The Light Cube

The Light Cube jiayi xu (a1715382) representation ii

Contents

1

Place Site description • Photographic study • 3d views Site analysis • Shade & shadow study • Access, movement, use pattern • Place social character Light study • Luminosity

2

Idea Metaphor Possibilities • Geometrical explorations • Experiential views of entry • Experiential views of enlightenment Light study • Reflection

3

Form Light pavilion 3D model Light pavilion Plan Light pavilion section Light pavilion elevation Composition & Structure Light study • Opacity

4

Material Visual Mobility 1&2 Aerial & ground views Access & movement Internal views • Light travelling construction details • Wall & floor details Light study • Filtration

Place 1

Photographic study The Maths Lawns space is in front of the Barr Smith Library’s East elevation, which is bordered on the southern side by the Mathematics and Engineering Building, and on northern side by the Physics Building and Braggs Lecture Theatre, also connects Gate 6A. The space acts as a main connection between surrounding buildings, and due to many factors, it can catch as much light as possible during the day, also has bright human-made light at night.

The glass curtain walls of the two buildings along the site, the Mathematics and Engineering Building and the Braggs Lecture offer light reflection. When the sun shines on the glass wall during the day, the entire walls will become gleaming, and create shadows on the glass walls. In the evening, the lights illuminate along the site, and the interior lights shine through the glass walls. The place where the light is shining on the wall and the place in the shadow will visually produce a contrast of colors, which will highlight the sense of structure and space. From a distance, all the little lights are suspended in the entire site, like a star map.

When the rain hits the glass curtain wall and shows a water pattern on the glass.

Light passing through the curtain wall flashes on the floor in the room. Although located in a city in the city centre, this whole site allows people to enjoy the changing light and mood while the day passes, and recognise the changing seasons.

1 Day time photography with natural light. Standing in the middle of the site and facing Barr Smith Library 2 Day time photography with natural light. Sunlight reflection on the wall of Ingkarni Wardli.

3 Night time photography with ambient light. Standing at the platform on Barr Smith Library’s East elevation in front of the site.

4 Night time photography with ambient light. Standing on the stair of Ingkarni Wardli, with temporary event canopy.

Place 2

3d views

Place 3

Plan

Key

Summer shadows

01 Barr Smith Library 02 the Braggs 03 Molecular Life Science 04 Santos Building 05 Engineer and Maths. Science 06 Ingkarni Wardli 9:00

12:00

15:00

03

2.4

24

.5

15

02

04 05

Winter shadows 28

06 01

.4

25.1

.8

13 46 .9

.9 60

SCALE: 1:300

15M

9:00

12:00

15:00

Place 4

Site analysis

The surrounding buildings enclose the entire site. The buildings have different functions which bring different people.

The majority of people passing the site between the site and Barr Smith library.

Many students pass the site from one to the opposite, or walking along the site.

The natural sun light rises from the back of the Braggs and sets behind Ingkarni Wardli. The site can have maximum day light in any seasons.

The site can be used as event space. During the event, the canopy on the site may block part of the light and views.

The site acts as a rest place. People always come and buy food, or having a more private talk on the seats here. Drinking device and rubbish bins also arranged along the site.

The site covered is covered by large areas of green plants, involves grass on the site and trees along, which offer shadows.

Place 5

Luminosity

The first aspect of light study is luminosity.

The use of luminaries is to construct a free, agile and imaginative temperament space is like a magical "space magic" that brings basic lighting effects while at the same time revealing a huge artistic appeal. Light not only can beautify the space, create an atmosphere, but also make the whole building full of fun and vitality through subtle changes in light and shadow, contrast between light and dark, and bring a shocking visual effect. Light fills the gap between architecture and people's perceptions, not directly, but through the light to feel the form and materials of the building.

