Building Properties

Aoyama Prada building

How:

Three types of glass cladding flat, concave, convex arranged in a diagrid structure
giving it a diamond shape look with the windows that alternately recede and protrude.
During day, the glasss curvaceous nature tends to be accentuated and give the
building a gem like look
During the night, the role changes to the diagrid (diagonal steel structure composing of
triangular forms) formation in combination with light that gives it its sublime look
The shape of the building is substantially influenced by the angle of incidence of the
local profile.
Depending on the angle of the viewer, they can anticipate the building either looking
like a crystal or like an archaic type of building with a saddle roof
These differing geometries generate facetted reflections, which enable viewers, both
inside and outside the building, to see constantly changing pictures and almost
cinematographic perspectives of Prada products, the city and themselves.
The grid not only acts as an optical illusion but also a structural support for the ceilings.

Why

Contains furniture inside that are made from various materials = prevent fixed stylistic
classifications of the site, allowing traditional and radically contemporary aspects to
appear as self-evident and equal components of todays global culture

De Young Museum

The process of making the faade is very unique, done by incorporating the image of the
vegetation of the site:
o Use the black and white image of the vegetation of the site from a plan view perspective
o Invert the colors
o Pixelate the image into dot matrix
o The pixel pattern was transformed into an alternating grid of protruding and depressed
embossing via the categorization of the color range from black to white into 4 separate
depth types the greater the darkness the greater the depths. Each copper panel
consists of 7 x 30 grid of embossing patterns
o Six different diameters of puncture holes are assigned onto the panel, this time of 12 x
50 on each panel, corresponding to the requirement of lighting and ventilation of the
museum
o The two patterns are superimposed together and due to the grid difference it creates a
unique and seemingly un-uniform and chaotic faade. The misalignment of the patterns
causes the embossing to not be cancel out
The dramatic tower lookout is a gift to the public since going up to get the breathtaking view of
the site is independent of museum admission.
The holes does not serve singularly as for ventilation and lighting, but also for safety issue since
it can evacuate smoke easily as been carefully designed by the architects, hence no need of
enclosed and pressurized stairs since the facade of the building is considered breathable
The museums interior, faade and landscape tends to flow nicely
People oriented museum, no grand staircase to walk in and flow towards the inner part of the
museum by incorporating a landscape with deep courtyards which also have double function: to
serve as bringing the park into the museum and to assist with wayfaring
However, the copper faade though seem breathtaking in terms of design, it also serves as very
effective blocking for most wireless signals. And as a result the museum is to be fitted with
about 50% more wireless access points than a typical modern building would.
The copper skin would eventually ages to verdigris, which would be matching with the greenery
of the area
Also the overhang of the museum serves both to frame the view and shield against excessive
solar heat gain.
A heterotypical site that is open and receptive to the artistic diversity of the planet
Where diversity meets and intersects, where otherwise hidden kinships between divergent
cultural forms become visible and tangible
Process: comes from a dialogue-oriented planning process with curators and visitors which
would affect the ideas on architecture, urban planning and landscape.
The works of art collected in this space have a large range of diversity in terms of time and
culture.
Based on two main groupings:
o works created in the context of western understanding of art
o those created as part of a superior cultural or religious system
Originally the museum is to be separated to give the expression of diversity of culture. Later
changed to be a single structure housing all the components of varied architectural context
Architect thought of a kind of organism with several limbs or extensions, like the finger of a
hand.
Theme: interconnected and interrelated so that viewers experience in space the interfaces and
areas of friction among the cultures. Via nature, trees, plants, and water in various forms.
The architecture intends to visibly demonstrate and foster our awareness of the coexistence and
equality of cultures.
Strategy: to make the architecture of the new building permeable, open and inviting for the
people of San Francisco. Most of first floor is non-ticketed, including lobby, main court,
restaurant, museum store, and childrens gallery and also the tower are free.
Second way to express unity is via the large roof which expresses the collective gesture of
people gathering together.
The figure of the tower resembles the strict rectangular grid of the city

