Skin in the Game: Price Gardens

SKIN IN THE GAME

Ella Carlock

Kjirsten Daleiden Brugman Angela Jones

Project Abstract

The goal of this project was to create a building intended to be a museum.

In the beginning, everyone in the group researched two buildings, one located on Iowa State University's campus and the other located anywhere around the world. Our group selected Hamilton Hall on campus and the Institute for Research and Coordination in Acoustics/Music (l'Institut de recherche et coordination acoustique/musique) in Paris, France. From there, we creating montages of individual aspects of the buildings the weight or mass, rhythm, etc.

After six montages per person, we moved forward in researching artist that might feature their works in our space We chose Gary Lee Price, Igshaan Adams, and Heather Jansch. Taking into account these artists and their styles, we began to design facades.

Finally, after a few iterations, we came together as a group and chose what we liked about each person's iterations things we wanted to keep, tweak, etc Together, we designed the building, inside and out

Portfolio

Part 1

Hamilton Hall

Hamilton Hall, located on the east side of Iowa State University's campus, was designed by architect John Normile. In addition to designing Hamilton Hall, he was the local architect for the Basilica of St John in Des Moines, Iowa. He owned his own practice and designed housing for Drake University. He also designed buildings around the country, including North Carolina. He was president of the American Institute of Architects from 1939-1940.

Hamilton Hall is a prime example of horizontality and verticality The building is only three stories, highlighting its horizontality, but features tall, slim windows. These windows span two or three floors but are only roughly a foot wide.

Hamilton Hall lacks windows on a majority of its faces, causing the interior to feel closed off, cold, and dark

IRCAM

the Institute for Research and Coordination in Acoustics/Music (IRCAM) is located in Paris, France. IRCAM was designed by architect Renzo Piano. Piano is known for "turning architecture inside out "

IRCAM features verticality in it's contrast to the buildings around it. The building is located in an older district surrounded by older buildings, like most of Paris. Though the buildings near it don't reach higher than five stories, IRCAM spans eight, featuring strong vertical windows and scaffolding

IRCAM has windows on only two of its faces due to its location within the city. This is ideal for what the interior spaces are used for--lecture and concert halls, practice rooms, and auditoriums. This creates a dense and closed off feeling within the building.

Part 1

Ella Carlock

In these montages, I wanted to focus on order versus disorder. IRCAM is a very serious space where professionals go to practice their craft. However, Hamilton Hall is located on a college campus and it generally used by students just starting out. I wanted to call out this contrast in these pieces the light compared to dark, chaos versus calm.

In these two montages, I focused on the emotions of the spaces. Because both buildings are filled with a mix of very large and very small rooms, I wanted to illustrate the emotions one might feel while within these buildings isolation, confusion, loss, overwhelmed.

Part 1 Kjirsten Daleiden-Brugman

My process of creating the montages began with thinking about the architectural elements of IRCAM and Hamilton Hall, such as the weight and mass of the buildings, as well as the horizontality and verticality of the buildings. I also considered the function of the two buildings as places of interaction, invention, and experimentation and attempted to imbue my montages with playful and creative elements One of the montages that was fundamental to the future stages of the project attempted to encourage curiosity and playfulness by hiding a colorful paper ball inside a box with controlled sightlines, so that the model had to be lifted up and moved around to view the interior.

Part 1

Angela Jones

My thought process for my montages was focused on how to represent the features and elements I focused on in our buildings and thinking about different ways to display that. I tried to think of unusual ways to represent different parts and experimented with how depth and angle could change that.

Part 2 - Revised Montage

Ella Carlock

For my final montage, I wanted to highlight something that had come up in a critique parasitic architecture. I had never heard the term before and did a little bit of research. In the end, this was the result. The building is a façade of the building IRCAM is attached to, and the black is a pattern of sound-proofing panels found within IRCAM. Because IRCAM is used for modern and experimental music, I thought the idea contrasted well against the surrounding area's style of architecture, just as IRCAM itself does

Part 2 - Revised Montage

Kjirsten Daleiden-Brugman

My process for creating my final montage was to continually iterate to come up with more and more ways to express playfulness and curiosity in my montage. I worked on limiting the viewer’s sightlines through screens and smaller viewports, as well as creating doors to open and a mechanism inside to hide, reveal, and change the colorful elements inside.

