Issuu

Selected Works

A Collection of Studies & Unanswered Questions) (or

Jonathan Chamblee

As I end my undergraduate study of architecture, the process of design in my mind is this: to understand through making. This goal is integral in defining the object of study; grappling with how a thing is made reveals what the thing becomes. Chasing the opportunities that arise as part of the process becomes the process. This goal applies also to the context of the thing. Only in figuring out the how and the what does the latent why become known. The ideas that govern a design become known through the design.

I won’t pretend to understand this concept fully, but as time has gone on, I have begun to understand it better.

This portfolio attempts to uncover the relationships between how, what, and why through the questions that arose in each project. These questions, the why’s of the projects, are explored in the designs themselves, with the how’s and what’s manifesting these broader ideas at a number of scales. The point of the projects was never to answer these questions, sometimes the questions did not even emerge till after the project was complete. Rather, the goal was to better understand design, and myself as a designer, through them.

I hope you enjoy.

A Study in Permeability & the In-Between (or, a wellbeing center)

4th Year, 4 months; Integrative Competition 1st Place

How can an architecture feel connected to the outside, while maintaining a sense of privacy?

This mental health centric community center uses the gesture of a green facade to explore privacy and daylighting, blurring the boundary of the building.

Section A

In what ways can the hard edge of a building be softened, and made inhabitable?

Two reflecting pools make up a garden at the building’s south edge. The two pools of collected rainwater, distinct in their character as either smooth or rough, give visual and auditory character to the space. The pools reflect the greenery above them and catch light to throw upward onto them, respectively.

4x10 CLT Beam

Insulated

Glass Unit

Vertical Wood Siding

1” Air Gap

Rigid Exterior Insulation

Waterproof Membrane + Vapor Barrier

Naturallightcreatesdistinctshadowsasit passesthroughthevegetatedwall

Louvers for Privacy

Steel Cables

Aluminum Flashing

Plywood Sheathing

Batt. Insulation between 2x6 Studs

Interior Finish

Concrete Wall Footing

How can an idea traverse scales from concept to detail?

A study of the twin columns supporting the green facade scattered in and around the building became the concluding study of the project. Pulling from a predetermined set of angles as the facade shifts towards and away from the building, the joint allows the columns to meet the ground with a degree of elegance.

A Study in Standard, Custom, and Medium

(or, a light)

5th Year, 2 Months

How can the joining of standardized, off the shelf products with bespoke elements contextualize the two in a coherent whole?

Drawing from the work of experimental film maker Stan Brackhage, this thesis study attempts to treat standard and custom as parts of the same medium, distinct though interconnected, contextualizing one other.

The study explores this in the joining of two extremes: a light bulb and fixture from the Home Depot, and laminated plywood sheets, CNC milled.

creating two parallel narratives that exist separate in time, though simultaneously on screen.

^ Stills from Stan Brakhage’s Dog Star Man, 1964. Film is scratched, etched, and burned,

var start = getCurrentPosition(); if (getProperty("only2D")) { if (!xyzFormat.areDifferent(start.x, x) && !xyzFormat.areDifferent(start.y, y)) { return; // ignore vertical

} } writeln("0"); writeln("LINE"); writeln("8"); // layer writeln("11"); // X writeln(xyzFormat.format(x)); writeln("21"); // Y writeln(xyzFormat.format(y)); writeln("31"); // Z writeln(xyzFormat.format(getProperty("only2D") ? 0 : z)); } var polyline = new Array();

The bulb is a priori, created outside the knowledge of the plywood’s existence, while the plywood is posteriori, made specifically with the bulb in mind.

However, the reading of the bulb is altered by the shadows it casts onto the wood, and the wood is altered by the light it receives from the bulb. The two become inseparable.

4th Year, 1 Month

How can movement through space make one aware of their surroundings, and contribute to the feel of an architecture?

In designing a sauna for the Copenhagen Harbor, a particular entry sequence was employed to create a clam, secluded atmosphere. One must traverses the roof of the building before descending into the sauna, just above the surface of the water.

It was decided early on that the sauna should have a level of permeability,

Of light and dark, a feeling of tightness, compression, and seclusion.

Externally, inviting, removed, selective about what is chooses to expose.

Internally, tight, winding, open from above and below, rewarding of movement.

Sculptural, slender, linear, light.

The facade provides substance to these ideals. The hung wooden slats draw inspiration from the water, while strategically varying in thickness relative to the program, giving more privacy to sensitive areas.

