amnesiac

I spent a good deal of time finishing these sections; detail-oriented with an understanding of construction to destruction. I found the process helpful in understanding what architecture goes through while living in this city. Though the drawing didn't answer the most intriguing questions from my review:
LW: Who's going to construct this?
TG: Who's this being built for?
MH: Where's all the dirt go?
Some suggestions were made towards specificity, context and progress. I find myself thinking at a larger scale for the second intervention in the PTD city. Numbness. I imagine its relation to circulation. The systems of movement through a city. I think that public transportation is a good place to start. I am particularly interested in the moment when GM bought out the street cars and replaced them with buses. It seems like the melding of economic and political interest an our industrial landscape made no one accountable for its dissertion.
I keep coming back to the same question: Can you re-shape the city without construction?

House that Does Not exist, YET!

With the heavy, touchy-feeling issue that my site is dealing with, each of the five houses will explored and express the different issues of the Detroit Incinerator. Not only environmental issue that the Incinerator caused but as well as social and political issue.

House that doesn’t breathe: This house will deal with the problem of air pollution that caused by the Detroit Incinerator. From the literal point of view the first reaction from the site is that, the only way that anyone can live there is that ‘people should just not breathe’. The House that doesn’t breathe will act as a filter between inside and outside.

House that lies to its occupant: The idea started with the criticism on the Detroit Government.

House that doesn’t make sense: It’s a reaction on my take of the situation with the Incinerator.

House that goes in a vicious cycle: The whole process of the enclosed loop of paying more to get trash burned in the incinerator, and back to causing health and environmental problem.

The question is that what can I do with my design in order to have a quiet protest towards the situation? So… I am thinking that the project has to combine everything together, criticizing, mocking, however has to be poetic and powerful at the same time marketable? I’m focusing on one house right now,thinking to myself - how can I do five designs?

I guess the first step is the hardest. I’m still searching different way to generate my design. Any suggestions - Help would be wonderful!!
The above is something I did freshman year, “combination of trash and metal”. In spite the ‘trash’ element, surprisingly, it is also a quiet protest in its own rights, well, my inner angst too I suppose.

Modeling...

12 models so far for the retail program, trying different ideas, some are rather big boxish, some are retail rethought and some are downright Gehry...

Anyhow more on the way

My Materials and Components

Concrete:
79,970 tons of slab per tower
269 tons of column per tower
x 4 towers
Total weight of concrete: 300,955 TONS OF CONCRETE

Brick:
322,776 bricks per tower
484 tons of brick per tower
x 4 towers
Total # of bricks: 1,291,104
Total weight in bricks: 1937 tons

Toilets:
1 toiler per Unit
x 448 Units
Total Toilets: 448

Doors:
4 doors per Unit
x 448 Units
Total Doors: 1792 doors


So you get the idea. This continues on to include: Drywall, Electrical Materials: including wiring, Plumbing Materials: including p traps, brass fittings, Doorknobs, Refrigerators, Stoves, Sinks, Outlet Covers.
If you can think of any others besides these let me know.
So obviously some of these are more precise then others, and I have been debating with this. I can only assume how many outlets there may be on each wall of a 18' x 25' apartment. I also, can only assume on the availability of these materials, ie. doors may be gone, stoves, moved, etc. I have been thinking about a way to percentage this down, but I am not going to go there yet.
Anyway, all this information is being organized on a taxonomy drawing. That at this stage seems to be a digital thing. I haven't yet finished designing it, but let's say that I am taking some cues from Integrated Building Systems and trying to make it a clear yet not too dumb a diagram.
Other then this data crunching, I have been doing some sketches of entry spaces and transition zones. I don't know if I'll be able to scan those in by midnight.
Also, my site plan is developing into part new architecture, part construction process. I see this as being a main point of critique for Tuesday. The arrangement of these parts in relation to the construction of the new design as well as what that new design is!
Thanks and I feel like an accountant.

italianized detroit

so thomas and i agreed that my crit was a bit confusing. we spoke about many new directions to take. i'm looking into the Nolli map of ancient Rome which is jam packed with detailed information about the ancient city. it shows everything from figure ground to topography to ancient monuments and semi-public spaces and even plans of these spaces and buildings. as a way to provoke thought, i am designing my own Nolli Detroit. it's going well, shown above is firstly an extension of the site to cover aspects i want included in my complex map. building plans are now being researched and i have assigned symbols and tools to conveying information specific to detroit. i discovered that ancient rome was created in a "carving out" strategy. the entire map appears to have been one giant mass, with the open spaces and streets simply carved out of the mass. detroit, on the other hand, is completely opposite, as most modern cities seem to be today. buildings are placed one after another, not touching, which is contrary to rome, and open space seems to swallow the whole city. thinking about this made me realize maybe more open space is not in detroit's best interests...as the next idea below talks about...
also...one semi-serious, semi-ridiculous, semi-radical idea is that of turning the entire site into a giant piazza. the picture and collage shown above. the piazza would run flush to the buildings not allowing roads to pass through, solely pedestrian-friendly, something detroit knows nothing about. roads would be blocked, the entire area covered over in cobblestone (!?). an outdoor theater would be maintained and other designated spaces for designated program would be evident.
more to come.

le Modular

I'm coming from two opposite directions at the same time: top-down, and ground-up. And I'll meet myself somewhere in between.

Top-Down

(See Attached Illustration)

Mapping Metro-Detroit to illustrate process of condensation into a city core. - Edge buildings are eaten, digested, and taken to the people mover, now a mobilizer providing valuable construction material for the new settlements.

Ground-Up

(See other Attached Illustration)

Experimenting with different modules used to provide minimal infastructure for residents of settlments.

hay house

researching urban agriculture I came across an article discussing the storage of hay within a number of homes throughout the city. I was very interested in the shift in program and how in a certain sense it referenced the "urban camouflage" that matt and I had spoke about earlier. Its new program, storage, results from a basic availability and meets the needs of whatever is being stored, in this case the necessity of keeping the hay dry. With new objects come new configurations and also tools. I am also exploring the possibility for an architecture that could precipitate new growth such as a structure consisting of garden hoses. such a project could situate itself somewhere in between the suburban and agrarian.