Part 2 - Revised Montage

Angela Jones

My thought process for my final montage was to combine all of the qualities that my previous montages focused on, and I tried to convey it in a different way I thought about how I wanted a strong vertical contrast which is how I got the box atop of a pole in my design.

Part 2

Façade Desi

Ella Carlock

For my façade designs, I focused on two things, the architec which Hamilton and IRCAM were built and the artists we ha featured in out art exhibit.

Both IRCAM and Hamilton Hall are prime examples of 60s s architecture, so I did research on other styles popular around that time and incorporated it into my designs. This is most evident in my seccond drawing

In two other drawings, I wanted to incorporate a more industrial aspect. This was brought on by two of the artists we selected because they both do pieces in metalworks. I thought that the selection of these metals on the outside as well as the inside would allow for a more cohesive feel.

In my final of the four façade drawings, however, I wanted to focus on a specific aspect of one of the artists Gary Lee Price. Price's pieces tend to be permanent installments in parks, outside of hospitals, or in other community spaces. I wanted whatever building we were creating to be one of those community spaces, so I went with a modern design, similar to a carbon positive home, and allowed for a green, grass roof that the guests would be able to venture onto.

Façade

Façade

Designs

Kjirsten Daleiden-Brugman

To create the individual facades, I took inspiration from the forms and shapes found within my montages especially my final montage to create arrays of windows following the percentage constraints in the project. While the form of the windows was inspired by my montages, the placement was more so determined by the ideas of curiosity, constricting sightlines and how light might affect the space In each façade, I placed the most windows on the north and east faces to take advantage of softer, indirect sunlight and block out harsher sunlight from the west and south. I also experimented with how approaching the building might change a person’s experience based on whether they were able to see into the building when approaching or whether the building is slowly revealed upon getting closer.

Looking back on my initial facades, I believe that it would have been worthwhile for me to experiment more with the shape of the overall building, even if it stayed cubic in the end. Something that I was proud of looking back on my montages is my courage to not create exactly what was in the project description, but instead communicate my ideas in the most effective way. I believe that experimentation with form would have expanded the ways I thought about the building, as well as the space inside, which would always benefit me in a project.

Part 2 - Façade Designs

Angela Jones

My thought process for my facades was to try and come up with different ways to change how light would enter the space using the elements we found in our precedents. Most of my ideas focused on rearranging each part and it's elements and seeing how that would change each façade.

Part 2

Façade Designs

Ella Carlock

From here, we continued on to refine these ideas I chose my second and fourth designs because I thought that these would fit the art and out previous research the best. I supported the windows in areas where that was lacking and made sure that all of my measurements would accommodate all types of people and art.

In reflection, I do really love these designs They both have their perks and drawbacks, but I think overall, really using any aspect of these buildings would have benefited our final.

Part

Façade Designs

Angela Jones

Looking back at my six facades, I am happy with what I produced, but I wonder how my work would've changed if I combined my designs into one piece despite the ways they were different and conflicted.

Part 3 - Site Drawings and Sections

Ella Carlock

For the site plan, I wanted to place the building on top of a hill so that anyone would be able to overlook the space. I wanted it to be used as a park with plenty of flora.

Angela Jones

The thought process of my sight plan was to place the building higher up to allow light in and allowed a view out of the surrounding area.

Kjirsten Daleiden-Brugman

When creating the site plan, I focused on how the theme of curiosity and investigation could be implemented into a person’s experience of the site. This was mostly done by constructing sightlines and vistas using path elements. Starting on a hill, looking over the building the path continues down the side, stopping periodically to give ever evolving views of the structure while keeping the interior concealed and still piquing the visitor’s curiosity.

