WORKS JAMES GEIGER
CONTENTS
DURHAM COMMUNITY CENTER GEORGETOWN, WASHINGTON D.C.
3-8 9-10
TAOISM DEATH RITUAL SPACE
11-12
RE-LIGARE STEEL DESIGN COMPETITION
13-14
RALEIGH HORTICULTURE CENTER
15-20
CUBE HOUSE PROTOTYPE
21-24
416 CUBE HOUSE
25-30
ARTWORK
31-34
3
DURHAM COMMUNITY CENTER
The Durham Community Center takes on a pinwheel form as a means to draw the diverse Durham community to the center of the site. The program supports Administrative offices, fitness rooms, a gymnasium, yoga studios, and cafe’ within a three-winged structure that reaches toward the Rails-to-Trails greenway path and the two main streets at either end of the site. By extending toward the active corners, the building also allows for three outdoor spaces --volleyball pit, meditation garden, and community gathering plaza. The structure’s materials reflect the surrounding warehouse district context; it utilizes brick at the center and breaks away in a progressive gesture of steel, glass, and concrete. Vertical aluminum fins on the facade block the western sun and create a level of privacy.
4
FIRST FLOOR 5
SECOND FLOOR
DETAILED SECTION AND ELEVATION 6
7
MEDITATION GARDEN
3/8” = 1’ SECTION MODEL
8
GEORGETOWN, WASHINGTON D.C.
9
Georgetown, Washington D.C. is a semester long, collaborative design project with fellow architecture classmate, Eileen McDonough. The Precinct model synthetically diagrams aspects of the city. Issues such a public vs. private space, urban density, and materiality are explored in massing a section of the town as it relates longitudinally to the river. The Georgetown Museum is embedded in a site south of the canal. The urban texture and architectural language of the city is revealed in a structure that leads you through a series of narrow passages before opening to a public plaza facing North to the canal.
10
11
TAOISM DEATH RITUAL SPACE
The concept for the Taoism death ritual space is inspired by yin and yang. Its form expresses the interdependent nature of opposing forces within a greater whole; being and non being, light and dark, solid and void. Constructed purely of cast-in-place concrete, space is distinguished by qualities of light and the slipping of volumes. 12
RE-LIGARE STEEL DESIGN COMPETITION
13
Re-Ligare Institute was a digital steel design competition. “Re-ligare”, or “re-connect”, aims to relink individuals to themselves, others, and nature by encouraging the practice of “being” in its ideal state. The building’s design comes from this notion of the ‘ideal’ in reference to the principles of classical architecture and the work of Boulle’. The Sphere is the most symmetrical and centralized form that breaks from the grid and becomes the building’s most celebrated space. The structure, which supports a meditation space above and lecture hall below, is created by a series of radial circles at 10° increments and a series of circles working in the horizontal plane. Another band of small circles, angled at 35.75° to correlate with the degree latitude of the building’s location, indicate the sun angles at summer solstice, equinoxes, winter solstice, and at one month intervals in between; the arcs indicate the solar hours.
14
15
RALEIGH HORTICULTURE CENTER
The Raleigh Horticulture Center is established to teach students and the Raleigh community how to grow their own produce within an urban environment. The program supports an organic cafe, library, lecture hall, academic offices, classrooms, research labs, and a greenhouse. Students from the college, as well as the public, are encouraged to utilize the Horticulture Center as a learning facility and a place to leisurely experience nature. The main concept for the building comes from a natural element found on the site. A large boulder upon entry acts as a visual datum terminated by a large ginkgo tree at the west end of the site. This organizing element creates tension between structures and a place of social gathering. The main structure is composed of steel, glass, and concrete; it mediates the drastic slope and provides shade with horizontal louvers on the South and vertical louvers on the East and West. The idea for this louver system came from a precedent study of Renzo Piano’s New York Times Building. The Raleigh Horticulture Center is intended to merge with the site overtime, and allow plants to grow over its louver system.
16
17
SECOND FLOOR
FIRST FLOOR
18
SOUTH ELEVATION AND DETAILED SECTION 19
NEW YORK TIMES BUILDING PRECEDENT DIGITAL SECTION DETAIL 20
21
CUBE HOUSE PROTOTYPE
Inspired by primitive dwellings designed with a fireplace in the center, the Cube House Prototype focuses life around the hearth within a pure geometry. The 1000 sqft., siteless dwelling is unique in its study of light, color, and the division of space. Ambient light is reflected into the open floor plan as a means to distinguish space and function. The Southern facade is treated with a perforated COR-TEN steel shading system to reduce solar heat gain.
22
FIRST FLOOR
SECOND FLOOR
REFLECTIVE LIGHT STUDY
23
THIRD FLOOR
24
25
416 CUBE HOUSE
The 416 Cube House is situated on a corner site just south of downtown Raleigh, N.C. The cube’s form is a gesture of pure geometry juxtaposed against the urban context. The notion is objective in its shape yet subjective in the interpenetration of volumes and connections between indoor and outdoor space. The house is sustainably designed on a 24’ x 24’ footprint--an embellishment of the 9 square grid. PVs and a Geothermal Heat Pump System provide the house with electricity as well as heating and cooling.
26
27
1/2” = 1’ SOUTH ELEVATION SECTION MODEL 28
29
30
31
ARTWORK
32
33
34