Zaha Hadid's projects did very well at this point, not only because of the special way she used of special materials, but also her imagination of light. For example, in the Guangzhou Opera House (China, 2010), she used golden charm and brilliant stars light. The fluidity and seamlessness of light is the main focus of the entire design.

On the ceiling, thousands of star-like pixel lights remind the audience of the stars. The lighting pattern on the cascading balcony flows like a reflection of a waterfall. The transparent glass facade of the building is undulating like ripples, reflecting the changing colours.

In addition, Zaha Hadid's visual enhancement of the lighting is focused on the lighting itself, but not through the design of the luminaire to enhance the effect. In her view, this is a part of the building that needs to be strengthened. Although some of her contemporary architects began to focus on dynamic forms and touched the media facade in order to discover different dynamic urban scenes. But Hadid limits her lighting design parameters to form and reflectivity. Surprisingly, Hadid almost never transformed her painting movement into dynamic lighting of the building. In her temporary installation “Parameter Space� (Copenhagen, 2013), the light mode responds to the flexible movement of the film and embeds it in its parametric architectural language.

Place 6

At the Fino Science Centre (Wolfsburg, 2005), Hadid uses coherent tabular lighting to make light flow from Windows to the ceiling. She designed a holistic approach to lighting: the windows and luminaries on the building's surface have the same shape, freeing the lines and sharp corners of her previous projects. The overall elevated concrete structure provides a large shaded area, and the outer daylight view enhances the impression of darkness in the shadows, and the insertion of diffuse ceiling lights in a dim atmosphere is a way to deal with dark shadows. Unlike earlier projects with sharp edges, the entire building has a curved shape that forms a coherent outer surface of the fluid. The overall feeling is a holistic approach to lighting that includes both daylight and artificial lighting.

Similarly, Zaha Hadid is also very distinctive in the use of light internally. Zaha Hadid usually uses the form of sunlight and lighting to enhance the mobility of the interior space of the Twentieth Century Museum of Art in Rome(Italy 2009), exceeding the space energy of the ordinary facade. In the museum, she unified the fluid form, daylight and lighting to acquire a particular emotion. She used linear louvers to filter the daylight through the conceptual framework, as well as, hide electrical lighting system as much as possible. From the viewer's point of view, the black staircases forms a strong contrast with the white illuminated underside of the staircases.

At the Heydar Aliyev Centre, designers use light to keep the interior flowing in the day and night. For the softer gradient of light and darkness, the quality or state of being homogeneous is applied.

During the day, the light is reflected on the wall, mostly the overall shadow pattern of the sun. The smooth surface is not disturbed by the sub-texture, and the surrounding environment is reflected on the glass curtain wall. At night, internal light flows to the exterior surface and the geometry of the building is enhanced by external floodlights.

Therefore, the curved light lines in the auditorium also emit soft brightness.

Place 7

Metaphor Seek Light Is Discovery Trent Parke said, “I am forever chasing light. Light turns the ordinary into the magical�. Light is the basis for reflecting the reality of objects, allowing people to reflect on the space corresponding to them. The same object or space is completely different in different light, and light is like a sign of guidance, discovering the multifaceted characters and nature of things and space.

When entering a pace, feel the flow of light and shadows through time and space, follow the changes in light to discovery a space, and change the angle and way of viewing through the light.

Place 8

Idea 1 - chessboard The western chess, which has black and white colours on the chessboard, is the original idea of the possibility. The process of playing chess is like people of two sides discovering different possibilities in light and shadows. So the chessboard as the picked elements used in the design, achieved the form after push-pull and digging.

The idea initially hopes to create a contrasting effect. From the outside, it looks like just an ordinary cube. When people enter this place through the noisy site, since that light can enter this space from every angle, they can discovery different scenery.

SITE PLAN

Place 9

Idea 2 - hill Inspired by the ups and downs of the mountains. The mountains vary in height and looks different in different angle of light. So the arc of the mountain is used. The shape of the roof is divided into rectangles by a mountain arc, which is open on both sides to facilitate daylighting. When light shine on the roof top, it can create visual illumination when people stand at opposite occasions.

