BLINK BRINK

thesis Prep advisor - Andrew Zago

blink brink

Priyanka Rajani

Southern California Institute of Architecure

3

Introduction The brink indicates the fragility of perception on the visible. It is the edge where no one and no one thing rules, where modes of discourse struggle for dominance.

It is the interface where balcony, courtyard, window, gateway, staircase and roof become sites of performance and expectation. It is the moment where intermediate spaces become the most interesting. The neutrality of these intermediate spaces makes it the most dynamic location, as it most naturally resists settling into categories. Hence, the brink is a point of indifference/weakness that could turn into difference/power, a site of eventuality.

The brink is a liminal connection between the inner and outer, an aperture that reveals a scene beyond, or a scene within, an impermeable membrane of some sort. The brink is the edge of the unknown which creates a sense of anticipation.

The brink could lead you to unexpected experiences or simply to the banal. This becomes the focal point of feeling. Hierarchy doesn’t exist in this space.

The threshold of re-establishment by Claude Parent states that dynamic objects in architecture like elevators/escalators/cars require you to be static whereas architecture is a static object that promotes dynamism. This thesis would look into uncanny moments which don’t align to the norm. This involves a fusion of temporal and spatial factors by intersecting, overlapping, interlocking figures to build up into a sort of fluctuating configuration. Superimposition of axes and gridded spatial orders produce ambiguity of spatial organisation resulting from a sequential order of a successive stratification of space. This creates a sense of depth by perception due to overlap of spaces. This depth of perception envisages (mis) adventure, a craving for the unknown using a sense of parallax. This project would look at juxtaposition of multiple layers of transitory spaces where each layer is slightly shifted, scaled or mirrored. The brink is the “inbetween”.

table of Contents

5

6

edge OF entry 14

28

looking in / looking out 16

sancaklar mosque

emre arolar architects

18

mill owner’s association

le corbusier

20

samsung museum of art

jean nouveal

22

architecture faculty

aires mateus

24

sangath

b.v. Doshi

26

jewish museum

daniel libeskind

matter 32

osmotic borders 34

the new acropolis

bernard tschumi

36

barcelone pavilion

meis van der rohe

38

new art museum

sanaa

40

palmyra house

studio mumbai

42

gharfa

Edoardo Tresoldi

44

prada srore

herzog and de meuron

46

through walls

54

parallax 64

78

converge / diverge 66

sfmoma

snohetta

68

guggenheim museum

frank lloyd wright

70

casa da musica

oma

72

sharp center for design

alsop architects

74

vietnamese memorial

maya lin

76

The truffle

studio ensamble

site / program

Entrances are usually a ritualistic experience. It transcends spaces. Doors are the gateway to unimaginable worlds. Even though doors are more flat, it creats a shift in space. What if this shift in space was more prolonged? Would it create a change in how we experience it?

The edge is the point between two drastic environments. It is that moment which changes when you cross it.

The transactions between the two distinct spatial environments include movement of people through thresholds such as doors, verandahs, colonnades, porches, triumphal arches, terraces, marquees, stairways, patios, loggias, and stoops.

Besides the passage of people across a physical boundary, mediation across environmental, acoustic, and visual boundaries includes flow of air, light, sound, and odor through thresholds such as doors, windows, louvers, and screens.

7

edge/entry

CUBE ON A FACE

9

CUBE ON AN EDGE

11

CUBE ON A POINT

13

LOOKING IN LOOKING OUT

SANCAKLAR MOSQUE

ARCHITECTURE FACULTY

HEarth

t unne l

MILL OWNER’S ASSOCIATION

SANGATH

d e ta c h

indirect

SAMSUNG MUSEUM OF ART

JEWISH MUSEUM

subterrain

separate

H

E

A

R

T

H

sancaklar Mosque Architect

emre arolat architects

Location

turkey

Year

2012

The high walls surrounding the park on the upper courtyard of the mosque depict a clear boundary between the chaotic outer world and the serene atmosphere of the public park. The long canopy stretching out from the park becomes the only architectural element visible from the outside. The building is located below this canopy and can be accessed from a path from the upper courtyard through the park. The building blends in completely with the topography and the outside world is left behind as one moves through the landscape.

