Design Reflection

I personally do not believe in possessing a specific design style. If you only design a certain way, that way may not be entirely appropriate in every location. I believe in adapting the design to the site to make it site specific. This being said, my design process begins with studying the surrounding area very carefully and as in depth as I possibly can. Knowing the people you are designing for is the most important research to study since the structure is going to be for them and used by them in the end. After carefully studying the surrounding area as well as the clients of the structure, I will then look at material choices for my structure. This used to be where it was most difficult to make a decision but since the previous studio project, I’ve been able to choose materials easier and with a much better judgment. The project I am referring to intended to make you think about how you see beauty in architecture or what you look for most or find most important in architecture. This exercise narrowed down some very important aspects when it came to thinking about design, for me. After a couple months of research, I came to the conclusion that I see beauty in architecture through structure, reuse of materials, minimalism, simplicity, functionality, and thinking outside the box as far as how you can use materials in a non-conventional way. To explain further, starting with structure, I took a great interest in Santiago Calatrava and his work. In all of his designs, Calatrava bridges the gap between engineering and architecture. Most architects tend to hide the structure or don’t want to even think about how it can stand up. Calatrava, however, uses structure as architectural elements which create a lightness and refreshing feel to his work. I admire this tend to think more about how I can use bare structural components as architectural elements. Next, I think about using recycled materials. Before this can be done, however, more study of the location must be done in order to know what kind of materials that specific location tends to throw away more of that could be used as something useful. This brings me to another point about architecture. I don’t believe that an architect’s purpose is just to design buildings and structures. I believe architects should be problem solvers figuring out different ways to use or build things that wasn’t thought of before or wouldn’t necessarily be in the most traditional way. I believe thinking outside the box or asking yourself “why not?” is an architect’s most powerful weapon. Designs that are minimalistic and simple, to me, go hand and hand. When learning about the era of ornamentation, I get a claustrophobic feeling. Other than to “look cool or interesting”, I honestly see no point in having so much “clutter” in a design. Though I respect and appreciate classic gothic architecture, I would personally not choose this path when designing. This lastly leads into designing with functionality. Everything I design has to serve a purpose. I believe that’s why I admire architecture from architects like Calatrava so much because even the structure serves a dual purpose, and why I dislike ornamentation so much because it only has the one purpose of looking pretty when not even everyone can appreciate it.   

Kahn vs. Van der Rohe

Louis Kahn and Mies Van der Rohe were considered two of the greatest architects during the early 1900’s. They both had many similarities in relation to their designs, yet they were both unique in their own ways. To begin, Mies Van der Rohe, born in 1886, was commonly regarded as one of the pioneering masters of modern architecture. He, like many of the architects of his time, was striving to establish a new style of architecture to properly represent the modern times. He accomplished this by the simplest and clearest geometries, forms, and concepts. Much like Semper, Mies was very logically driven in his forms yet desired to represent the articulation of the building in response to the fluidity of life. He was a rationalist in the way he used repeatable forms and created interplay between columns and walls. In relation to his floor plans, he strongly desired to abolish allowing rooms creating the organization. In addition to this, Mies also wanted to abolish the center of the house.

Tugendhat House

As is seen in the floor plans of the Tugendhat House (1930), there is no single point or room that can be seen or labeled as the center of the house. All the rooms are scattered throughout the plan without the sense of single axis or grid to arrange and organize the spaces. Though there is a distinct curved wall which forms a dining room in the center of the house (middle plan), the views are cut off by the walls which gives the feeling of a small, unimportant space. Once in this space, your view is distracted by the largeness of the east room adjacent to the dining space which seems to be the main living area of the house which is in fact not in the center of the house. This is also seen in many of his housing designs. 

Moving on, Louis Kahn, born in 1901, was mainly known for combining Modernism with the weight and dignity of ancient monuments and monumental masses. The Exeter Library, for example, was created for the Phillips Exeter Academy and designed to become the monument of the Academy. Climbing to the top of the stairs and approaching the entrance to the building, one can easily understand the layout of the structure. This was seen as a major importance to Kahn. As is seen in the floor plans (ground floor – left; 2^nd floor – right), he desired that people be able to move at ease. This was accomplished by having an open floor plan in addition to a completely symmetrical form for easy understanding of location within. Unlike Mies, the spaces Kahn designed were to be easily understood when standing at any given point on the plan, instead of designing so that the experience of the spaces differs from room to room.  

1st Floor

2nd Floor

http://www.archdaily.com/63683/ad-classics-exeter-library-class-of-1945-library-louis-kahn/planta_de_acceso/