Marek

MAREK JANUS- School of Cræft

Our project this semester was to explore craft- or rather "cræft"- through architecture, and to create a School of Cræft.
But what is cræft? That's where we started off: investigating cræft itself.

What is Cræft?- Intitial Investigation

Our first task was to make a poste investigating cræft, or how we understood it at the start. This was my interpretation; Something made by people taking inspiration from the world around it, that then contributes to its own "world" of cræft. My definition was a lot more along the lines of art than what we decided to keep.
The final definition that we came to was "An activity involving expert skill in making functional objects by hand," which we kept in mind moving forward. We used the old English spelling to emphasize the traditional handmade skills, rather than more modern, machine-oriented jobs.

Now that we had a definition, we had to come up with examples. The inclusion of the words "by hand" relates strongly to more traditional crafts, so that's what we circled in on, ending up with three:
Metalworking, Textiles, and Culinary Arts.

Cræft Investigation Poster

Architect Investigation Presentation

Our next job was to study an architect to see how they incorporate cræft into their projects. My architect was the group Wendell Burnette Architects, situated in Phoenix, Arizona. The works I chose by them were Dialogue House, Field House, and Desert Courtyard House.
All three projects have their own separate ideas, as well as certain overlapping ones.
Dialogue House is based around John Van Dyke's ideas of desert light, particularly "Colored air" and "Reflected Light."
Field House is based on the surrounding rural environment, specifically the abundant farmhouses and silos.
Desert Courtyard house is designed with the thought of the interactions between the house and the outside desert.

Architect Investigation Collage

Architect Investigation Parti

Though they all stand with their own concepts, one idea I see shown throughout all three is a sort of "refurbishment."
All three take ideas from the surrounding environment, and then make something new out of it by introducing new concepts, effectively refurbishing it into something new.
This is what I decided to show in my second poster, cræft in architecture.

This is my parti drawing of the Desert Courtyard House, where I focused on displaying the various areas of the building and their interactions with the environment. Below are 3d renditions of the same parti.

Architect investigation Parti 3d Rendition

Now with an understanding of what cræft is, and having selected three cræfts to investigate, we split up to each research one. I chose the cræft of metalworking, and created this Padlet to store the information I got through my research. This helped me understand metalworking as a craft, allowing me to design based around it.
This was stuff like genres, characteristics, products, tools, etc.

A pattern I found from my research was this contrast between the different types of metalworking. There's very intricate, detail oriented forms, such as welding or jewelry, but then more "Brute force" forms, like forging. These also follow the "timeline" of metalworking, with newer forms generally being more precise. This was a very interesting contrast that I wanted to explore.

Metalworking Investigation Collage

This collage was made after researching, and represents my findings on metalworking.

Project 01- the Wunderkammer

Now with an understanding of our cræft, and how to represent it through architecture, we had to design a Wunderkammer, or "Cabinet of Curiosities" for it. This is meant to be a place where one could practice the cræft, as well as representing it as a whole through its design. I had a lot of ideas on how I could do this, as metalworking is a pretty broad craft at a glance. I started my design process with the first thing that came to mind: the Greek God of fire, Hephaestus.

Idea 1

My first concept I spent the most time on. I wanted this design to represent contrasting concepts in different sections, carved out of an almost cave-like space. The reason I went for this style was based off of my first thoughts of metalworking; The Greek God of fire, Hephaestus, hammering away in the fires of a volcano (or cave, if we want this to be reasonable). This idea eventually spun off into a separate "extreme" design.

My second idea was probably the most disconnected of the three from my final design, but there are still aspects that snuck into it. I wanted this design to mimic fire's general upward motion, so I had the space focus upwards. The floor layout was also loosely based on scale, with smaller projects being worked on one side, and larger ones at the other. With the focus on upward movement, I decided to incorporate a method of cleansing the forge's fumes as they exited the top, following the shape of the building.

Idea 2

Idea 3

This is the "extreme" design that I was talking about, as in not really being something that you could legitimately turn into a building.
I call it "the Flower of Hephaestus," based off of Greek mythology's tales of Hephaestus using a flower (the large fennel, specifically) to transport fire. I thought this was a very interesting idea, especially considering you wouldn't really relate flowers and fire. The idea behind this design was that the plans from Idea 1 would be covered with "petals" of sorts, and having the middle be a very loose pistil representation. Said pistil ended up as this sort of Venus flytrap-like mouth, so that it could open up to release fumes (relating to Idea 2) and maybe use the sun for energy.

