Structure and Programming

The idea of a community is simplified in our modern society as a cube. We have developed a sense of community to be a walled cube where you cannot see in or out of it. The cube represents a way of life where you cannot see or understand a community other than the six sides and the mystery of what is enclosed. This model represents a form of community that need to be established. This model is still a cube, and resembles a community. However, this is the vision where we see and understand the structure of the cube (community). We can see what pieces make it work and hold it's shape. Every part of the cube is part of the overall idea and everything has a role in the community, even the voided space. This understanding of each piece's role in the cube is recognizable and in full affect.

We need to stop seeing the cube for just an enclosed object but understand the essential components of the object.

This is an exploration of an adjustable structure. There are very many variables that can affect a structure and many considerations when adapting it to a particular situation. This model is an alteration on many levels of the same form responding to different conditions. 

Further exploration of the notion of an adapting structure has derived a solution for solar conditioning. This model represents an arched vault that consists of six different sides that rest at different angles. Each of these angles plays a different role in the larger picture of the interior space. The skin adapts to the different lighting and solar conditions. By the implementation of this particular type of structure, it engages the design of the skin to flourish in it's purpose and function, creating a harmony and clear coherence between structure and skin.  

These two models are investigating spatial arrangement that might work within the form of the building. There are levels of the program that are to be designated as private and pubic areas where these diagram models start to investigate their relationships.

This model is a simple depiction of a central focus and an organization of spacial arrangements. The relationships between void space and form start to describe a vocabulary of how many pieces interact to achieve a larger idea of form.

The abstraction of a typical suburban environment is depicted in this model on the right side. The black walls between the buildings represent the "home life". People build and live in houses with the idea that once they are there they can do anything. When they do what they please in these spaces they are not exposed to the outside world. 

For example: When you are in the typical private home you have a choice, you can toss the aluminum can in the trash or you can place it in a recycling bin. As an individual in your own house, nobody is there to enforce you to do anything and since you are hidden behind the threshold of your home, you will never see the environmental impacts of what your ignorance to recycling will produce. 

The idea of the model on the left is to take down those walls and start to envision the world without an ignorance of your neighbor. There needs to be a practice of coherence between households, streets, and communities so that people can be exposed to the larger picture at hand.

The concept that has risen out of these investigations is that the world needs to become recognized as a whole and not just one solution for one individual. Society needs to understand the nature of this world and understand our role in it. Without understanding the bigger picture in what your action inevitably produce, than forever will we live in a decreasing world. 

Green Building is not going to achieve sustainability! The idea of sustainability is to understand the whole situation of a design problem in any case. Building one thin will affect something else. Destroying one thing will affect something else. Unless you have fully understood that notion you cannot achieve a design that is sustainable. All elements must be considered and united to benefit all situation and not just the one you are trying to solve, all affected elements must be considered.

Sustainability will not be achieved by building a building. The idea that placing a building somewhere will not make this world sustainable. Placing 100,000 of them all over the world will not either. The first step is to reform society to understand their bigger role in this world. Human being in their lifestyles need to surpress the idea of their front door and realize that they are part of the world outside that threshold; there is a world outside and your actions are directly affecting this planet. For every action there is going to be a reaction, some greater than others.

To achieve sustainability we need to first be educated in a way of life that form people to understand their role in nature. In this type of integrated co-operative housing design of this thesis, the idea of the individual role of a person become very clear to every person involved. Not only in function of sharing spaces but the idea of how spaces are shaped start to comprehend the larger idea of how the structure is responding to the larger picture at hand. As the model before was adjusting to the larger picture of solar conditioning, this model is a representation of spaces. In the way that these spaces are shaped, the occupant will have a very good understanding of why is it shaped that way. The occupant understand that the space is shaped by the larger picture; the overall arch.