17

SECTION

h e a r t h

D

E

The building has very evident deep reveals, overhanging ledges, shade screens, and grand, pillared halls. The brises-soleil, designed to prevent sun from penetrating the facade, and employed these in combination with thickened facades and unfinished concrete in many of his later projects.

The circulation designed as a promenade, beginning with a ramp extending from the parking lot to a three-story void at the volumetric center of the building. As one ascends the ramp, the view penetrates the brises-soleil, visually opening the facade. The stair core projects beyond the central atrium and main facade, into the elements.

MILL OWNER’S ASSOCIATION Architect

Le Corbusier

Location

ahmedabad

Year

1954

T

A

C

H

19

PLANS

SECTION

d e t a c H

S U B T E R R A I N

SAMSUNG MUSEUM OF ART Architect

JEAN NOUVEL

Location

seOul, korea

Year

2004

The museum is a precious black-grey steel structure that nestles into a great vertical cavity composed of stone gabions. Between the museum structure and the stone walls, twelve meters below street level, silver willow trees are planted. The steel structure supports steel-clad volumes containing the museum’s exhibit spaces. In between the volumes, a great wall of glass framed by geometrically-arranged mullions creates an orthogonal around panes of glass. From the inside, the glass openings reveal a green world against a background of stone.

21

subterrain

SECTIONS

T

There are two industrial buildings and a convent that has been used as a hospital.

The new building is positioned in order to bond together each of these structures and to define new external spaces. All the existing buildings are connected vertically and horizontally throughout the block. Inside, public functions are sheltered, like the foyer and auditorium, operating not only as passage spaces and meeting places but also as a part of a new identity.

ARCHITECTURE FACULTY Architect

AIRES MATEUS

Location

TOURNAI, BELGIUM

Year

2017

U

N

N

E

L

23

ELEVATION

SECTIONS

t u n n e l

I N D I R E C T

SANGATH Architect

B.V.DOSHI

Location

AHMEDABAD, india

Year

1980

Upon entering the complex, one immediately sees the silhouette of a vault lingering behind an exterior wall and a slight view of the interior is present through a small break in the surface. The path turns and forces the occupant off of the north-south axis and alongside the elevated garden walls. The main entry lowers the visitor a few steps into the a vault and proposes the choice of ascending a flight of stairs in a three story height, or proceeding through small corridor by Doshi’s office and into the main drafting hall.

25

SECTION

i n d i r e c t

S E P A R A T E

In order to enter the new museum extension one must enter from the original Baroque museum in an underground corridor. “A visitor must endure the anxiety of hiding and losing the sense of direction before coming to a cross roads of three routes” says Libeskind. The three routes present opportunities to witness the Jewish experience through the continuity with German history, emigration from Germany, and the Holocaust. Libeskind creates a promenade that follows the “zigzag” formation of the building for visitors to walk through and experience the spaces within.

JEWISH MUSEUM Architect

daniel libeskind

Location

berlin

Year

1999

27

PLAN

SECTIONS

s e p a r a t e

The unknown is a portal, opening up a new and previously inaccessible way of thinking about something.

The threshold of re-establishment by Claude Parent states that dynamic objects in architecture like elevators/ escalators/cars require you to be static whereas architecture is a static object that promotes dynamism. The threshold spaces or transition spaces provide a sense of direction and allow for movement between various functions.

How can materiality ne used as an advantage to create this portal to an unknown world?

29

matter/material

31

O S M O T I C B O R D E R S

the new acropolis

palmyra house

layerS

louvers

barcelona pavilion

gharfa

transparent

mesh

new art museum

prada store

perforate

embed

L

The museum is built on an archeological site in Athens. Building over ruins can be really tricky as you need to decide whether you want to be sensitive to heritage. There is a distinct line between been cautious and out-going. The New Acropolis Museum is a key example of Urban retrofit. This project floats over the Acropolis.