My third design is what I eventually picked to move forward with. The inspiration for it came from my research, where whenever I found images of metalworking, there was always this drastic difference in lighting between things like forging/furnace related things and welding/cutting among other things. Though I think that these changes in lighting are mostly just for the composition, I thought that bringing out metalworking's contrasts with lighting was a very interesting concept. I did this by separating the forge into a different domed room, with more modern forms being in a larger open room with a sunroof of sorts facing away from the dome.

The pencil sketches seen on here are from later on in development, using this plan as a base.

"Extreme" Idea

Final Design- The Metalworking Wunderkammer

This is the final design that I ended up with for my Wunderkammer. It's organized by sort of evolution left to right, with the oldest form of metalworking, being the forge, on the left, and newer tools and machines following to the right. Top to bottom, there's a separate organization of the "Brute force" and the "Delicate." This is meant to show the evolution of metalworking as a craft, as well as the different contrasts within metalworking. The walls taper inwards on the outside, only partially revealing the outermost pillars, akin to finding the natural resources for metalworking. These would vary in material, with the earlier "hours" using earlier metals such as copper, and developing as you move around the building.

Much of my design is taken from my original Idea #2, with the forge being in a separate area, and the sunroof creating the natural divide between the two. I incorporated pillars surrounding the shape, acting as the hours of a clock, in order to show the "time" ideas involved. The forge's chamber is meant to be the 12, and the rightmost pillar being the 6. Having the entrance be on the right, as one would walk through the wunderkammer towards the other end, the pillars also help somewhat "guide" you to the forge by closing in at the end. I also incorporated the idea of interacting with the environment like the flower from my "extreme" idea, the forge's chamber having plates that can open up to release fumes/cleanse the air using filters found between the plates and the inside.

The Drawing

This is my Wunderkammer drawing, meant to show the different ideas I used in the design to express metalworking as a craft. I used sun motifs throughout to show multiple concepts, the most literal being the interaction with the sunroof creating the natural divide between the two halves. It is also meant to represent the passage of time, as is commonly associated with. Its "shadow" also helps create the divide between the brute and the delicate, shown through the symbols placed in the sun's path (if it were to be in the position indicated by the clock on its face.

The Model

This is my Wunderkammer model, made with similar meaning in mind. With the large emphasis on contrast throughout my wunderkammer, I opted to go with the clear contrast of the moon against the sun, and having an overall darker composition. This helps the model and drawing work together to communicate the idea, as well as filling in certain gaps.
The major aspect I focused on with the model was, again, the flower. I intended the Flower to represent the forge itself, moving out of its chamber and facing up out the sunroof. I also included the idea of the pillars showing the passage through time, with copper oxidizing- the same color as the flower, symbolizing how old and developed metalworking itself is.

Project 02- School of Cræft: Metalworking Faculty Housing

Now with the cræft investigation complete, our job was to develop these ideas into a School of Cræft, each student having their own role in the process. Being in AD2, our role was to design housing for the college, and I got the faculty housing from the metalworking cræft.

Parti Development

The first step was to just throw out every possible idea we had, represented by our full page of 24 design partis. The project brief called for the housing of four faculty members, and their families, so the main idea I tried to keep across every parti was the distinct representation of four main residences connected in some form or another. I experimented with the incorporation of a few other ones as well, such as literal combination of forms to represent concepts, and ended up with largely geometric designs.

After the brainstorming session, we picked our top 5 favorites, and remade them to a more polished design. Each were assigned names based on the ideas they represented, or what they looked like. Mine were Harmony Chimes, Sheep in Wolf's Clothing, Pillars of Creation, The Fruits of Labor, and Strength in Numbers.

Harmony Chimes ran off a lot of the original ideas my wunderkammer, being the contribution of contrasting elements of metalworking making it the cræft that it is. The way this is represented is based on the idea of chimes, as the name would suggest, with each contrast, despite their differences in tone, they work together under the one roof of metalworking.

Sheep in Wolf's Clothing's name is based on 1), what I see when looking at it, a sheep jumping forward like a wolf, and 2), an alternate method demonstrating the contrasts from the rest. It's supposed to show it as the delicate intricacies hiding under the harsh cover of the general strong or brutal representation of metalworking. While it does somewhat work, it was probably my least favorite of the five.

Pillars of Creation was a concept very heavily relying on the reference of its name, being the Pillars of Creation of the Eagle nebula, monstrous clouds of gases and dust moving through space. I chose to base design off of this due to the name, with a large emphasis of the project being based around creation itself, I saw it an interesting fit. While I didn't end up moving forward with this design, some of it ended up slipping through all the way to the final design.