Dominus Winery

Considered a modernist minimalism, but in close inspection turns out to be a richly

integrated building
Use of gabions (basket of heavy steel mesh with rocks stored within, often used in
retaining earthworks) with the use of rough local stones.
The meshs density and size of rocks are varied due to their assigned function:
o High density strength mesh with close packed small rocks establishing a kind of
robustness for the design and also provides cooling and shadow for the lower
level of wine casks
o Middle section is then of more open mesh and slightly larger rocks for the main
wall
o Top section with an open spacing of mesh and loose aggregation of large rocks
allows patches of natural light to enter the office area.
Napa valley have extreme climate condition: very hot during day and very cold during
night
During this time, air conditioning is very common method of climate control, not
architectural strategies to activate the walls in order to regulate the temperature are
unknown
The rocks in the gabions help insulate the rooms against heat and coolness. (absorb
heat during day and release heat during night)
The rocks are local basalt that ranges from dark green to black which blends beautifully
with the landscape.
The process of making requires a full mock-up model to be familiar with this new
architectural element
The rectangular structure has two large rectangular archways. The main entry is
directly on axis with the gravel road one arrives which initially first past the overarching ancient oak, and continues beyond the building out through the vineyard to a
distant cleft in the rolling backdrop hills
The building design would seem alienated from the site if not for the local rocks.
Inside the main archway hangs a large painting over a simple bench
The stair upwards is turned back so that the arriving on the upper floor terrace, both
indoor and outdoor, faces northward at the sweeping sunlit view across the front
vineyard and across the valley
The sweeping view is framed by large metal mesh
The dark corridor of a walkway bridging the flat archway opening is illuminated with
shards of brilliant light, a crystal cave turned of the simple gabions, concrete and steel
Everything from winery functions, greetings, management, sales, receiving, processing,
fermenting, bottling, and aging are unified under the same building block
Pure geometry
The gabion faade also contains 2 function:
o For the control of lighting for various floors and requirements
o To effectively moderate the valley climate for human.
Unlike de young, it is not open for visitation and to be appreciate from a distance

Schaulager

Task: design a warehouse for the open storage of contemporary art that had optimal
climate conditions and was available by appointment, a site for conservation, research
and dissemination.
Permanent display (PERMANENCE INCLUSION OF NATURE AS WAY OF CONVEYING)
And also temporal display (opposite to permanent)
Have movable partitions to divide the works (contrast between permanence and
flexibility/movement)
Place that is quiet but yet active and self-confident for the city of Basel
The goal was to create a warehouse for works of contemporary art that would occupy
considerably less space than they would in a museum context thanks to being hung
more closely together on the walls and placed more closely together on the floor.
An enormous wall would have held all the wall-based works, hung immediately next to
one another as in a second-hand store; the other works of art would have been
distributed on the floor without any partition walls.
Vertical and horizontal storage would have allowed for an overall view of the collection
at a glance.
It became clear that a normal warehouse with stable floors and walls and a great span
width provided the greatest advantages, which paradoxically, would also offer the most
flexibility
Task: sought to develop an architectural concept that would express the idea of storage
and stacking on floors in a visual way: as something durable and solid (stacking and
layering)
The outer walls is the product of stacking, exposed the pebbles excavated for the
buildings foundation which in turn determined the forms and the structures.
Not only a simple and visual expression of weight and storage but also as a climate
control of the warehouse interior
The external form of the warehouse is derived very pragmatically from the geometry of
the interior storage arrangement and the minimum distances from the edge of the lot
as established by the building code.
Result in a polygonal building which look as if it had been extruded from the material
obtained from the site and from the ground.
Similar to the nature of the interior arrangements of being easy to see, the exterior
main entrance can be view completely from great distances
The form of the buildings also form a courtyard like space radiating publicness and
urbanism
The lines of window resemble natural form, but actually formed from calculated and
produced by digitally controlled tools (artificial natural relationship)
The same digital landscape profile for the linings for the walls and ceilings in the
entrance hall, a cave-like white polished surface structure.
Ceiling panels cut to produce atrium-like space.