A Study in Implication, Collision, & Subversion

(or, a pavilion for music)

3rd Year, 1 Month

In what ways can architecture imply continuation, separation, part, and whole?

The site of this small music performance pavilion, a small wooded area with a stream running through it, became instrumental in determining the tectonic language.

The performance space seeks to envelope the stream, implying a continuity over it through its collision with the more grounded west wing of the building.

This act of collision takes on a playful character. The two wings butt into one another, but remain ever so slightly held apart (letting light into the lobby). Wood members slice through concrete beams as the two masses meet.

The inherent nature of certain elements is subverted in the conceptual hierarchy. As wood beams cut through concrete, they ignore the materials’ disparate heaviness and time of construction.

Wall to Roof Detail

3 4 5

The primary spanning space, both indoor the identity of

The secondary juxtaposition the monolithic series of light, wood

The envelope cast in place concrete, to have been the wood and glass

The envelope posed of room, while keeping the outside. It precedence

A rigid system and trusses generates building. Marching outdoor spaces,

The foundation the creek in the process of differentiating ic side and

A Study on Open Space and Ruralness

(or, a repurposed farm)

4th Year, 2 Months

How does one engage with a vernacular without dipping into the pastiche? In what ways can one engage the past and plan for the future simultaneously?

Conducted as part of a research project at architecture firm Hanbury, this publication partnered with a local development authority to develop a program and conceptual thesis for a fringe site outside Richmond. The study, led by myself and another student, investigates larger ideas about what it means to be rural in the modern age, and how the figure ground of historically rural areas plays into this.

Positive + Negative

organic but strict organization of programmed versus unprogrammed space, allowing for the celebration of rural vernacular ﬁgure ground

Positive + Negative

organic but strict organization of programmed versus unprogrammed space, allowing for the celebration of rural vernacular ﬁgure ground

points of interest, located along the boundary of the site to encourage movement and draw from the immediate surroundings

Cluster Knots

diversely programmed sectors of density, strategically placed to provide points of entry and access to amenities

Cluster Knots Thread connective tissue uniting positive and negative elements of the site points of interest, located along the boundary of the site to encourage movement and draw from the immediate surroundings

diversely programmed sectors of density, strategically placed to provide points of entry and access to amenities

The study contextualizes the specifics of the site, a farm at the cross roads of

agrarian history of the region to situate the district to move into the future” A set of strategies were developed to achieve this goal, touching on ideas of horizontal and vertical scale, authenticity, nostalgia, programmatic adjacencies, and of course, agriculture and rural figure ground. These ideas are translated formally on to the site, not as a plan in the literal sense, but an exploration into the overarching ideas at the ground level.

A Study in Joining and Time (or, a vessel for water & flowers)

5th Year, 3 Weeks

How can the joining of two things either acknowledge or contradict the way in which it was made?

A further exploration into the articulation of joined elements, this pitcher introduces time as a parameter. Though added after the fact, the body anticipates the handle. The two read as distinct, but prepare for one another.

Here the distinctness of elements comes formally. This wall piece features only two planes, one orthogonal plane bisecting another curvilinear plane. Though made from the same material using the same construction, the two planes function very differently.

The rigid orthogonal plane evoking images of a wood plank or similarly milled piece. The curvilinear plane reads much more like a piece of fabric, barely able to hold itself up without the accompanying plane. Thus:

How can the joining of two things either acknowledge or contradict the material with which it was made?

A Study in Improvisation and Leftovers

(or, a shelf)

5th year, 2 Weeks

Made entirely from materials left behind by graduating seniors in the school of architecture, this shelf was a study in form and joining, but also in constraints.

And so arose the question: How can limits be embraced in the design process to encourage unoridnary responses?

A

Study in Process, Ornament, & Projection (or, concrete, steel, ink, and light)

5th Year, 2 Months

How does the material process by which an image is produced affect the way it is read, and the way it interacts with its context?

Building on the works of Herzog and de Meuron and Oliver Domeisen, this study acted as an investigation into image and hierarchy as it relates the process of making, material, and scale.

What is the power of image in relating different materials with different methods of making? How does the material and its properties effect the way an image is read?

In what ways can flat images become spatial, existing at a multiplicity of scales and locations?

Projection added another dimension to the study. Light became the material process and allowed for a direct application of hierarchy to the images. The light through the slides participates directly with the surface of the objects from across the room.