The Fruits of Labor was one of my earlier partis, still drawing heavy inspiration form the wunderkammer I designed. I really wanted to find some way to represent the natural in my design, from the idea of Hephaestus's flower mentioned before, and this was my solution. This design is meant to act as a vine of sorts holding together its fruits, or what would become the residences. The name is in reference to the common saying, "the fruits of labor," which itself I think is fitting for the cræft of metalworking. The organization/layout of the parti is also somewhat based on the idea of "The Golden Ratio", a mathematical proportion that is said to produce the most balanced designs.

This is the Parti I ended up moving forward with, and I'm not too surprised given how much thought I gave it compared to the rest.

Strength in Numbers was more so designed around the role of the faculty in the school of cræft itself, rather than the relation to metalworking, though its ideas could be pretty easily related back to metalworking as well. The main Idea was that the faculty members are the pillars of the program, being the ones passing their knowledge down to the next generations of students. Though unintentional, the form of the design ended up resembling a gummy bear- Do with that what you will.

Concept Design

Now with the partis done and with a base to build off of, the concept design stage was underway. I selected my top 3 favorites that I though I could develop into something good, and came up with these three concepts.

Concept 1- The Pillars of Labor

My first concept took heavy inspiration from two of my partis, Pillars of Creation and The Fruits of Labor, as represented by the name. I felt that the representation of the teachers as the pillars of their cræft was something I wanted to continue with, as well as the representation of metalworking keeping all of its differences together, like a vine. The physical form of this design relied mostly on The Fruits of Labor, with the "fruits" being extended upwards as the pillars, and the vine wrapping around them, following upwards. To represent the contrasts, each pillar is seated at different heights and pointing off in a different direction

Concept 2- Harmony Shines

My second concept was based off of my Harmony Chimes parti, fully expanding off of it alone. With the base idea of one overarching roof of metalworking covering all the bases, I designed each building under it to represent a contrasting element of metalworking. To do this, I designed each residence as a increasingly complex geometric shape (Circle, triangle, square, pentagon) all situated under one shared roof. In addition, I wanted to represent the idea, that despite their differences, they each shine in their own way. I piggybacked off of the original parti's representation of light reflecting off of chimes and made them into actual passages of light .

Concept 3- Farm Fresh

My third concept probably strayed the furthest from its original parti, Strength in Numbers design-wise. It kept the main idea of the teachers being the source of knowledge, and expanded on this by representing them akin to metalworking's own source- the Earth's materials. In order to do this, the idea was that there would be raised ground to represent mountains/ the earth, and the faculty residences would be propped out of it as though they were carved out. I never ended up making out what the inside of the mass could be, so I ended up scrapping this concept.

Schematic Design/ Development

I decided to move forward with concept 1, as I believed it to have the most potential. My first order of business was to spread it out, giving each residence more space. I also gave each one equal footing, height and space-wise. To do this, I opted to change the vine representation of holding the residences together to instead have each be "branching out" in its own direction. To further enhance the contrasting idea, I initially came up with the idea of each residence having its distinction, acting as a single contrast. This would later become just a "split" between the buildings showcasing some kind of design idea differentiating the two halves. This would become more developed as time went on.

Each residence consists of a "pillar" and an additional section of the "vine" mass. Each pillar consists of three stories with varying layout, and each residence's vine section is divided either as a patio, or extra living space. These spaces are distributed differently among each home, but every one contains the same spaces.

Final Design: The Pillars of Labor

The final design consists of the four pillars, one central mass, and an added public trail surrounding the residences. The split down the middle distinguishes each half as "hidden" or "visible", which determines the organization and feel of each home.

The "hidden" residences are recognized by their closed-off roof, the only opening acting as entrance for light. The majority of their windows face away from the rest of the college, looking outwards past the river on site. The deck out front acts both as the entrance to the home, as well as a social space.

On the contrary, the "public" half has an almost entirely open roof, acting as an open-air balcony and viewpoint. It provides an overlooking view of the college, in addition to the abundance of windows on all sides. The space from what would be on the top floor is reorganized into the central mass as additional living space.

Final Building Renders

An additional effort of the project was to incorporate sustainability into the site. These came into fruition through requirements of the Living Building Challenge (LBC) with things like natural site implementation and clean energy usage. The main implementations of sustainability seen in my project are the site's trail following the building and green roof atop the first floor. These are added in an effort to replace what was destroyed by the project itself, with planned use of local plant life to incorporate everything cleanly.

Final Building Plans + Elevations

Final Building Model