SITE PLAN

Place 10

Idea 3 - cave When the light enters into the cave, it creates the thought of following the light and discovering inside. The form created from basic cuboid through push-pull and cutting off. The folded roof separates the large space under the roof from the building, separating most of the light from the direct sunlight at midday, while the morning and afternoon natural light, and the human-light in the night, can be radiated from the large space on two opposite sides. Encourage people to walk in and discover the space in the light and hide under the big roof.

SITE PLAN

Place 11

Reflection

The transparency of glass buildings spreads rapidly in modernism, yet many people want to improve the monotonous glass walls in skyscrapers, such as the mullion elements used by Mies. However, the subsequent tabular glass curtain wall still feels boring. In order to change this, the unconventional design of the glass exterior wall is beginning to increase.

After the technically unique transformation of the glass and metal, the outer surface of the architecture has been able to produce a crystalline images. Reflection is the second theme of light study.

In the reflective design of the glass facade, one of Herzog and de Meuron’s works, Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg is a prominent example of reflective glass curtain wall treatment. They twisted the perception of the city, the water and the sky with glass that bent inward and outward.

In order to make the building reflect the dots or lines of the bright light streaks, the glass on the curtain wall is designed to be curved.

When the sun is diffusely reflected, light reflects a bright line through a unique curve on the curved glass. In the direct sunlight, there will be jewel-like bright spots jumping on the glass wall.

Overall, the curved facade of the entire building evokes a liquid-like image that vividly expresses the connection between the building and the surrounding waters through the reflection of the facade light.The outer shell of the glazing of the Elbphilharmonie consists mainly of diamond-shaped elements that act like contact lenses, which produce a pronounced distortion on the outer wall due to the convex shape of the exterior of the glass.

It is worth mentioning that not only on the outer wall of the building, the reflection of the diamond-shaped transparent glass provides an interesting view for insiders.

Place 12

The second example of light reflection was from American architect Frank Gehry at the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao in 1997. He chose titanium cladding as a building. The surface of the cover transfers the aesthetics of this reflected light from glass to metal.

Titanium sheet material has a sparkling light quality and a changing appearance, which not only brings a vibrant light to the building itself, but also a unique dynamic image enhances the design of the lid. When light and shadow are reflected on the surface of a building, it changes with each cloud and sunlight. “Although they are less than half a millimetre thick, they evoke an interesting, almost corrugated tactile dressing.� —Herbert Muschamp.

Another example of the use of light reflection is also achieved through the uniqueness of the material. The cover of the Selfridges Birmingham department store opened in 2003 is covered with 16,000 shiny anodised aluminium discs. There is no need to add any more signs on the building, because the architecture itself has become the most attractive signs in fashion.

When the light shines on the surface of the building, the net woven by the shiny cover produces a fascinating sense of scale: the raised small disc creates a fascinating feeling, and from the external overall form, it is impossible to draw The size of the building and other information.

The light reflections of the Messe Basel New Hall are also represented by metallic materials, but contrary to the Birmingham metal cladding, the architect uses elongated metal to understand the reflection of light. To evade the monotony and boring of the completely enclosed exhibition spaces, the exterior wall uses a lightweight aluminium twisted belts that evenly but stretch-ably adjusts the aluminium exterior wall. This adds brightness to the building, in stark contrast to the dark areas.

These reflective and shimmering materials greatly improve the building's surface as a carrier for the implication of a building.

Place 13

Place 14

Place 15

Elevation

The final design is based on the first possibility—the chessboard.

The transparent glass curtain wall is like a huge lampshade under the sun, and the underside of the building and the hollow open space in the middle naturally evolve into a pavilion of light and shadow. The whole space follows the change of natural light in the day, and the rhythm of light and shadow is intertwined, and together with human activities, a vivid natural scene is performed.