Designed with spare horizontal lines and utmost simplicity, the Museum is deliberately non-monumental, focusing the visitor’s attention on extraordinary works of art. With the greatest possible clarity, the design translates programmatic requirements into architecture.

the new acropolis Architect

bernard tschumi

Location

athens, greece

Year

2009

A

Y

E

R

S

35

L a y e r S

SECTION

TRA N SPARENT

BARCELONA PAVILION Architect

MEIS VAN DER ROHE

Location

spain

Year

1929

Windows are made of glass. You can see through glass, and yet it ‘represents the first degree of opacity’, for glass is both medium and barrier. It is a building block of a speculative theory of culture that seeks to understand a system of relationships hovering in between private and public. The idea of the open floor plan that allowed us to find new links between inside and outside. The plan that once was broken into rooms based on function now continously flows into each other by division of walls or partitions.

37

transparent

P E R F O R A T E

Wanting to be a light and clean object in the massive Manhattan cityscape, the materials and the faรงade appearance play a relevant role. The choice of a layer of anodized aluminium mesh on top of the white walls is not new and unknown to most of architects. But in the museum it is used as a wrapped skin on all vertical surfaces, as a continuous blurring layer, that gives different light reflections and hides the offices windows, doors and balustrades of the terraces.

The result is a light and white succession of surfaces, without any interruption or contamination by other elements: a semitransparent layer for the shifting body of the building.

new art museum Architect

sanaa

Location

New york

Year

2007

39

p e r f o r at e

L

O

U

V

E

R

PALMYRA HOUSE Architect

BIJOY JAIN

Location

MUMBAI, India

Year

2007

Structural framing for the house was built of ain wood, a local hardwood, and was constructed using traditional interlocking joinery. The extensive louvres were handcrafted from the outer part of the palmyra trunk (a local palm species). Exteriors are detailed with hand-worked copper flashing and standing seam aluminum roofs; interior surfaces are finished with teakwood and India Patent Stone, a refined pigmented plaster.

41

l o u v e r

M

The semi-transparent fabric-based installation dialogues in a complementary way with Gharfa, symbolizing a white horizon, a journey into the void. This uses vernacular materials in a contemporary way which expresses the porosity of design. It blurs the difference between inside and outside where some parts are more opaque compared to the others.

gharfa Architect

Edoardo Tresoldi

Location

riyadh, saudi arabia

Year

2019

E

S

H

43

mesh

E

M

B

E

D

PRADA STORE Architect

HERZOG AND DE MEURON

Location

TOKYO

Year

2016

The volume consists of a diamond grid of made of metal pipes, whose openings have been cladded with glass panels, either concave, convex or flat, some transparent, others translucent, giving texture and variety to the surface. The rhomboid-grid has also structural purposes, behaving like a flexible mesh that supports, along with the elevators, the concrete slabs and allows more elasticity to the union of metal and glass in case of an earthquake.

45

SECTION

e m b e d

Threshold spaces are required for access to the actual functional rooms. They provide a preface to perception of architectural space. They live in the sequence of what lies in the past, present, and future. This means: threshold spaces also live in the expectation of what is to come.

Corridors, doors, entrances and other inbetween spaces are considered last minute design choices to connect you to “actual� functional spaces. What if theres transitory spaces are a part of joint to the functional space?

47

through walls

Including transitory spaces to functional spaces makes it more inclusive creating more involvement. This enhances interaction and activate spaces that would generally be closed off to a selective group of interested participants.

Material could play an important role here to divide transitory spaces from the function but still keepimg them in close relation to each other.

49

51

Complex staircases and circulation could lead to a much lager involvement and curiosity to explore.

53

The parallax involves a fusion of temporal and spatial factors by intersecting, overlapping, interlocking figures to build up into a sort of fluctuating configuration.

Layering and stratification of frontal planes by means of which space becomes constructed, substantial and articulate the essence of design.

55

parallax

57

Superimposition of axes and gridded spatial orders produce ambiguity of spatial organisation resulting from a sequential order of a successive stratification of space. This creates a sense of depth by perception due to overlap of spaces.

This depth of perception envisages (mis) adventure, a craving for the unknown using a sense of parallax. This project would look at juxtaposition of multiple layers of transitory spaces where each layer is slightly shifted, scaled or mirrored.