Perspective effect of the main entrance hall is based on the 2 basic elements of a
warehouse: ceiling panels arranged here to appear stacked, linear lighting. (stacking
function, linear order/abstract)

Tate Modern

Relate to Hans Georg Gadamer magical parquet floor, the place that is branded untouchable,
though it lost its original context long ago, it tends to stand as an emblem for a very powerful
design strategy in its emphasis on materiality, gravity and maintenance and its focus on being
what it is: a floor.
Uses irregular and untreated wooden floors, oak floor planks simply nailed onto joists brutal
and beautiful at the same time (juxtaposition)
Rough like industrial architecture and soft like fabric
Specific ground floor surface so as to ground or root people within this huge building,
exaggerate how they are standing vertically in front of a work of art
Architect interested in physical result of the floor, hence tested full scale mock-ups of almost
every detail in the building as part of a process driven by thinking, discussing and trying
The floor becomes prototype for conceptual and strategic approach to architecture for H and M
an approach that is often masked with the traditional costume of architectural elements we all
seem to have somehow seen before comfortable and familiar.
The single part is bound to the overall concept of the whole building
AIKIDO STRATEGY take the preexisting as a quality that use for own purpose, transforming it
into their own energy, so what once seemed to be alien and hostile all of a sudden becomes a
field where you can act and dictate the architecture and urbanistic scenarios.
Existing paradox from original architect, Sir Giles Scott, to connect the building to the brick
tower of the cupola of Saint Pauls Cathedral immediately opposite on the river of Thames.
The Bankside is contrasted with the strong urban and symbolic power hence render it unpublic
due to this juxtaposition must be reverse without destroying the power of the existing building
Process:
o First cut away low-rise buildings and add North entrance, the ramp and the light beam
o Remove machinery to reveal the structure at naked stage
o No space was designed specifically but just to envelope the machinery
o Suggest a democratic treatment of space instead of hierarchical via basement and main
levels
o Found to be too big and too industrial to serve as main entrance
o Must enhance power and logic of churchlike interior while diluting the monumental
impact
o Uses light to dilute the monumental effect of the vertical column, it appear powerless
than the light and glass that penetrate through horizontally these light boxes have
many function

Dynamic and static

Intimate space for visitors to rest
Windows for looking through around the gallery
Illuminating beacons for the main entrance
Like a cinematic monitors that project human movement
Tate modern is a hybrid of tradition: art deco and super modernism it is contemporary building,
a building for everyone, of the 21st century
The ramp part is used to enter the building, also act as a prominent meeting point, which is due
to being open to public much like the north tower and the south gate. Become public due to
architectural strategy by transforming from a close shell gigantic complex into a landscape with
different topographies that can be approach from all 4 directions
The gallery hold 2 extremes:
o Highly specific gallery
o Supermarket, give an overview that puts everything in the same light
Again, walls can be added or removed at certain places, allowing dimensions and scale to be
tailored to the needs of special installations
Natural Light reveal exterior climate property
Have the impression as if the interior have been existed for a long time, which is deceptive. The
new and old building components have been interrelated and attuned to each other in such a
way that they are indistinguishable. New emerged that is more exciting than the pure
preservation of a given structure and more complex than a completely new building
Chimney used to performed an important function in the former power plant, now converted into
an observation tower with 2 staircases and 2 lifts. It then enters into a dialogue with St. Pauls
on the opposite side. The vertical symmetry of the chimney is a direct response to the central
dome of the cathedral.
Firmitas:
o 40 percent of the budget went into technology of the building, determined by the 20,000
a day visitors
o This influence the building to adapt itself to humans biological state, movement is the
rule
o A place that diverts so much from itself that it creates tension, a spatial concentration,
that is transferred to the artwork and allow the perception to be more direct to the
artwork itself
o Such exhibition spaces materializes firmitas
o A mixing of materials of different origins, the different weight and intensification of places

