PC
Gropius Director's House
Walter Gropius
The mind is like an umbrella,
it functions best
when it is open.
Walter Gropius
Project one is precedent study. We are required to come out 10 conceptual models which best explain the design elements involved in a Gropius' building which is Groupis Director's House.
Gropius Director's house is one of the Masters' House located nearby Bauhaus, a school originated by Walter Gropius which serves as a platform to convey new architectural direction. The Masters' House are designed for the lecturers who taught in Bauhaus while the director's house is mainly for himslef.
Gropius Director's house serves an open plan. The areas in the house were not muchly separated by wall. For example, the living area and the dining area. A curtain serve as a barrier between these two spaces, and the spaces are combined after the curtain is removed.
Prefabrication movement in architecture was driven by Walter Gropius after world war period as to fasten the reconstruction for the homeless. It is being practised in Gropius Director's House.
The interlocking of a L-shaped cube and a cube forms the massing of the director's house with the open-terraced. It suits the concept of Bauhaus which generates building in its simplest geometric forms. The form of the building mainly followed by the function itself.
One of the stunning selling point of the director's house was the floating block which protruding out at the entrance give a light feeling for the Director's House. There's lot more information about the Gropius Director's House shown in the video below which covered also a little bit leading movement of Architecture during that period.
Video (Walter Gropius- Director's House
PROJECT 1
FAMOUS PEOPLE | FAMILIAR FACES
DIAGRAMMATIC ABSTRACTION
What I have learnt after this assignment was to read a building architecturally by using several aspect such as massing, unit to whole, hierachy, lighting. structure and circulation.
What I found interesting was, the architect was implying some great understanding of the form before he join the boxes togetehr to form his building which much more different than what we perceived he was doing which was just simply joining the boxes toegther.
Besides, I also get to know the influence of environment condition to the building style. The historical moment of the transformation of the decorative conceptual based building to the simple function based was actually started by Walter Gropius's Bauhaus concept. I havent heard of Gropius before,a d it was really a great time 'spent with him' throughout the whole research.
10 Abstraction Pre-models
Floating massing | Unit to whole (ground floor) | Unit to whole (first floor)
Lighting | Circulation | assymetrical balance | structure
overall massing | unit to whole (simpler form)
interlocking massing | grid (plan) | hierachy
interlocking massing | grid (plan) | interlocking massing+ floating massing
overall view of pre-models during interium
Orthographic drawings of Gropius Director's House
10 Abstraction Final Models
massing
Subtraction&
Addition
Assymetrical
Hierachy
Floating mass
Light & Shadow
Unit to whole
Structure & grid
Circulation
Repetition to unique
We went through a lot of arguments during this project. Everybody has different ways of expression on the explanation of the buiding. This had led us to have a variation of understanding as we work in group. This is why architects work in a team.
Sometimes we suffered a lot of misconveying of message and different opinion towards certain building definition, we almost get lost in the middle of the project by not knowing what to continue. However, after several emergency meeting, we manage to have same thinking which led us to the end. Last but not least, thank you all my groupmates!
Shirley Liew | Pinky Chan(me) | Gabriel Liew | Alvin Tan | Sim Ling
My groupmates and I
Thank you
Fraser's Hill
Allan's Water
In groups of 10 (combination of 2 tutorial groups from project 1) we went to conduct site analysis of the physical context, social, cultural and/or historical issues within the overall site. The site is Fraser's Hill which located in Pahang, a 3 hours drive from Subang.
-Site Plan and Sections
-Orientation(sun path) and Climate
-Site topography
-Access & Circulation
-Existing Structure & Materiality of site
-Vegetation& Hydrology
-Views & Vistas
- Historical & Cultural
-SWOT
Our group is in-charge of site plans& sections. There's two groups working under this. First, we found a google map of Fraser's Hill and zoom into Allan's Water. By using autocad, the outline of the Allan's is drawn and scaled to 1:500. This plan is furthered developed after addition of content by other group such as topography, vegetation and existing structure. After discussed with the whole group, sections are cut and are scaled to 1:200.
Site Plan (before water coloured)
Site Plan (after water coloured)
After the site analysis, working in group of 2, we are then begin with a 3x3x3 cubic volume of a bird watching tower according to a selected character. The purpose fo the bird watching tower was mainly to enjoy the view of Fraser's Allan's Water.
