The Hagen Island Housing Project in Rotterdam, Netherlands is characterized by its unique grid system of houses. The main access road rings the perimeter, with parking also located around the edge. The grid has some variations, with two boxes pushed back creating recreation areas, and one box split adding variety. Inspired by Hagen Island, the Figueroa Village Housing Project in Los Angeles provides housing while encouraging community interaction in central courtyards. It divides the site vertically and horizontally, locating parking around the perimeter to buffer freeway noise from the housing units within.
The Hagen Island Housing Project in Rotterdam, Netherlands is characterized by its unique grid system of houses. The main access road rings the perimeter, with parking also located around the edge. The grid has some variations, with two boxes pushed back creating recreation areas, and one box split adding variety. Inspired by Hagen Island, the Figueroa Village Housing Project in Los Angeles provides housing while encouraging community interaction in central courtyards. It divides the site vertically and horizontally, locating parking around the perimeter to buffer freeway noise from the housing units within.
the Netherlands-based architecture firm MVRDV and finished its completion in 2003. It is located on the Hagen Island of Ypenburg near Rotterdam, in the Netherlands. Furthermore, Ypenburg is made up of six different islands. The Hagen Island Housing Project is identified by its unique characteristics of houses based on a grid system. Because the Netherlands is a country known for its friendly system for pedestrians and bicyclists, the circulation diagram very much reflects this.
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The main access of Hagen Island is the road at the perimeter. This road provides access for vehicles and for pedestrians as well. The parking for all cars are found at the perimeter of the island as well, at the inner side of the main road. There is an ambiguity in the grid system of the project: two boxes are pushed back so there are negative spaces, these negative spaces are used for areas of recreation; in addition, another box is split into two, this process adds to the variety of sizes.
park / green space
parking space building space
Recreation of map, illustrating the Hagen Island
and its surround islands
Analysis showing the underlaying grid and the
placement of the houses in the project
Circulation diagram: vehicle access in the perimeter
(orange), and public access for pedestrians and bicyclists (blue)
Figueroa Village
Renderings of the project
Far left: aerial view Immediate left: perspective view from the southeast
The Figueroa Village Housing Project seeks to
provide a closer community for people living in the area of South Figueroa Street and West Slauson Avenue. Although this area is heavy with commercial development and traffic, over 80% of the population are children until the age of 18 and elderly citizens over the age of 60. Through the courtyard housing typology, residents are encouraged to interact with each other in the outdoor public spaces. Additionally, the central courtyard in the middle of the community could act as a farmers market on certain days of the week, as this neighborhood lacks grocery stores. The formal concept and massing of the project comes from the trapezoid shape of the site. The division and the circulation of the site and the project is taken from the analysis of the Hagen Island Housing Project. Cars are only allowed at the perimeter of the site. There is parking at the outer perimeter of the site of the Figueroa Housing Project, which is different from the Hagen Island Housing Project, where cars are parked at the inner perimeter. The site is divided vertically into three, with the angle division being the same as the east side of the site; and the site is divided horizontally by the zig-zagging method inspired from the Hagen Island Housing Project. Site division of the Figueroa Village Housing Project as inspired from the division of the Hagen Island Housing Project
Urban context of site: commercial densities of
freeways, cross streets, and commercial buildings (orange), and the residential area (blue)
Development of massing from a rectangle to a right
trapezoid by slicing off a scalene triangle
Developed section showing how the different trapezoid
extrusions come together and the inner vertical circulation of each housing unit
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Ground floor plan illustrating the fludity
of the housing units with the outdoor public spaces, the courtyards, and the outer perimeter parking
The east side of the site is designated as the public
space so it is used as a buffer zone from the freeway at the same time. The site is located right next to the freeway ramp, where a lot of noise are emitted from vehicles going onto and coming off from the freeway. By having its own road on the perimeter of the housing project, this allows the housing project to be safer as well as less quiet. There are a total of fifteen housing units within the Figueroa Village Housing Project. Each housing unit is consisted of a one-car or two-car garage, and one to three trapezoid extrusions. Within these trapezoid extrusions are the actual living programs of the house. All housing units are variations from each other, and are different but similar. At the minimum,
Models made out of foamcore showing the composition
of a typical block of housing units
each house has a kitchen, a living room, a bathroom,
and a bedroom. The number of bedrooms and bathrooms vary, as well as what floors these rooms are located on, as some housing units follow the layout of the modern townhouse, where the garage is on the ground level, with all other living programs on the upper levels. Each housing unit is accessible through the garage and has either a sliding door or a traditional exterior door that allows the occupant to go outside to the courtyard. Another feature of all housing units is that they all have floor-to-ceiling glazing to provide the sense that the rooms are much bigger than they actually are. In addition, each housing unit has a skylight similar to the one in Eric Owen Mosss The Box.
