La Casa del Fascio
To achieve an extreme level of abstraction the program was limited to 8 layers that had to represent space and void, structure skin, circulation and geometry. A solution was to create a grid to represent, structure, with solids and voids to show circulation and usage on alternating layers.
All four elements, structure, skin, geometry and circulation are represented as different colors and built back into a digital abstraction of the Casa del Fascio. Each system has been pulled apart and shown in the upper left.
The modernistic Casa del Fascio (House of Fascism) is located in the middle of the city, juxtapositioned by many old buildings including a cathedral. Below are the floor plans for each floor in the Casa del Fascio, from 1st to 4th from left to right. Below are two sections cut through the middle of the building.
The Salk Institute
The purpose for this exercise was to abstractly model an existing building, the Salk Institute by Louis Kahn, in a way that emphasizes the strong elements and ignores the trivial ones. Important considerations about this building included orientation, materiality, hierarchy, transparency and volume.
The Salk Institute has two wings with a center courtyard with a small river down the middle. The floor plans below are the basement, ground level and upper level from left to right. The orientation of the building to the site is on the right side, and a section is on the bottom.
The Middleton Inn
For a study of materials, the program called for a unique design based on the materials and principle elements from the Middleton Inn. The four design considerations included skin, structure, earth and hearth which have been assembled in a new way.
The Middleton Inn is located in a remote area surrounded by woodlands sloping down to a river. The rooms are divided up into modules of two spread out into rows connected by walkways. Below are 3 sections through different parts of the modules, as well as a floor plan, exploded axon showing structure and an adaptation sketch.