Part 4 - Elevations

Angela Jones

We wanted the building to stand out in the landscape, so we added the color on the exterior. We also wanted to create different ways to shade the interior, so three out of the four walls can be modified to show more or less light.

Part 4 - Section Plans

Ella Carlock

We didn't want the interior of the building to distract from the art, so we went for a more neutral interior. Kjirsten wanted a series of spires inside with a translucent fabric or shade between them. These spires would form a circle in the center of the room. In the middle of these spires, there would be a featured sculpture.

We wanted to be able to create the model in a way that showed each of the shading devices featured on the building. Our 1/2" scale model features the floor detailing at a larger scale and a moveable version of the more complex shading device.

Angela Jones

Part 3 - Final Site Plan

Ella Carlock

For our final site plan, we wanted to create a good mixture of our individual plans. We wanted an area where patrons could look over the land, so we added those in the northwest and southeast corners of the map. We also wanted the building to be able to look over part of the land, so we placed it higher than the bodies of water, which we mandatory in our minds as well. Overall, we wanted the space to be large, green, and open for anyone and everyone to enjoy.

I think that this is a good representation of the space we wanted to create. I wanted something similar to Reiman Gardens here in Ames, and I think we achieved that in our own way.

Part 4 - Floor Plan Kjirsten Daleiden-Brugman

We added pillars in each corner at the center of each wall to create a bit of support, as the building remained relatively empty. We connected each of the center pillars by an archway that increased the overall level and distribution of support.

Part 4 - Final Review

Ella Carlock Angela Jones

I don't think that our final review went well. I don't think that there was a single thing the reviewers liked about our project. They didn't like the abundance of color on the outside or the lack of color on the inside. They didn't like the floorplan, the pillars, the arches.

They like the shading devices, but they didn't quite seem to understand why we were using them. And we didn't do a very good job of explaining it

They found the site plans boring. There weren't any sculptures inside. A few colors were inconsistent.

I don't think our final review went well.

Kjirsten Daleiden-Brugman

During the final review, I was proud to hear that the intent behind our building design came through clearly to the reviewers, since it was something that was in the forefront of my mind whenever I was designing. I was also glad to hear their thoughts on what could be improved to increase clarity and cohesion within the final product and the final presentation.

Looking back at our review notes, I agree that our presentation could've been coordinated and organized differently I agree that experimenting with media could've been interesting to add to our project.

Final Reflection

I think this project would have gone better if I'd done it by myself I know that sounds harsh, but it's something I've had quite a long time to think about. I don't like our final model or building. I think it's rather unattractive and impractical. Every good idea I had--turn the interior into a garden space, create an industrial style building, a carbon positive building were shrugged off or thrown out

I fought daily with my group members to meet deadlines. Things that should have taken hours instead took days, and they still turned out looking less than ideal.

If I could do this project again, the shading devices would be more applicable to the cardinal directions, the exterior walls would be a neutral color, the building would be more than just a cube, the floor plan wouldn't be empty--we would have a second floor balcony. The ceiling would have a skylight and wouldn't just be blank. There are so many things I wish we could have done There are so many things I wish I could have done

As a strength, I think we each had good ideas, but they seemed to get lost and buried by the bad ones. For weaknesses, well, I've already listed quite a few, but I feel that I could go on for eternity. We didn't communicate as a group, and I think that was our biggest downfall

I am deeply ashamed of what was created as a result of this project. I plan to redeem myself in the next one. I want to get more opinions on ideas than just my own because an outside opinion can be very eye opening. I plan to step away regularly. I hated and still hate having to pull all nighters to finish projects, and it's better for my physical and mental health to walk away. I think it's better for my project, too, because stepping away can mean getting a fresh perspective.

Kjirsten Daleiden-Brugman

Ella Carlock Angela Jones

I think that our final product was an example of the culmination of all our ideas and designs, with elements that connect it back to our initial designs and even our initial montages, which I am proud that we were able to accomplish Our final product is a space that engages users with the architecture and can still be connected with the purpose of its precedents to be places of experimentation and interaction despite the widely varying programs housed in each building.