Second floor plan, illustrating a variety of programs,
including bedrooms, bathrooms, kitchens, living rooms, and outdoor patio spaces
Section illustrating human interactions in the outdoor
spaces, such as the pedestrian-only roads, the central courtyard, and the private patio spaces
Third floor plan, showing rooftops of most housing units,
and bedrooms and bathrooms
Studio 4B: Design Build
Pico-Union Color Installation
Group Project (Nancy Arevalo, Daniel Ghattas, Nguonkeat Tiv,
and Mayra Trejo)
This project serves to provide a space with shade for the Pico-Union community. The site is located at the intersection of West Pico Boulevard and Magnolia Avenue in the heart of Koreatown, near the El Salvador Community Corridor, the area is busy due to the surrounding businesses, and thus the space can also be used as a place of leisure and small gatherings. Additionally, the customers of the nearby businesses of the Metro Market, which sells soft drinks and ice cream of sorts, and the Pollos El Brasero, a chicken restaurant, can definitely benefit from the space as it provides shade and leisure for them to enjoy their quick bite. Pico-Union is known as a densely populated, low-income, youthful, Latino, and mostly immigrant neighborhood. The barricades of planters at Pico-Union was installed in the late-1980s as a means to stop the flow of drugs and drive-by shootings. Because of this, the roads are blocked for vehicle
Panoramic photograph depicting the Color Installation Project
on Magnolia Avenue overlooking into West Pico Boulevard
access to this day. This project, a temporary installation that
re-imagines street ends, was made possible in partnership with Koreatown Youth + Community Center (KYCC) and the Woodbury University Architecture + Civic Engagement (ACE) Center. The chain-link fencing materiality of the project aims to serve as an optical illusion as well as a canvas where colorful acrylic pieces are strapped, and the penetrates through these acrylic pieces and form shadows of various colors. The color scheme and gradient arrangement used within the project are the colors of yellow, green, blue, and purple, and are inspired by the mural to the west side of Magnolia Avenue, in which the colors of gray, blue, and purple are heavily used. Additionally, some of these colors in the acrylic bleed into the wooden structures.