Postmodernism
Define by Charles Jencks
doubly coded, one half modernism and one half something else (usually traditional building)
in its attempt to communicate with the public and a concerned minority, usually other
architects
An architecture that was professionally based and popular as well as one that was based on
new techniques and old patterns
opposite pairings
Today's Post-Modern architects were trained by Modernists, and are committed to using
contemporary technology as well as facing current social reality.
Postmodernism has the essential double meaning: the continuation of Modernism and its
transcendence.
Modernism failed as mass housing and city building partly because it failed to communicate
with its inhabitants and users.
Venturi complexity and contradiction

1960s
Emphasis of study of meaning (semiotic analysis sign)
Meaning is not stable, not univalent, differ by individual, it depends on something
(environment, politicis, culture etc.)
Affect how to practice architecture
Meaning is variable, hence modernism is off the reality and perception its form follows
its single function what if people perceive them ambiguously, differ from its intended
meaning
Double-functioning elements is something that have 2 meaning
o Modernism everyone is equal
o Postmodernism everyone is equally different

Complicated to distiniguish archcitects to whether post or modern

Venture will incorporate element from history, but will treat everything as equal
Hes saying modernism missed the human perception, its organic-ness
Ambiguous rather than articulated, distorted rather than straight forward
Bringing back symbolism
Bring out element of modernism, but defy it by how it can have multiple meaning
Intricately use symmetry, but then break it to add meaning
Use arch above the door, but break it to make it decorative
Pitched roof was cut to be aesthetic
BOTH-AND and ambiguity
Guild house
o Uses huge sign, contradicts with use of language and font used in shops and
stores)
o Antennae is gold coated, bourgeois and non-bourgeois
o Building form uses arch but on a cheap looking building
o Also uses local bricks
Seattle art museum
o Uses Corinthian columns that mash into together, as it move further the column
are separated gradually
o Include non-functioning windows
o The entrance cuts into the building
o BOTH AND
Art Gallery in Stalingard
o Uses a stylobate but then deconstruct it
o As a way to simply referencing to the past, break it down to express its present
(also to cut ventilation) BOTH AND
o The entrance uses classical marble but set it to something over structural and
colorful

Eisenman (end of classical)

Emphasis on linguistic theories, semiotic
o What is a home?
o Endless meaning due to endless interpretations

Vernacular architecture is a term used to categorize methods of construction which use

locally available resources and traditions to address local needs and circumstances.
Vernacular architecture tends to evolve over time to reflect the environmental, cultural and
historical context in which it exists. It has often been dismissed as crude and unrefined, but
also has proponents who highlight its importance in current design.

Example architects
Alvar Aalto

Try to synthesize international style and expressionism

Trying to integrate context via form and material
See his building as organism, as cells
Critical regionalism by adopt a critical approach to architecture to emphasize on local
context as the phenomenological experience of the building (how to experience it via
perception): air, light, tectonics, material, texture
Municipal Library (1935)
o Exterior is same to Le Corbusier (white stucco, flat surface etc.)
o The interior auditorium uses a wavy wooden smooth ceiling to adjust to the
thermal quality and acoustic quality of the wood
o He uses the books to be the color of the room, as their own ornamentation
o A good design of stairs which imbues a highly efficient circulation
New York Pavilion (1939)
o Uses only form to adapt to functionality of the view
o Vertical finished panels like cells of plants
Saynatsalo town hall (1951-1952)
o Every bricks texture to made it looked un-finished, textured like a linen
o Critical regionalism inclusion of nature and environment adapt to building to
them
o Uses different length of bricks to express texture
o Pure natural material
o In the main assembly hall he uses a butterfly truss which enlarge the thermal
quality, reduce moisture
o Also design the door handle to be ergonomic

Richard Neutra

Fuse international style to local context like aalto, perform well and functional
First work with Mendelson