Our character is an ex-slaughterhand, the one who worked under terrible working condition by slaughtering animals as a job to survive. In consideration of the character, we had designed two spaces for the slaughterhand which is the main viewing platform and a meditation area. In order to increase the site respond, the two spaces is located in between the existing structure which is the abandoned pavillion. The leading ladders are going around the old pavillion and moving to the meditation area which is located right under the viewing platform.
The bird watchign tower is a formation of two cubic (small and big) with its simplest ornamentation which is glass, with interlocking of ladders. The concept of the bird watcing tower was to create a contrast between the two cubic and the travelling ladders.
A simple and complex combination indicates the life as a slaughterhand. A man with complex background and hardly accepted by the society trying to merge into simplicity.
Andy Low | Pinky Chan
Bird Watching Tower
My Bird Watching Tower
Presentation Board
Processing Models
I found myself started to consider the ergonomics for the client to travel. The space planning would be another focus of this given assignment. The space can not be too big or too small for one to use.
I had planned one big and small space for the visual focus on the big one which is more important than the smaller one. I also learnt that one should design as a viewer. By imagining standing outside the building to view the building in stead of trapped inside the buiding.
By imagining the feeling wanted to convey, design would be piece pf cake. However, the hardest part will always be the language to convey the message and feelings. I used the complex and simple form to convey the struggling feeling I wanted the person to experience then leading to relief.
The display of my models and presentation board
My groupmate and I (Andy Low)
Thank you
Project 2 A
Site Condition | Analysis
Bird Watching Tower
Project 2 B
Retreat House
Fraser's Hill
| Pinky Chan
Retreat House
This project we are required to design a retreat house for the same client in project 2A which is the ex-slaughterhand. The retreat house denotes a place where one can escape from the current situation to a more peace, quiet, privacy and security.
This retreat house functions as habitable architectural spaces to enable the activity associated with living, dining, showering, cooking, storage and such within the built up space of 150 square meter.
In the idea of making a huge contrast between the life as an slaughterhand who live under restrained working area and often restrained themselves from being connect with people to a more interacting no boundaries building. By inserting the no boundaries concept, my retreat house ended up hardly covered up spaces. There's main focus of this building which is the
|Slanted Plane|
By applying slanted plane into the building(oblique function), the basic three base of a building- Roof, Wall, Floor can form a continuous extend to make a building into one unit. The no restriction on the definition of each elements,whether roof, wall or floor stands out the idea of being no restrained and no bundaries.
The other expression of no boundaries is through the huge openings in every corner of the buidling. Such as the travelling path to the building, the deck under the living area and huge of openings in the centre of the building. The client can find himselves interacting with the surrounding whenever he travel from space to space or having some activities. A contrast of his previous ife has been reached.
The building seems incompleted as a sign of inviting the nature to complete it by fully covered the half part of teh uncovered building. The no boundaries was then made by the blurring line between the nature and the building.
By travelling through my building, the experience of outdoor and indoor is not expected and one would find himself wondering the definition of being inside or outside. This is exactly what I wanted the client to experience, the no line between him and other party, no one would then define who he is previously and stay close to him to form a unity.
Development of models
A bubble diagram is formed and model based o the bubble diagram is formed in order to create the slanted travelling pathway which connected to the roof plane and wall plane to form a space. I used wire indicating the circulation from one space to another.
After that, a model of using paper is formed continously from the connecting the floor to the covered wall (function as stair at the same time) then to the roof which start over again which serves as floor for another level.
Lastly, by making the continuos slanted plane formed space to a more reallity building, I had invited glass wall to my building and some suporting structures which can be seen in the last development model.
For my final model, some changes is made by adding travelling slanted path for increasing interaction to the nature and some slanted planes are discareded as not suitable for the ergonomics of client.
My final model & presentaion board
The openned travelling space interacting with udergrowth at site
The slanted built-in resting platform and further in a deck for viewing the detail of the forest
The living area serves best view of the opposite site
The view of the bedroom, the built-in slanted platform enables one to view form the skylight
The view of the kitchen, the continuos slanted base plane to the counter of kitchen then to the table in dining area
The opening in the centre of building
The overall picture of my final model
My presentation board
The orthographic drawings
The sketches of some highlited spaces in my building.
Living room | Travelling pathway
Bedroom | Kitchen & Dining room