CANTOS : A HOUSE FOR POETRY

The transformation of house to studio is based on two poetic qualities: rhythm and structure. Respectively equated with line and mass, I explored these concepts architecturally. My study began with the existing interior divisions and exterior envelope of the house. I kept these footprints as guides for the transformations to come. I altered the structure of the building with variations in massing of the envelope. I interrupted the rhythm by inserting apertures of my own line and light on the facade.

The program was inspired by the historical tradition of performance of the word in amphitheater spaces. I designed my own vision of an amphitheater, formed by the ideas surrounding the mythic circle. The central space takes up the entirety of the house, but the cyclical line is freed from expectation when it reaches the threshold of the envelope. There, the line is free to move. The lines become gaps and let the light in. Light becomes the unifying quality, the anaphora that spreads within and without. My treatment of the site follows a similar language of following existing contours and altering by subtleties. The rectilinear components that the ground has been translated to are reminiscent of the same interior divisions that I began the project with, and follow the elevation changes of the land, creating a landscape that is navigable while remaining open to interpretation.

Mindful of the many walks of life that students in the public school system in New York come from, I wanted to create an architectural sequence for a middle school in Sunset Park that did not impose a path for the students but rather offered them multiple paths and let them make their own most efficient, entertaining, or social able way through the building.

I designed three main ways of moving throughout the building—weaving in and out of the programmatic requirements and encouraging students to go their own way. If we want our spaces to inspire us, we need the autonomy to move through them freely.

During my explorations with the sequence of circulation — I refined the program to frame perspectives that lend themselves to an episodic experience of the building. The buildings opens itself up on the inside to the natural light without, and interior elements respond to one another. The resulting spaces are most simply delineated as solids and voids, and the interstitial spaces that the circulation carved from them. The scheme drew inspiration from the many scales of the city, how they may be interpreted and represented. Especially in how one student may navigate them.