The Challenge: 1) Analyze and choose a site along the 10.1 mile stretch of park along the Colorado River, which winds through Austin, creating Town Lake. 2) Design a space for artistic performances that is movable, able to transform into an “on” and “off” position.
The Solution: 1) A site was chosen in East Austin, near a rundown park in a neighborhood struggling with a lack of facilities for local children. This is in sharp contrast to other parts of Town Lake that are primarily used as walking and jogging trails for more affluent visitors. The site is also geographically unique, having an insular quality – surrounded by water on three sides – making possible a significant, central entry point. 2) A design was chosen that would still provide a functional purpose when the container was in its “off” position. With the rapidly declining public opportunities for skateboarding, the Performance Container was designed to transform into a skate park, providing a recreation center for the neighborhood. This was accomplished by creating three ribbons that lightly touch the ground and actively engage with the natural landscape of the site to create space. Like a roll of paper, each ribbon could be retracted or unfurled based on necessity.
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Part of the Adaptive Formulations visual studies course taught in conjunction with structural engineers from Buro Happold. We were designing parametric skin components in catia then using optimization software modeFrontier to generate a large design space of high performing designs. The size of the apertures of this system are dependent on the surface deformation of the underlying base surface, and I’m testing for a base surface with a maximum deflection that results in the largest aperture size.
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The program called for a combination of leisure activities that any college student is well acquainted with: bowling, drinking and washing laundry. The design reflects some of these playful qualities while also creating a ground, a city within a city. The building is meant to provide a strong presence in an area where the inhabitants are recycled every four years – perpetually created anew.
The design is separated along program and wraps itself protectively around a central sunken courtyard that provides shade and solace. The line between inside and outside is blurred through the use of roof gardens, cantilevered overhang spaces and the absence of a traditional central front door to the business. As opposed to one central building, the programmatic elements are separated into a collection of buildings, meant to evoke the layout of a college campus. Inhabitable outside void spaces were key and provide open areas for outside cafes and meeting spaces. Also, each program is expressed separately to accommodate differing hours of operation. The space is unified by a consistent structural grid of 20 x 45 feet.
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Increasingly, architecture is seen as an extension of the consumer culture, subjugated to the needs of the marketplace. Architecture becomes the physical manifestation of the brand, sharing common visual and ideological cues, as evidenced in fashion houses Prada and Hermes. The studio was tasked with designing a brand and then creating the architecture.
Not only is Austin the self-proclaimed “live music capital of the world,” but the site was located at the western edge of Sixth Street – the epicenter of the music/bar scene in Austin. With this in mind, the brand “LOT49” was born, with the intent of creating a symbiotic relationship with the music culture of Austin by selling fashion influenced by the music scene, as well as targeting musicians and aficionados with high-end speaker systems. The third element became the underground bar, a staple music lore.
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Architecture is a game of limits. Some studios work within the confines of context, program and site, here we explored limits that were more intangible. The studio worked directly with a strong emphasis on space, shape, color, light, shade and shadow. We searched for limits, letting function simmer while heating up the form. We explored limits in three shape studies in a variety of form and media: 1) Two dimensional shape black and white paintings 2) Three dimensional car/truck bondo shape studies and 3) Building design studies: proposals for an automotive body shop and paint shop.
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A friend forward this to me from my time at Michigan State, or as I like to call it, “the billionaire playas club”
GracefulSpoon Version1.0 was mainly a static repository for my undergraduate portfolio and eventually led to this printed version. It’s funny to look back on something that became such a major time investment, something that is supposed to sum up all my design sensibilities, and even, in no small measure, played a major role in determining the outcome of my immediate future. And then, after months of anticipation, the portfolio fulfills its purpose – successfully! – and is no longer relevant. So, in lieu of a fiery burial at sea, I hope a modest blog post isn’t too anticlimactic.
Click here to view the full portfolio.
By popular demand, I added a link to lulu if you’d like to order a high-quality, printed version.
