P3 Mixed-use Stitch in Fabric - Proyect Program

Project 3:  (5 weeks)
Constructing an Urban Fabric for the 21st Century
Exploration of urban fabric and detail.
Site in Vicenza

From the syllabus:
Urban Goals and Objectives:
1. To analyze the city and understand it as a dynamic process of invention and experimentation in living.
2. To understand the unique urban fabric of context and place.
3. To consider the role of detail in the urban fabric.

Program Goals and Objectives:
1. To develop freehand sketching as a tool for understanding the experience of space
2. To develop hand drawing as a fluid tool in the design process in conjunction with traditional media, photography, and digital tools.
3. To practice the development of drawings that combine analytical information with conceptual intent, creating spatial impact.
4. To integrate an understanding of materiality and detail into studio design process

Semester Project Synopsis

Wall/Gate - Our first project on Vicenza allowed you to explore the history of the city through its historic edge and materiality. You uncovered the historic wall as fabric, as fragment and as object. The project caused you to react to the way that this edge became transformed because of the growth of the city and the introduction of new conditions of living. Your projects were attempts to recharge the condition of the historic wall through program, material and detail in concert to make space.

Hybrid Bridge - The second project explored a different kind of morphological force, path. In the case of Venezia, the canal. The project caused you to react to this special urban condition as it is present in form and in use. It was also conceived to challenge the notion of a distinct architectural object within a fabric of crooked, bending lines and edges, overlapping, indistinct terminations and beginnings. Your projects were attempts to weave in an intervention by transforming urban space, and by detailing with a focus on connecting old with new.

In both projects it was important to explore and understand the form-making, space-making potentials of the tectonic vocabulary specific to these two cities of the Veneto. The peculiarities are tectonic, spatial and material, across a range of scales. They are typically not isolated elements. When examined in situ they work together as systems, even loosely, to make places.

As stated previously, our goal is not necessarily to have your projects become seamless with the immediate context. Ultimately, ideas are imported to places and become integrated by intelligent adaptation or fortunate misinterpretation, among others. Most integrations are products of translation. However, it is important that your work "React to" it's place. Reacting requires having a position, and having a position requires having an understanding.

On the final project of this semester we will continue the pursuits of the previous work concerning morphology, materiality and detail. You will more consciously consider your work in the context of the issues you were to explore in your speculative essay.

CONTEXT, AFFECT, USE and PROGRAM, FORM, DETAIL, SCALE, PERFORMANCE, MATERIAL, TIME and PROCESS, and LIMITATION

This is a larger and potentially more complex project that must be considered locally, regionally and within international architectural discourse.

P3 Mixed-use Stitch in Fabric
Overall project size, approximately 100,000sf (11,000 sm).

Program Components
Housing - 50 percent or more, of your choice and mix.
Commercial and Civic - 50 percent or less, of your choice and mix.

It is important that this project perform:
As an urban intervention that considers morphology, program and scale,
As an architectural construction that considers structure, material and detail,
As a speculative theoretical proposal that considers experience, history and urban planning.

Site
The site is along the north edge of Guardino Salvi. The existing exhibition hall building will be demolished. Your project must engage the park and Contra Ports Nova. It must consider the loggias at each end, one by Palladio and the other by Longhena. You may integrate the canal.

Work plan
March 10 - Commence
March 18 - Program proposal complete
March 25 - Schematic design complete
April 1 - Detail exploration complete
April 8 - Integrated project completed
April 15 - Final presentation drawings complete