Design Development - Fall 2007
Faculty - Mark Mistur, Mark Cabrinha

Student: Satoshi Kiyono and Karen Zellner

This project was based on a competition entry by Toyo Ito for the Music, Dance & Visual Culture located in Ghent, Belgium. This "performance hall of the future" is intended to become a cultural and communal gathering space, thus called "the Forum." The program defines a need for a modular hall enveloped within a shell that would mediate between the interior and the urban surroundings of the site. The exterior volume is an extrusion of the site that is encased within a facade that accomplishes a negotiation of activities of the interior and exterior by selectively employing the transparent and reflective properties of glass. The glass facade, a veil slipped over concrete forms that divide the spaces into specific programs, further aids in creating the experiential qualities in relation to the continuous surface. Structural double surface geometry of this concrete form creates a continuous load path ultimately providing the desired interior spaces. The continuous concrete surface provides an ideal way for circulation to happen in an unbroken, flowing way between multiple levels, spaces and voids. The resulting layering of the spaces begins to allow for control over interior lighting in relation to the specific needs of the programs. There were many opportunities to fully take advantage of this scheme by incorporating issues of the required systems, structure, acoustics, HVAC, and sustainable elements are possible due to the formal strategy presented by Ito that architectural form is integrated with all issues necessary to develop a structure. The ultimate goal was to maintain this simple system with minimal components of this concrete mass and minimal glass enclosure as a way to sustain as many spatial features.

"Where there's an ambiguity between the inside and outside, and that inside/ outside dichotomy is blurred, that's what I'm interested in." (Toyo Ito)

Student: Erica Anderson and Delroy McEwan

This building consists of variable commitment housing ranging from single, bachelor living, to family living, determined by lofts and two-story apartments. Through multi-level, environmentally apt, community spaces, these inhabitants can interact and develop diverse relationships that would allow for a growth in the sense of community. The main circulation for this building is located in an atrium that connects these community spaces with the private residences by bringing the outdoor environment indoors, and this relation is inversely related to the private apartments themselves by bringing the indoor environment outdoors.

Located on the Boston Harbor, the complex geometric surface façade integrates many environmental systems, such as passive ventilation and natural lighting strategies.

The exterior experience of this structure is intended to draw one in visually, through the way in which the form challenges the domain of the street, and once one is tacitly interacting with the structure it becomes an overpowering figure in space. The overall interior experience is intended to create a continuous variation of private views based on the complex geometry of the structure.

By using a parametric design we have develop a complex surface façade that creates and controls dynamic interior views. This variable façade system creates multiple living environments that allow this building to function as a separate diverse community.

The formal design, structural features, and environmental systems that develop this project allow for multiple and extensive studies in each of these fields in order to create a building that embodies a coherent relationship between a multitude of different variables.

Student: Alex Clement and Victor Barbalato
Project: Soldiers Field Graduate and Adjunct Faculty Housing

The new graduate and adjunct faculty housing for Harvard University is situated within the Soldiers Field Athletic Area and overlooking the Charles River provides a radical solution to an otherwise drab construction of dormitory life. Posing a living condition in which students and faculty live together within a communal atmosphere will allow for a diffusion of information that is critical to the success of higher education facilities. The project places students and adjunct faculty within a matrix of two axis, one stressing individually and privacy and the other exploring the potential of the collective whole. Both of the extremes presented within the project are required in a collegiate environment. The two axis materialize within a Social Atrium lined with delicately perched private Apartments and exposed porches. To mitigate the juxtaposition of public and private, the landscape is scooped up form the outside and pulled up into the atrium, climbing its way up the walkways and walls. Together with the landscape, the walkways create a middle ground for the privateness of the apartments to meld with the inherent social environment of the atrium. Through the use of public planters and enlarged semi-enclosed area precious chance encounters and important planned events can take place, both creating a sense of Community.