Community and Privacy - Building in Earthtexture

The work for the semester is the designing of places for community and privacy. These are always the two main issues that we have as architects. How to make spaces that can respond to the needs of the community for joyful livable places of interaction and how to respond to the dreams of individuals to provide for a joyful livable place of their own.

The second concern is building on the land or earthtexture. Earthtexture includes land, sky, air, wind, sun, context; all influence what we design. Architecture happens in the space between the sky and land and the designs for the studio will always take this into account. We will also explore materials and structures that can relate to earthtexture and to give architectural meaning to the forms. It is with an understanding of materials/structures that we can give form to our ideas of architecture.

Finally, and most important we will be understanding and reflecting the ideas and dreams of the people we are designing for. Architecture is a echo of our society and culture and at the same time it can influence the way that people relate to their surroundings.

There is one project for the semester but in three parts. The first part is designing an "observation community place" in an abandoned quarry in Rockport near Boston. The concern is how to design a cover for the sky, sky form, and a platform for the land, land form, that can give people shelter from the wind, sun, rain, snow. The second part is to design places for a "community of individuals in the sky" on the rooftops and walls of buildings in the North End. This is another translation of land and we will treat the area as quarry, the buildings being sides of this quarry. Sites will be on roof tops, on sides of the quarry/ buildings/ or both. There will be as many sites as designers in the studio and each will be asked to pick a site, space, and design a place for you to live and work while projecting your life ten years from now. Again the architecture must not only relate to the sky and land but also attached to the walls or roof. The last part is to design a "community meeting place" for members of your studio on a site in the same area. The project is the making of a small building of not more than 5,000 square feet that might contain, meeting places, work rooms, living places. The program for the building is to be designed by each studio member. Adjacent to this building will be a small "earthplace" a place related to nature that might be enjoyed by not only your community but others in the North End community. The designing mediums will include sketch modeling, sketching, making of full size pieces of the building and drawing methods that you used last semester. In addition we will be working in digital programs, such as Photoshop, Powerpoint, digital photo programs that can be useful in explaining your design.

Landscape and Engineering consultants will be part of the teaching of the studio. Other issues for the semester:

the making of the space and space within
the making of large scale and human size
the making of space and place
the making of light and shadow