The Convent de La Tourette

  Built by Le Corbusier between 1953 and 1960 under the express wishes of the Dominicans, la Tourette is considered one of the more important buildings of the late Modernist style.

A masterpiece of architecture and a living witness to the cultural heritage of the 20th century. La Tourette is constructed downward from the horizontal line of the roof and take  the building to the slope. To compensate the irregularity of the relief, Le Corbusier lifted the bulk of the structure off the ground, supporting it by reinforced concrete “stilts”. These “stilts”, in providing the structural support for the house, allowed a free-flowing floor plan in which the floor space was free to be configured into rooms without concern for supporting walls.  From the potentials of the concrete frame and the consequence of a flat roof, the roof garden is served as a green area. The independent walls of the structure give  free façades that could be designed as the architect wished. Glass can be use with total freedom. Here, long strips of ribbon windows allow unencumbered views of the large surrounding view and provide maximum illumination to the house.  The panes of glass achieve the system called “the ondulatory glass surface”.  The unevenly spaced ondulatoires and the similarly uneven horizontal divisions between them were designed according to Le Corbusier’ s Modular system of proportions by Xenakis, a musician, applying musical principles of harmony and rhythm. The result give the panel of glass set a lyrical effect. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Convent of La Tourette, in the midst of nature, located in a small vale that opens out onto the forest. The building is not there to blend in with and complement the surounding of the site, but instead dominates the landscape composition. It is a fortress of concrete on the site of a hill. Concrete is the favorite and the cheapest material that the most architect like to use.

In quadrilateral form, the building contains  a hundred sleeping rooms for teachers and students, the church, a chapel that is served as a town hall, a school with his classroom and a library. The cells logging teachers and students are simple volumes derived from the main principal which he developped in 1930. The principal is found on  Golden Section to the measure of the human body. Le Corbusier develops the architecture proportion and called the “Modular”. It measures the average height of an american; 1 meters 83. and a raised hand of 2 meters 26.   Through the ladder of Golden Sections called the Fibonacci Series, Le Corbusier extended his intial Modulor to infinitely large and small dimensions. Le Corbusier asserted both its aesthetic value and utility as a standardized scale. Le Corbusier uses that knowledge of mathematical proportions to improve both the appearance and function of architecture. He described it as a “range of harmonious measurements to suit the human scale, universally applicable to architecture and to mechanical things.”

While the ouside, La tourette is a simple cube, Le Corbusier has a different idea for the courtyard. There, he plays with simple geometry volume such as a cube, a pyramid, a parallelepiped, a cylinderand square to create different architectural  forms. The passage of the light reveals these forms as the wealth of man’s creation.

Dessau Bauhaus, The Siza School and Nemausus

Dessau Bauhaus

The Bauhaus school was founded by Walter Gropiusin Weimar. In spite of its name, and the fact that its founder was an architect, the Bauhaus did not have an architecture department during the first years of its existence. The Bauhaus style became one of the most influential currents in Modernist architecture and modern design.  The captivating synthesis of glass, steel and concrete, in which each element is integrated without any unnecessary ornamentation, corresponds to its founder’s philosophy that form should follow function. With their unique creative atmosphere, the studio building, workshops, vocational school and stage are the perfect embodiment of this architectural concept.  The Bauhaus had a profound influence upon subsequent developments in art, architecture, graphic design, interior design, industrial design, and typography.

The Siza School

Alvaro Joaquim de Melo Siza Vieira was born in Matosinhos in 1933. He graduated from the School of Architecture of the University of Porto, from early on the architect dedicated himself to the idea of not being a traditionalist, yet without abandoning his roots, constructing a work characterized by the incessant search of something new. However,  the trademark of Siza evolve in “simplism” .  He is considered  to be one of the five most important contemporary architects in the world. Most of his works are located in Europe. One of his famous design is Alvaro Siza 1995. 

Nemausus I and II

Jean Nouvel created a fresh new approach to public housing when he designed Nemausus I and Nemausus II. Constructed between 1985 and 1987, the two seven-story buildings flank a grove of trees.  Nemausus  were  a radical experiment in applying the principles and materials of industrialized building to the construction of social housing.  In  this case , open layout and semi- transparent partion, borrowed from office desin, as well as multi-leevel strategy provide the basis of variety. The experimental nature allow the architect a higher degree of flexibility and the use of non-traditional  design element.  Construction costs were minimized by using simple industrial materials and minimal interior finishes. Sleek and modern, the Nemausus buildings were a widely-praised alternative to the usual, dreary subsidized housing projects with high quality apartments .