Axonometric drawing illustrating human interactions with
the installation, populating the area as a community
Images taken during the installation
Seventeen different colors make up the color scheme of
the roof canvas
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Site plan showing the color scheme
Elevation drawing from the south side of West Pico
Boulevard onto Magnolia Avenue
Colored canvas made by strapping acrylic pieces
onto chain-link
Studio 2B: Site Orders
Case Study: Homebush Bay
Extracted drawings depicting analyses of the geometry, wet contours, dry contours, drainage, program, and vegetation (from top left to bottom right)
The Homebush Bay Public Domain, site of the Sydney Olympics
2000 events, was designed by Hargreaves Associates. This project employs the method of warping in the manipulation of the ground, as shown through the underlying geometries of rectangles and ellipses. The geometries are then taken from the drainage flow, where water moves and then diverges into various areas into the ponds. These geometries are also influenced by the nearby Haslams Creek, which wraps around the wetlands park. Interestingly, the shape of the ponds resemble the shape of water
drops, in which the shape of the
water in its restful state is warped as it goes through surface tension. These underlying geometries are still evident, but no longer explicitly present to the naked eye, because it has been warped, or bent and twisted out of shape. For example, through the intersecting points of ellipses, the shapes of the ponds are formed. And the shapes of the contours follow that of the pond, with the profile of Haslams Creek effecting them. The drainage plants are placed on the edges of the pond. COLLAPSE
Collapsed plan of Homebush Bay (top), projected to show a
section drawing (bottom)
San Pedro Coastal Athletic Center
Warping, as derived from the Hargreaves Associates Homebush Bay project, is used as a manipulation process, causing something to be bent or twisted out of shape. This results in intersecting points having similar contours, and these contours then emerge outwards and inwards in incremental directions. The datum points are derived from the geometric diagram that covers the entire site, governing all relationships and conditions, along with the programmatic diagram. The basis of the design on the manipulation process is based on the stretching of contour lines and anchoring them at the various datum points. Similar to the Hargreaves project, the San Pedro Coastal Athletic Center Project seeks to manipulate the site via the horizontal plane of representation, as it explores the many edge conditions. Elements from the existing site, as identified by the five distinct zones, are taken, and warped and wrapped in the manipulation process the separates the pathway and the basketball court. In another example, the original bluff is pulled and spread outwards. Additionally, the waters of both the high and low tides allow occupants to engage with water conditions, such as the pier directly being able to touch the waterline at the high tide, and being a platform for fishing during both the low and high tides.
Aerial Plan, ground floor plan, and second floor plan
(from left to right) of the San Pedro Coastal Athletic Center; the program includes parking spaces for 10 cars and 25 bicycles, locker rooms, shower rooms, bathrooms, lobby, administration offices, snack bars, an exercise room, a lap pool, a basketball court, first aid center, boat storage, equipment storage, mechanical room, maintenance storage space, and a fishing pier
Section through the center of the site, showing the locker rooms, shower rooms, bathrooms, exercise room, lap pool, and fishing pier; with the ADA path on top, along with the boat storage in the background; and the green lines depicting the locations of the high and low tides
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Site plan illustrating the manipulated contours,
along with shadow lines of the athletic center
Blue: January 1st at 12PM
Green: April 1st at 12PM
Orange: August 1st at 12PM
The original contours of the site (far left) has been
manipulated through warping, in which bending, twisting, pulling, and stretching were all methods used in the designing of the program of the San Pedro Coastal Athletic Center
Studio 1A: Principles and Processes, Bodies and Objects
Plaster and Chipboard: From Void to Void
Orthographic projections in hand drawings of transverse, long, and
horizontal sections
Original plaster constructs
Exploration in the attenuation of the void
As a warm up assignment into architecture school, plaster
constructs are made through the folding of chipboards that form various shapes. At the end, two plaster constructs out of the many are taken and transverse sections are drawn and analyzed. Then, horizontal and long sections are drawn through orthographic projection. The void from the combination of these two plaster constructs is then explored through the phrase to attenuate, meaning to lessen or reduce in space, force, mass, intensity, quantity, or value. Through the exploration, a chipboard construct is created in almost the same size as the void, and masses in its middle is then taken out to show this attenuation.
Fibonacci Construct
Group Project (Alexandra Holguin and Andres Villalobos)
Final drawing illustrating how the Fibonacci
numbers relate to the construct
Continuing with using the phrase to attenuate, the Fibonacci numbers are introduced and used. In the construct, the 1 x 1 crate serves as both a stepstool and a leg rest as one sits on the 2 x 2 crate. Because of the proportion of the human body, as explored in the Modulor Man, the area from the hips to the knee is about 1.5 times in length as the area from the knee to the ankle. The numbers 1 and 2 coincidentally are the third and fourth numbers of the Fibonacci series, and the ones that come after these are 3, 5, and 8. The
Process work
Final construct
3 cube also allows another seating for any possible occupant,
yet it requires the usage of the arms as a leverage to bring the body up to the seat. With lumbers that are both 5 and 8 in height for the end of the construct, the human body can easily find a place to lean, especially at areas nearing the edge of the site, as the average height is approximately 6. Additionally, the numbers of the Fibonacci series collectively show the notion of attenuation as 8 is decreased into 1.
