Organic Arch Realization

Organic Persuasiveness

Being persuasive in design is a difficult process. As I look back to my last semester in college, I’ve realized how difficult it was for me to convey my ideas to my professor. My professor, during the last semester, was a new professor that transferred in, so he followed his own philosophy and everything that I’ve learned in Temple, up to that point, became that much harder to convince him. That’s one of the reasons why it’s taken me so long, at least to convince myself, that I want to design sustainable organic architecture. I’ve been saying for awhile that organic, because of Frank Lloyd Wright, is the way to go, but I didn’t fully realize what the concept was. So I’ll be exploring in this blog about "what is organic?"

Wissahickon

Wissahickon Planer Model

Wissahickon 

My first ideas about organic shapes came through when I first measured and created a model of a rock in the Wissahickon forest. At the time, I wasn’t sure why measuring in delaney triangulation was so important. But that measurement process allowed me to recreate the rock in model format. Afterwards, after some design decisions, my triangulation model transformed into a planer model. Five years later, when I look at my planer model today, I see the potential of the shapes I created. I understand how a simple rock can have the potential to be an organic living space. At the time, I was just following a method of measurement, but this is a great method to recreate nature, and create architecture that flows organically instead of creating boxed architecture.

Choreography Model

Choreography

My ideas for organic shapes continued to evolve during my fourth semester, when we measured a choreography and then created space from it. This is also very organic because the shape that we created was a movement of the body. The human body is part of nature, and how it moves is fundamentally a supreme mechanism since we still can’t replicate the human body. But that’s difficult because the human body is made out of trillions of individual cells collectively controlling the body.

Movement

Hand Movement Space

Furthermore, during my second semester, I had a digital course, where we had to design a physical movement. Now that I look back, I realize how truly organic that simple design process was. The process started with, each of us, documenting a movement. I chose to pick up my cellphone as the movement. After taking dozens of images of the process, we experimented with collaging the process to make it cohesive. Afterwards, we made line drawings of five main images. This allowed for experimentation because I was able to transfer the drawings into Rhino afterwards. As a result, we were able to create an organic shape from the movement. This space was eventually integrated with our arch studio. 

Potentiality 

The end images don’t actually justify the capacity that this method can produce. I think if I kept using this process, I would have had organic designs throughout all of my years at Temple. But, I didn’t apply what I learned effectively into my design. I started thinking about the required spaces that was essential for the architecture. And those required spaces became boxed spaces because of limited time. I started focusing on visualizing the space through digital programs. Interior architecture became more of a focus because I was thinking about how height and color of the space affected one’s perception. The programmatic value that I wanted to focus on for the occupants became a symbolic perception. 

By focusing on colors and digital interior designing, my main objective became convoluted. Because ultimately, the program of the architecture is the most important part of the space. That’s where people will be walking through everyday. People don’t always look at their surroundings. Habituation shows that people tend to completely ignore what’s happening around them because consciously thinking is a very difficult process. Most people, everyday, follow routines in order to live day by day. And when time doesn’t allow for wondering, a person automatically follows the said routine without thinking. That allows for tremendous work to get done, however, the exploration that is possible dissipates. People actually look where they go when they’re in nature. Part of the reason for this is the uncertainty and natural life. When you don’t know what’s in front of you, the conscious brain becomes alert, because who knows, maybe a squirrel will bite you. That’s why creating space that is organic can open up the possibility for conscious action. I want people to pay attention to the spaces that they walk through. I don’t want to scare them, per say, but being uncertain about how the space will change while you walk through it can definitely enhance the spatial experience.