Revised Concept

Veterans Plaza Competition Entries

A competition was held four years ago at the same site I'm doing my thesis on. The program was a town center and an outdoor ice rink. The firms that competed were Machado and Silvetti, Grimm and Parker, Muse Architects, and I believe two other firms.

The winning entry: Machado and Silvetti






































Grimm and Parker



















Muse Architects

Understanding Psychology

I found some interesting images from my psychology book back when I took the course in high school.

The greater amount of tissue in the somatosensory area of the brain that is related to a specifc body part, the more sensitive is that body part. If the size of our body parts reflected the corresponding amount of brain tissue, we would lok like this strange creature.

The graph below shows the skin sensitivity in various areas of the body. The shorter a line, the more sensitive a body part is. The finger and thumbs, lips, nose, cheeks, and big toe are the most sensitive.
























INTERESTING FIND OF THE DAY

Very cool use of water, it's called "Glass Sea."


"Years of exposure to the elements had taken their toll on Brunel's ss Great Britain--the world's first iron hulled passenger line." So the ss Great Britain Trust called on Arup and Alec French Architects to help repair and preserve the 'wrought iron fabric of the historic vessel.' Lok at the image below, they appeared to have done a splendid job."


http://www.ssgreatbritain.org/Home.aspx

Concept/Program

Brief

One of the major issues I want to focus on is that our society regards vision as the highest sense; it dominates over our other senses. Aesthetic problems of architecture are automatically treated as visual problems. As a result, “architecture has adopted the psychological strategy and instant persuasion; buildings have into image products.” However, architecture should be a full-fledge multi-sensory experience utilizing all the senses.

The diagram above depicts some concepts I picked up in the readings by Bloomer, Pallasmaa, and Gibson. Pallasmaa believes that the five senses are broken down into two groups: (1) vision and hearing are the “sociable senses” and (2) touch, taste, and smell are the “senses of private function” managed by a culture code. In addition to the five senses, Gibson believes there are two more senses: the basic-orienting and haptic sense. Pallasmaa goes into detail of what these senses might represent (vision-fire, touch-earth, taste-water, etc. –refer to diagram) and how the qualities/characteristics of the senses manifest different spatial qualities (vision-sense of separation and distance, touch-sense of doing, taste-material texture and weight, etc.)

Before, I had the program organized designating one sense to a specific room/area. I think it would be interesting if all the senses are utilized in an area, but certain senses would be extenuated and the others suppressed (see “program sample” in diagram).

Program Analysis Take 1