Infinite Motion - BIG 8 Building

Infinite Motion- BIG 8 Building

by Victoria Shingleton

Bjarke Ingels Group's 8 Building apartment complex design for Copenhagen, Denmark is a unique solution to maximizing housing and commercial units within an urban environment without compromising privacy, green space, or views.

Commercial units were placed on the ground level so that merchants can have easy access to their store space, and residents above can have privacy and less foot traffic.  The plan of the building is in the shape of an 8 in order to maximize green space and views.  The front corner of the building was brought down to ground level to maximize the amount of sunlight which reaches the apartment units.  It also allows for infinite circulation around the building.  The crossing point in the center of the 8-shape serves as a central atrium and lobby location for the residents.

The shape of the building and its allowance for infinite circulation immediately made me think of the project that my partner, Abby Buckingham, and I have been working on this semester.  Inspired by the Mobius strip and wanting to create a path for continuous motion within a small space, we decided upon the infinity symbol (8 shape) which allows the user to constantly walk through and around the structure.

@infinity concept model - project by Abby Buckingham and Victoria Shingleton

I was very impressed and inspired by how BIG used three dimensional diagramming to organize their space in a way that not only maximizes space but is efficient pragmatically.  Diagramming is such an important tool, and I think it makes perfect sense how site factors alone can determine the shape and orientation of a building.  I believe that it's very important that as we move forward in architecture, we do not allow new technology and innovation in construction and design overtake environmental factors, but that we take advantage of these tools to work with nature.

The Design of the Natural: A Complexity in Designed Landscapes

The Design of the Natural: A Complexity in Designed Landscapes

By Joel Pominville

Homage to El Lissitzky - Lucien den Arend

            There is an incredible complexity in designing landscape that results in several solutions. All solutions maintain a manmade element, but some are able to overlook the manmade by attracting the eye with a form or design that is so seamlessly naturalistic looking. Some designs are manmade materialistically, but, in form, they push the eye into seeing a natural form. And others remain so unnatural that they begin to push away any human attraction at all.
            

A perfect example of the first solution is Lucien den Arend’s Homage to El Lissitzky. Lucien den Arend, a sculptor born in the Netherlands and raised in California, was asked to create a land sculpture outside of the test center of the national Road and Transport Department of the Netherlands. It would serve not only as a sculpture, a landmark, but it would serve as a sound barrier for the center. His solution was a mass of formed earth in a crescent shape across the road from the test center. This is a great example of the first solution as it is manmade, but seems as if some strange movement in the tectonic plates of earth could have created it in that very spot. I applaud den Arend for creating such a simple and elegant form that does not feel out of place as it serves the needs of the clientele as well.
            

Maritime Youth Center - Bjarke Ingels Group

One can look to Bjarke Ingels Group for evidence of the second solution. The Maritime Youth House in Copenhagen designed by BIG was a conceptually driven form that began to take shape as a landscape of its own. In order to cover up a bad area of ground on the site, they took a flat plane and created a sloping, morphing plane that broke away from the ground using push and pull diagramming. The slope took on materiality with many long planks of wood creating these sloping surfaces. Where the plane “rises” up, they allowed for air-conditioned space for the clientel. I find this project so astounding, not only architecturally, but naturalistically as well. Although they were not asked to design landscape, they designed an artificial landscape that addresses nature in a formatic way, not so much materialistically. 

Hualien Beach Resort - Bjarke Ingels Group

Another project by BIG worth mentioning is the Hualien Beach Resort project in the process of being completed and juried to be constructed. This project, seen next to the Maritime Youth House, has more of a naturalistic materiality. However, it is even more so natural in the way the designer has decided the form. Bravo to the Bjarke Ingels teams for designing in a way that did not hide the artificiality of the project, but respecting the nature in which we consume with designs.
            

Villa Garden - Gabriel Guevrekian

The last solution left to mention is a much less appealing, and less natural solution. It is a result of over control of the form and function of the landscape that, in a way, destroys any kind of feeling of nature. This ties directly into my blog post about the cubist gardens. I discovered through analysis that there seemed to be a very cold nature to the cubist gardens by Gabriel Guevrekian. It is a result of controlling the design solution to the extent that it loses all original intentions and natural precedents that existed prior to the design. In a way, this result of designing landscape is the least desirable. There was a time in design that it was normal to create new ideas of natural elements. But, in my opinion, the complete human control and manipulation of landscape and disregard for the preexisting nature should never be welcome.

Pictures:
https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2ajFW12nYMlgjtLsMi_LphWHcSMbbnF3EY3Y_U1b7ABb7wbgxR7OI7qeeveAtIb4FLDJltY3NEi3NKnVkV85J04PuBe7EKl9CCDwLuYTM6Ov4ANzua_uV-vZ55HJFZJ0rzF1Ocrrs8tA/s400/homage_to_el_lissitzky04.jpg

http://www.big.dk/#projects-mar

http://www.big.dk/#projects-hua

Architects/Artists:

http://www.big.dk/

http://www.denarend.com/

Information:

http://www.denarend.com/works/environmental/homage_el_lissitzky/index.htm

http://www.denarend.com/

Dear Blog: The Venice Biennale

Dear Blog
by Joel Pominville

Dear Blog,  

     I hope you are doing well, and everything is going well there in the online world!
     I just wanted to catch up with you and let you in on some things the class and I did while we were in Venice for the start of our first ten-day trip. We saw several works by Carlo Scarpa and Palladio. I took particular liking to Scarpa’s Fondazione Querini Stampalia and Palladio’s Basillica de San Giorgio. My most favored thing we saw was the Venice Biennale of Architecture. First of all, there was a long exhibit in the old Arsenale in which spaces were designed by David Chipperfield. However, the exhibits were designed by many famous and rising architects including Sir Norman Foster and Rem Koolhaus. 

     Although this long exhibit was very interesting and had a lot to offer, I think I enjoyed the individual country exhibits in Giardini. It is not only nice to see the works of architects in the different countries, but the pavilions themselves offered great lessons of design and contruction. There are two pavilions that I really enjoyed. The Brazilian pavilion was very postmodern and represented the materials still heavily used in Brazilian architecture, wood and reinforced concrete. The Venezuelan pavilion, designed by Carlo Scarpa, had a very close sense of detail and purpose found in most other Scarpa designs. 

     

     Two exhibits I learned a lot from were the Spanish and Denmark/Greenland exhibits. The Spanish pavilion exhibited works by achitects such as Ecosistema Urbano and RCR Arquitectes. I found that Spainish architects are putting large emphasis on two things: Green, reusable, and sustainable architecture and systems, as well as an emphasis on product and industrial design becoming just as important as design at an architectural level. I found that particularly interesting as I have an extreme interest in pursuing industrial design as well as arhitecture. The Denmark pavilion was just as interesting, but with a bit of a different design focus. The exhibit included a project by BIG Architects, one of my most highly regarded architectural influences. The architecture displayed in this exhibit focused on sustainability as well, but now with a bit more focus on efficient heating and cooling systems, as well as modular housing. The BIG project was a proposed scheme for an airport and a shipping port combined into what they call Air+Port. It was an icredible design that incorporated the need of both aircraft, and sea craft in a way that was virtually seamless. Overall, there was much to gain from the Biennale this year and I feel so honored to have seen what we did.