Place 16

Site plan & section

SCALE: 1:600

The building is located north of the centre of the site. It is not completely parallel to the edges of the site, but is five degrees to north, in order to creating more light and shadow reflections with the surrounding buildings.

With the main entrance and the disabled access facing the Barr Smith Library, introducing the view of the site through the large opening and the four-sided

1.5M

pure glass curtain wall.

The height of the building is one floor and all surrounding by the opening space. From the section, the top of the building is slightly wider than the bottom, which expands the view space and is consistent with the buildings on both sides, curtain wall merges with the environment around.

Place 17

Floor plan

Key 7

6

8

5 4

11 3 9

01 Main Entrance & Reception Area 02 Storage Space 03 Seminar Room 04 Washbasin 05 Male Toilet 06 Female Toilet 07 Unisex Toilet 08 Presentation Space/Exhibition 09 Small Library 10 Disabled Access 11 Opening Space 12 Relaxing Space

12

10

1

2

SCALE: 1:400

2M

The entrance hall is backed by an open courtyard that presents a clear first impression to users and visitors. The building has a variety of study areas, including two seminar rooms facing the opening space, a small library for multiple people, a showroom, a bathroom and a storage room. Each area is combined with the plane for partition layout to avoid mutual interference.

Place 18

Composition & structure

Opening Space

Hollow

Large Space

Supporting Beams

Supporting Beams Stainless steel flat steel is used for lateral fixation.

Made of steel frame reinforced concrete, connected to the glass curtain wall and ceiling.

Gray precast concrete floor

Small Space

Minimise the relationship between indoor and outdoor, but also brings a full range of natural.

Place 19

Opacity

The third part of light study is opacity. The white surface inside the building has a high reflectivity, so white walls in the space can bring reflective light to the interior of the building and are widely used to brighten the room efficiently in dark spaces.

This is due to the fact that in the Nordic buildings, due to geographical reasons, the position of the sun is lower than in other areas, and the light will form a long and narrow shadow indoors. So this method, especially in the design of the church, is widely used.

For example, in Denmark, the white surface in medieval churches are the earliest cases: the Dybkær Church designed by Regnbue Arkitekter. The architect used an irregularly textured white brickwork to create an atrium to emphasise the black cross, creating a sharp contrast. The light introduced by the side windows is on the wall, in order to give the church a sacred feeling.

In the study of Henry Plummer's book "The Light of Northern Europe: Modern Nordic Architecture," he said: “Whiteness is an important way for Nordic architects to cope with the characteristics of the environment.

The Architect used white walls and white ceilings to highlight the most important element — light in the church, to introduce light into the interior of Denmark for most of the time, so that the light in the room is always larger than the outdoors.

Alvar Aalto's art gallery, Nordyjllands (1972), uses white materials in the interior: white plaster, enamel steel and linoleum. As Henny Plummer said in his research, the concept of Alvar Aalto “white diffusion” is maximised in this architecture, with white shadows on the floor and ceiling three sides of the building.

Place 20

In addition, in religious architecture, especially the churches, various types of time concepts are things that are focused on in all aspects, such as the material and function of the building.

The use of glass windows to introduce daylight in the Pirkkala Church of Käpy and Simo Paavilainen is one of the striking examples. The architects showed the different uses of interior space by changing the light in the day.

The window glass in Pirkkala Church acts as a lens and mirror, and the entire altar forms a strong contrast under the sunlight, which can giving people a sense of sacred of being in the church.

In the morning liturgy, the church is illuminated with bright, glare-free sunlight for the attention of the people; at the end of the afternoon service, the light is stronger; during the week, in order to strengthen the atmosphere of contemplation, the soft light shines through the glass. Shine into the church.

Other architects also have their own unique approach to lighting as lighting, such as Aarno Ruusuvuori, who did not use bright sunlight as Käpy and Simo Paavilainen in his work, which he believes would distract the main functions of the building. In his work, a more abstract approach is used to explain the role of sunlight.

