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• Pfaller Architectural Associates, Inc.
• Architectural Fine Art
• American Institute of Architecture Students
• UWM SARUP
• Deviant Art
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• Professor Cornbread
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• Lennalf
• Brandon

Places of Interest:

• Architectural Resume
• Contact Me
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• Photos from Europe
• Sophomore Portfolio

Description

The second Architecture 420 project related to the first in that it dealt with boats, though this was a building designed for the creation of hand-built 'skin boats' and doubled as a house for the owner/manager of the school. There were specific requirements for the space by the number of large wood-working tools would be used, the storage and the number of boats that would be built simultaneously. Also, another important consideration was that they required a steam box to heat up the wood for bending, but this had to be located as close to the place the boat was being assembled as possible. My solution was to put the shared tools and resources in the middle of one large space, with the boats being assembled surrounding. Deliveries are made at the south end, and this is also where the main entrance and office are located. To separate the activity on that end from the residence for the owner/manager I put that as far away as possible on the north side. This is also the more secluded side of the site, away from the bridge and the restaurant on the south.

Ideas that I took away from this project were designing along a double curving feature. Also, to model the project I learned how to use the laser cutter to create topography and the 3-D printer to create the curving trusses. I also had to deal with the nature of the double-curve surface that every single truss and every single mullion were different dimensions!

The Site

The site is along the Milwaukee River where it makes a bend almost at a right angle. The site is immediately across from Project 1's Boathouse site. The bank on this side of the river is not walled, nor is it as steep so it makes it much easier to make a connection with the river. The building is oriented to accent the curving nature of the river. The main entrance is on the south end, nearest to the bridge. Below is a site plan as well as its general location in the City.

Site Plans

Precedents

The precedents I looked at mostly dealt with point-supported glass walls and roofs, and when I came across Nicolas Grimshaw's Waterloo Station addition for the EuroStar and it struck me that the perfect solution was to create 3-hinged trusses.

Renderings

The renderings below are the river-side straight-on elevation and a perspective from on top of the pedestrian bridge.

Drawings

To show off the curvilinear nature of the building, I included the floor plan and longitudinal section. The section is deceptive because it is cut through the building straight while the 'spine' curves up and down and back and forth. This results in a very unique plan and section. Below is one of the 3-hinged trusses.

Presentation Board

For the final critique of the project we were required to produce presentation boards. My boards are shown below, combined two 24x36 color plots.

• View presentation board in full-size JPG - 9.56 mb (or click the image below)
• View presentation board in full-size PDF - 24.0 mb (or click the PDF logo)

 

Model Photographs

For the final critique we were required to build a 1/16" scale site model and a 1/4" 'bay' study. The photos of them are below.