chapel, La Calera (Columbia) Daniel Bonilla Arquitectos Friedhofserwerterung (Munich-Riem) Merk Architekten Student Chapel, Otaniemi (Finland) K&H Siren Bagsvaerd Church (Denmark) Jørn Utzon In addition to analyzing one of the above buildings, you will be responsible for selecting another work, preferably contemporary in execution, to analyze also. You will need the instructors approval of the work you select. Required Submission: The precedent studies will be analytical in nature, assessing the concepts found in the designs, the formal and spatial organizational strategies each architect used to design the buildings, its relationship to site and context, and other compositional and design issues found in the building. The graphic analysis will also include qualitative assessments of the designs that capture the experiential essences of their spatial and formal qualities especially the dynamics of light in space and on form. While you will present this analysis to the entire studio, you may use whatever creative and engaging format that captures the building and is appropriate to the essence of the designs. Additional works and complexes you might want to look at for ideas, understandings, and inspiration include: Extension, Armea di Sanremo, Italy Amoretti & Calva Extension, Santa Stefano al Mare Amoretti & Calva Cemetery for the Unknown, Hiroshima Archipro Architects Mausoleum, Murcia (Spain) Manuel Clavel Rojo Memorial Bridge, Rijeka (Croatia) 3LHD Los Nogales School Chapel (Columbia) Daniel Bonilla Brion-Vega Cemetery (Italy) Carlo Scarpa SITE ANALYSIS There are 3 sites you are to consider for your complex, and in selecting the site you use for the project, you will need to engage in the following exercise: First, you will need to assess all three sites for the following: 3

4 Topography and orientation (slope, sun angles, etc.) Views both positive and negative (what to include and excluded)access and egress and the surrounding context Experiential qualities both existing and potential You will develop a consistent format for producing graphic material analyzing the three sites. Second, after assessing all three site from the material generated above, you are to select the site you would prefer to use for the project, and extend the analysis to include a more detailed assessment of the experiential and qualitative aspects of the site. As with the precedent analysis, while you will present this analysis to the entire studio, you may use whatever creative and engaging format that captures the building and is appropriate to the essence of the designs. See schedule below 4

5 Schedule for the Pre-Design Phase of the Project Monday Wednesday Friday. January Week 1 7 Introduction 9 site analysis 11 Site visit & presentation & precedent studies Week 2 14 Group discussion Week 3 21 Holiday 23 Group discussion 25 [out of town E/PN advisory committee mtg] February Week 4 28 Pre-Design 30 Programming 1 [out of town -- NCARB Presentations Lecture Education Committee mtg] 5