Student of loos and employed by Frank Lloyd Wright later work with Rudolph Schindler
Lovel house (1927-1929)
o Challenging site, hill side
o Green architecture, no electricity
o Uses steal a lot to structure due to how it is set side of the cliff uses steel cables
to hold it
o Uses pilotis and free faade (before villa savoye) horizontal windows
o Uses mass produced windows
o

Herzog and de Meuron Manifestos

How do cities differ (2003(

Every city grows and takes shape in relation to its own specific scenario of menace,
which emerges in the course of its history, channeling it into an unmistakable and
inescapable pattern. Not a single city has ever succeeded in liberating itself from the
real, simulated and cultivated bonds of its local context in order to reinvent itself
(example post war Frankfurt (tabula rasa) and Munich (reconstruction, historical
simulation)
Bring out a specific modification of the city, preventive or corrective interventions have
a real and lasting effect on the reality of urban development, it has a profound,
formative and programmatic effect on the artificial and natural topography of cities
Cities are, instead being increasingly uniform, generic or even faceless, cities are
actually becoming more and more individually distinctive.
Self-referential focus, immersing in own self-contained world (culture, subculture, lack
of culture, rise and decline)
All attempts to describe the city, to comprehend and reinvent it, were both necessary
and useful. (Le Corbusier Radiant city, Rem koolhaass Junkspace etc.) but now they
leave us cold, they longer concern us.
We cannot relate to them because it belongs to a world that is not ours, there are no
theories to cities, they are just cities
Urban projects merely multiply what already is there (junkspace), it occurs whenever a
plot of land is available
The unique, the specific, that what distinguishes us from others, the indestructible: all
these have become vulnerable, and so we have to protect ourselves (rooting from how
the twin towers was the symbol of New York and was taken by terrorists, symbols and
icon become the target of menace)
The best protection would be to aspire to indistinguishability, the indistinguishable
city

Firmitas firmness

What is a wall? What is a floor?

Firmness means stability, doesnt tolerate doubt and weakness.

Seeing, touching, hearing this is what architecture should always be, it should express
all these sensual moments and make them TANGIBLE
This complex combination of sensual impression is what creates our concept of
stability, of a safe world, a world that we can trust in.
Phenomenological angle, from the observation of the real behavior of human beings
Architecture has to communicate this complex sensuality concentrated in one place
and simultaneous have an effect in order to attract us, to convey its meaning to us and
to demonstrate its interpretation
Immateriality is a messenger mediating between the house and the observer, spiritual
quality that is communicated to our senses through the material solidification.
The indissoluble bond between material and immaterial.
We submit to venustus, (beauty) and not to firmness, beauty enchants us and inspire
us.
Firmness is an absolute value that cannot be achieved, that will remain a dream and is
interesting only as such.
Firmitas is a self-evident requirement of a correct and careful planning and realization
of any building project.
Presently it cannot be achieved, but rather a virtual reality. Building materials used
today are neither immovably stable nor lastingly crystalline
Building nowadays are beings made of organic and solid matter.

Approach to architecture concept of evoking and merging issues of the natural and artificial,
the material and immaterial, art and no-art, public and private
Virtual house 1997

Immateriality and materiality are interdependent of each other, without immateriality,

materiality would lose meaning
What is a wall? What is light? All these concepts all bespeak our perception of the
physical would at a mental, spiritual level.
Every project target the imaginative world, the dreams and longings of people, they are
provocation.
Traditional architectures of all cultures are virtual because they spurt he imagination
and cannot be defined by functional or typological, religious or structural or any linear
explanation.
Its materiality is the expression of its immaterial value.

Poesis Production

Natural artificial
Phenomenological onthological
o Buildings arise from changing perceptions
o Product of perception
Past present
o 1980s produced baroque period like architecture with a lot of money invading the
market
o 1960s architects race against each other to be commissioned by many cities
o 1990s a period of less stable, things have to be redefined daily
o Clients are unsure resulting in architects in a state of constant uncertainty
which also mean openness
o Architects should make work that is universal to understand, simple yet nonreductive ideas