East Austin is in the midst of rapid development. Housing and commerce have been largely undertaken through private funding, but there is a shortage of development in the public sector. New educational facilities are paramount to the vibrancy of the neighborhood, in particular with regards to pre-school education. My Intermediate Design I final project was to help fulfill this need for pre-school models in the area, to potentially provide the necessary educational facilities in varying degrees and locations throughout the community.
We began the project by first studying an individual site, and utilizing its context to develop an architectural language suited for our general design concept. My exploration of parametric rules began by understanding the implications of a series and its manipulation, arranging congruent spatial masses such that their intersections, gaps, or connections form an overall composition suited for early education. With a focus on the interior-framed exterior space, the idea is that children will look internally towards the school's courtyard as a center for learning. These individual spatial masses were further composed of two different series: a two dimensional series of rectangular frames and a three-dimensional grid of beams which define each room's the interior and exterior spaces. This preliminary model acts to emphasize the ambiguity between interior and exterior spaces, further placing emphasis on the critical role of the outdoors in an urban learning environment.
[ center: longitudinal section, bottom left: latitudinal section, bottom right: diagram showcasing intersection of masses and slide detail ]
[ top left: exploration of seriality and the moire pattern, bottom left: programmatic relationships between congruent spatial masses ]
At the project's conclusion, I had produced designs for three campuses of East Austin kindergartens (site A [Manor & Poquito] for 60 children, site B [Comal & E. 3rd] for 30 children, and site C [Nash Hernandez Sr. & Chicon] for 120 children). While I chose to focus on site B as my exemplary site, producing a physical model and more detailed drawings, I utilized sites A and C as auxiliary sites to further support the exploration of my parametric design rules.
Though these rules followed cues from the preliminary model, they took on a somewhat different direction. The parametric system essentially centers around programmatic clusters of masses and their wrapping -- a play on the general concept of a building model. Similar to my previous designs, my final parametric design rules recognize that each individual room has a specific programmatic requirement, and is characterized by its own independent mass. These masses, while no longer congruent in size, are each similar in proportion. They each follow the dimensional proportion of 1 x 1.5 x 2, a dimensional combination I learned is quite significant in helping a child understand relationships between lengths and distances. These masses were to be arranged in clusters according to their programmatic role in the building. For example, the masses that were oriented towards faculty use -- the offices, break rooms, and faculty work spaces -- were clustered together. To help define these clusters, I utilized the beams from the previous model. These beams would start in a two dimensional series on one face of the cluster, contorting and wrapping around each of the exterior walls in a way which provided necessary protection from the exterior in key places. Often, the beams would fold onto the interior to frame necessary programmatic features like benches, counter tops, and desks.
Each mass, I further decided, would have an original exterior opacity of 50%, in order to incorporate a variety of lighting conditions with the intersection of spaces which follows the above parametric system. Where the masses meet, the intersecting spaces would possess 100% opacity, and would therefore be suited for more private, enclosed purposes. For example, where two classrooms intersect at an angle, a bathroom is formed with access from either side. Conversely, where a gap exists between two masses, a space with 100% transparency is framed, allowing for a lighter, more open program to exist.
The resulting composition of masses and their enclosures challenges the student to investigate concepts of form, geometry, transparency, and dimensionality, and its role in a building.
[ site model for site B kindergarten ]