 

 

Scale and Proportion

To make a visually appealing composition, it is essential to determine the proportion of the elements that make it. Whether it is the proportion of dots to lines, or of red to blue, one must analyse the position and size of the constituent elements.

Proportion:

size, location, or amount of one part or thing compared to another. Some subjects are governed by certain regular proportions. For instance a face consists of a rough oval; the eyes are set half way down the oval on a line that is ‘five eyes’ in width; the eyebrows arc over the whole eye; the bottom of the nose is usually as wide as the gap between the inner corners of the eyes; the mouth lies half way between the end of the nose and the chin, and at rest is as wide as the distance between the pupils of the eyes; the ears stretch from eye-level to just below the nose; and the neck starts from below the ears and gently curves towards the shoulders. Proportion represents the balance, symetry.

 Scale:

another relative term meaning “size” in relationship to some system of measurement, the relative size of one part of a landscape to another. While we can speak generally of things that are “large or small in scale,” in art and design when discussing scale we are referring to the size of object in relationship to a clear set of measurements. Scale may be the proportion or ratio of size between components in the landscape.

Richard Meier

Meier was born in Newark, NJ.  He earned a Bachelor of Architecture degree from Cornell University in 1957, worked for Skidmore, Owings and Merrill briefly in 1959, and then for Marcel Breuer for three years, prior to starting his own practice in New York in 1963. Identified as one of The New York Five in 1972, his commission of the Getty Center in Los Angeles, California catapulted his popularity among the mainstream.

Much of Meier’s work builds on the work of architects of the early to mid-20th century, especially that of Le Corbusier and, in particular, Le Corbusier’s early phase. Meier has built more using Corbusier’s ideas than anyone, including Le Corbusier himself. Meier expanded many ideas evident in Le Corbusier’s work, particularly the Villa Savoye and the Swiss Pavilion.

His work also reflects the influences of other designers such as Mies Van der Rohe and, in some instances, Frank Lloyd Wright and Luis Barragán (without the colour). White has been used in many architectural landmark buildings throughout history, including cathedrals and the white-washed villages of the Mediterranean region, in Spain, southern Italy and Greece.

In 1984, Meier was awarded the Pritzker Prize, and in 2008, he won the gold medal in architecture from the Academy of Arts and Letters.

One of his masterpiece is Misericordia Church. Meier showed the simplicity but bold form, the Church’s welcoming, summoning and liturgical functions, and creating a structure rich in symbology and spirituality. His inspiration derived chiefly from his belonging to the Jewish faith which, as is well known, forbids depictions of God’s image, and from his admiration for Italian Baroque art, making a revolutionary use of light and forms.

The result is a place imbued in spirituality. The building itself is a religious symbol, with the now famous three “sails” symbolically evoking Peter’s boat, which in the Christian tradition represents the Church as the “People of God” guided by the apostle, attesting to humanity’s walk towards the third millennium.

Inaugurated on 24 October 2003 and dedicated to “Dio Padre misericordioso” (God the merciful Father) by the vicar of Rome, cardinal Camillo Ruini, the church is placed in an urban context between via Casilina and via Prenestina, adjacent to council housing estates where there no relevant landmarks. Despite the apparently modest dimensions, it has automatically become the focal and meeting point of the city quarter.

The open spaces and brilliancy of the interior light, thanks to the white surfaces, the numerous horizontal and vertical glass windows and almost total absence of sacred ornaments make this church a very mystical place that completely “envelops” visitors.

Inside, the absence of shadows – an extraordinary effect obtained thanks to zenith-type illumination provided from the horizontal roof light – make the Dives in Misericordia an “overly divine” place, according to Franco Purini in a recent article in Casabella, “it appears to forget the dialectical relationship with the dark, which pervades the whole history of sacred buildings in Christianity”.

All elements are designed to demonstrate the true “modernity” of the Catholic Church, which is seeking to adapt to the “revolutionary times” now before us.

