ARCH 602 Studio Descriptions
Core—ARCH 602 Design Studio—INTRODUCTION
CORE
134
Stones, Rocks, & other Earthly Things: A PostScientific Museum of Geology in New York City Ferda Kolatan, critic Spring 2014 — page 138 - 141 “If one is sufficiently lavish with time, everything possible happens" - Herodotus Topic: Geology in the most fundamental sense describes our desire to understand the place we call home. It draws a picture of the earth and presents a history that begins with a clump of particles and reaches to its present stage as a habitable planet in a precarious and temporary equilibrium. Questions regarding the nature, history, and evolution of the earth have been the subject of philosophers and scientists for millennia. Efforts to measure, map, and explain the earth have drawn a long line from the early Greek geometers to the adventurer-discoverers of the Enlightenment, and all the way to present-day scientists. In the humanist tradition of western thought most of these explorations were based on positivist concepts of knowledge, which held the premise of a world that we can fully grasp, conquer, and logically explain. Nature was seen as a riddle, which presented itself to man to be solved. The “Post-Scientific Museum of Geology” takes on some of these important issues and proposes a building for displaying geological artefacts and discoveries in ways that challenge the conventional architectural and curatorial logic of scientific museums. Design: In accordance with the conceptual format of 602, a particular emphasis was placed on the integrated usage of advanced digital technologies toward the application of innovative design solutions. The studio explored complex geometries as derived
from in-depth studies of geological structures and utilized these for the development of unique building components and building envelope. Computational techniques of drawing, 3D-scanning, 3D-modeling, and CNC fabrication were introduced and used to generate highly specific design proposals, which explore the boundaries of contemporary design practice.
Excessive Integration Kuyan Ayata, critic Spring 2014 — page 142 - 145 The studio explored an “as you need” officeshare model targeted for an increasingly mobile/flexible workforce of individuals, start-ups and small businesses in a 20 storey “Mini Tower” at Cooper Square, in the heart of New York City. Students generated new concepts for a working environment which promote opportunities for casual exchange and spontaneous collaboration. The building will provide the environmental comfort, atmospheric quality and just sufficient infrastructure for an open ended work condition to emerge. What is at stake is the development of a high degree of diversity and modulation to truly challenge the generic typology of the homogeneous office tower environment. The prevailing models of office tower typology would offer a predictable solution to this problem through subdivision around the core. While this model works and is efficient, it is not a viable model to allow the bottomup self-organization to fully flourish. The following alternative will set up the central quest of the studio: What if we decentralize the Core? What if we situate all there is typically in a core within the developing thickness of the