59

61

SECTION B

63

SECTION C

C O N V E R G E D I V E R G E

sfmoma

sharp center for design

Atrium

stack

guggenheim museum

vietnamese memorial

spiral

arch

casa da musica

the truffle

elevate

void

A

T

R

I

U

M

SFmoMA Architect

Snohetta

Location

San francisco

Year

2016

Inside, a set of maple-faced Roman steps provides an informal public gathering spot and seating area. The main atrium, as designed by Mario Botta creates this monumental space. The iconic symbol of Botta’s design to play with light and shadow creates an entrance which leads you to the first floor, the main entrance to the galleries. The museum was designed on the play of staircases and circulation which is the very important when it comes to designing a public space that showcases art.

67

a t r i u m

SECTION

C O N T I N O U S

Walking inside, a visitor’s first intake is a huge atrium, rising to an expansive glass dome.

Along the sides of this atrium is a continuous ramp uncoiling upwards six stories, allowing for one floor to flow into another. The ramp also creates a procession in which a visitor experiences the art displayed along the walls as they climb upwards towards the sky. The design of the museum as one continuous floor with the levels of ramps overlooking the open atrium also allowed for the interaction of people on different levels.

GUGGENHEIM museum Architect

FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT

Location

NEW YORK

Year

1959

69

SECTION

continuous

E

L

E

V

A

T

E

CASA DA MUSICA Architect

oma

Location

porto, portugal

Year

2005

The Casa da Musica attempts to reinvigorate the traditional concert hall in another way: by redefining the relationship between the hallowed interior and the general public outside. The entrance is lifted off the ground, almost like considereing it sacred as it is not on the same plane as the street.

71

SECTION

E L E VAT E

S

T

The elevated “table top� extension to the Ontario College of Art and Design, with its striking black and white pixilated skin and 12 multi-colored legs, stands 26 meters above the mixed Victorian and modern streetscape. The building is detached and elevated from the city scape, almost screaming for dominance.

SHARP CENTER FOR DESIGN Architect

alsop architects

Location

toronto, canada

Year

2004

A

C

K

73

SECTIONS

s

t

a

c

k

A

R

C

H

VIETNAM MEMORIAL Architect

maya lin

Location

washington D.c.

Year

1982

A sunken slash, chevron-shaped, in the landscape of the National Mall, the memorial comprises two walls of polished granite. A chronological list of the dead and missing begins at the center, moves along the east wall and then from the far west side back to the apex. The memorial is percieved completely different of opposite sides of it. On one side you don’t see it as it is burried into the earth, whereas on the other side it looks like a slit in the earth that blurs out the city of Washington behind you.

75

a

r

c

h

V

The Truffle is a piece of nature built with earth, full of air. A space within a stone that sits on the ground and blends with the territory. It camouflages, by emulating the processes of mineral formation in its structure, and integrates with the natural environment, complying with its laws.

Its ambiguity between the natural and the built, the complex materiality that the same constructive element, the mass unreinforced concrete, could provide the small architectural space, at different scales. From the amorphous texture of its exterior, to the violent incision of a cut that reveals its architectural vocation, leading to the fluid expression of the interior solidification of concrete. This dense materiality, which gives the vertical walls a rusticated scale, comes from the size of the bales, and contrasts with the continuous liquidity of the ceiling that evokes the sea, petrified in the lintel of the spatial frame that looks sublimely to the Atlantic Ocean, highlighting the horizon as the only tense line within the interior space.

the truffle Architect

STUDIO ENSAMBle

Location

spain

Year

2010

O

I

D

77

SECTION

v

o

i

d

program s

i

t

e

79

81

Language is the most indispensible tool in life for us social beings. Men have travelled through the ages and grown into superior race on Earth because of their advanced linguistic and communication skills.

Language and culture coexist to made a diverse world. Preservation of language through the creation of a dedicated language bank that exhibits different world languages in an interactive manner. The project would strive to create a “world of languages� that would put the past, present and future on a single platform.

Most importantly, the scale of the project would help with experimenting these overlapping, interlocking and perspective characteristics discussed. This project would be to create a poetic response for a language museum through design.

The site is situated along the North Woolwich pier and is flanked by the pier road (A117) on two sides. The site is located on the existing site of North Woolwich Old Station museum that closed in 2008.

Site Area : 6400 sq.m Max Built Area : 12000 sq.m