 

 

And the three sails to the south outline the assembly area long its entire length, accessed via an atrium and flanked, to the left, by smaller rooms serving as ferial chapels and baptistery, while on the right the orthogonal layout of the area is reserved for administrative services. Upon entering the church, the space, which appears simple at first glance, gradually becomes more complex and surprising.

Elevation view

Section view

 

Elevation and section

Topic discussion:

the structure

form

balance

 massing

 light

 symmetry 

 affect/subtractive.

Elevation and section is very important to understand the structure and the element of the structure

 

Story building

Discussion on building formula

i found the topic very interesting because before we start building anything we analyze the environment. we can not just made anything that do not blend with the area at all. It would bad architecture even though the design looks good.  it has to have a story, not only a sense of purpose.

we need to ask several questions:

1. what is the idea?
2. where is the setting?
3. How does building relationship to the surrounding?
4. What are tha over concept?
5. What is the building element?
6. Where is the site?
7. How does building element compare to the site?

Project discussion continue…

We finalize our discussion on building the design and do the FACADE of the element.

In-site design

Spiral pyramid stair design:

We are thinking of collecting all the wood that are there to keep humidity for the trees to build or it could be stone since both materials are available to our disposal.

Site Visualzation

Our site is on the north east grid of the map. the area is a barin slope, bitter with a wind that seemed to strip the trees of its bark. After sitting on the slope and looking over San Francisco, the area began to show its true essence. The area had a grove of eucalyptus trees that seemed to perfume the wind that blew through the trees. On top of the hill there was a balance in nature. The location is empty with car parking on the lot.  It look straight to the freeway. The abscence of people and the noise contrast each other. It is empty but with noise. An haunted area? There is a strange beauty with only concrete surrounding it. There are trees which are there to reinforce his presence. However, I did not feel that way.

Rivers and Tides

Andy Goldsworthy’s awareness of time as the abstract of all sequences.  Life on earth rests in the hands of time.  His works are  materials of the land such as sticks and stones, leaves and flowers and grains of sand. Goldsworthy prefers to make his art on-site, with the very elements of that particular spot. At first glance, hes seems to go back in time, in his childhood.  A block of brown mud, dry and cracked. A handful of red sand thrown into the wind. A pile of rocks. He builds basic forms which take sometimes larger risks and achieving greater depths of complexity, often at the very edge of failure. Many of his efforts are intended only to last a short while — for example, icicles frozen together at night to melt in the morning sun, or towers of beach stones balanced atop each other and left for the ocean waves to consume. However the destruction of his art is art itself. When he spends hours and hours carefully putting together a delicate “spider web” of sticks suspended from a tree only to have a puff of wind blow it down, he simply takes a deep breath and starts all over again. The dedication is palpable and, with the stunningly beautiful art he creates, a treat for the eye.

Andy Goldsworthy discusses ideas of energy, transformation, and flow in his work. From rocks and leaves to icicles and twigs, he brings us on a journey of tranquility. Andy Goldworthy’s art is deeply connected with the flow of energy and time. He creates his art with nature and it is destroyed by other forces of nature and time. The art shows that in nature, energy is always conserved and flows from one form to another. He seeks the “energy that is running through, flowing through the landscape.” Not to capture it, but participate in it. He become one with the surrounding.

He doesn’t bring any foreign materials to the location or use any tools but his hands, intuitively organising objects into shapes and patterns that fit into the environment, feed off it, complement it and become part of it. The objects and constructions he makes are often no more permanent than the natural flow of the environment, allowing the changes of time, tide and season to add something more than any artist could ever have the power to plan or control. He trying to understand the nature of the place and the materials he is working with, working hand in hand with natural objects, bringing out of them something that the ordinary eye normally would not observe or take in. Using the properties and flaws of materials like ice and leaves and the uncertainties of the weather, Goldsworthy can often see his creations fall apart in a matter of seconds, sometimes even before they are completed.

 His work is therefore at oneness with what is around him and part of a bigger picture, one that takes years to achieve. In essence his work is about man and their relationship with their environment, trying to strike up a dialogue to better understand it. It’s about life and the bigger picture that our existence – impermanent and fleeting though it is – has on the greater pattern of life, stretching back into the past and taking an unknown path into the future. Goldsworthy’s obsession with the pattern of a flowing river is as much about the flow of blood through the veins, the twists and turns of a river reflecting the chaos theory patterns of life itself.  His vision is rooted in place and time.