As Aarno Ruusuvuori said: "Lighting is not an end in itself. But it means giving people a sense of eternity."

Place 21

Mobility

Place 22

Mobility

Supporting Beams

Hollow

Glass Brick Wall

Place 23

Aerial & ground views

12

8

7 13

16

14

1 2

Place 24

Access & movement

At the junction of the flow path, some activity spaces are set up, such as a rest area facing the open area, so that people can share the social and leisure time, and the efficiency and comfort of the moving lines.

In addition, the design introduces a square public streamline in the building, and the main entrance, small space, and large space are connected in series through the streamline, so that different communication places can establish a closer relationship. The open space and the curtain wall skin also correspond to this common streamline, making the interior space and the facade form uniform. When walking, people can see the outside green trees and scenery through the open openings and the curtain wall.

Place 25

Internal views

Due to the light transmission of the pure glass curtain wall, light can flow in the whole space, act as a guide to lead people to discover small spaces in the large space, or inverting the space through the curtain wall, which offers a light exploration in the space.

Place 26

Construction details

The glass wall consists of pure glass blocks. This wall effectively blocks the sound but introduces the outside scenery. A glass with a very high transparency is used. The subtle roughness of the glass surface brings

unpredictable light and shadow effects to the building. In the final envisioned effect, the fitting of the glass bricks and the staggered glass walls create a fresh "checkerboard" that looks like a glowing light.

Place 27

Filtration

Moreover, Filtration is also a method that is often used in the architecture. In this type of example, the building is often designed through the opening, direction and texture of the building to create a visual light change. When light go through the architecture, it can create completely different unique experience and feelings.

Among Le Corbusier’s architectural works, he cleverly used the filtration of daylight to highlight the dynamics of his architectural works, such as the chapel at Ronchamp, the monastery of Sainte Marie de La Tourette, and the parish church of Saint-Pierre in Firminy.

In the book "The Universe of Light: The Divine Building of Le Corbusier" by Henry Plummer, Emeritus Professor of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, he carefully analysed his understanding of the light of Le Corbusier’s buildings. In his word, in the interaction and performance of light and colours of architecture, Le Corbusier showed his extraordinary sensitivity, especially in sacred religious buildings.

Plummer believes that the most striking thing about Ronchamp chapel is that the continued use of changes in sunlight provides different colour emotions for the building.

When the sun rises in the early morning and shines through the window into the Ronchamp chapel, the red window makes the light which go through it more red. According to Plummer’s word, the reddish sunlight just like people's newborn.

When the afternoon sun is about to fall, the light of the sunset will refract from the opening of another side chapel.

Place 28

Plummer pointed out in his research that, the design and layout of light in La Tourette is much more complicated and more widely distributed than in the chapel of Ronchamp in the following aspects.

The Monastery of Sainte Marie de la Tourette in Éveux-sur-l’Arbresle (1953-60) offers many different light experiences for the worshippers, all of which are oriented towards the interior corridors and are from one of the four basic orientations. Additionally, architect used the layout of the windows to distinguish between different corridors.

In the study, Plummer pointed out that unlike the repeated windows and columns in the traditional churches, the irregular light and shadow projections in the corridors of this monastery are like musical scores.

Due to the light itself and the transparent spacing, the periodic rhythm of light flows smoothly and gracefully on the wall, just like a rhythmically elegant piece of music, which helps the worshipper's contemplation.

The church of Saint-Pierre at Firminy (1960-2006) is also very impressive. When light shines into the interior space from the window of east facade, small star-like spots will be formed on the ground, and the rising and falling of the sun during the day will gradually become light waves with different positions.

Le Corbusier used a variety of different expression methods in the use of light in the building, and also achieved different effects. His dynamic light transcends the static architectural space, bringing a striking light pattern to the building.