Architecture

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You have begun to understand the world as a massive tree with billions of branches that grow and cycle through the seasons creating light and color, shade and contrast.

Your ideas are like the rain that washes down the limbs and brings nutrition to the tree. Stand by your code and create a place - a haven for knowledge, a room for reflection, a station for dreams. This pavilion will test all of your skills at all levels in all times. You will be like the first person to imagine and create a new place on this earth.

You have the power to shape a space!

Activity 1 – Scales of architecture

We make our buildings and then they make us. Winston Churchill Architecture is the skin of the earth. It exists in, on, under and above the earth’s surface depending upon needs, shelter, weather, ground, and the people who build and live in it. Architecture is builtin scales of density. It may be a single home and farm in the countryside. It may be a few dwellings by a river or water source. It may cluster into a small village with a main street and a few public buildings. It may develop into a small city. The city may grow into a major urban area. Draw the different scales in plan and in section and label them. Look at the NEXT.cc SCALE Journey and start thinking in connected scales!What scales of architecture interest you?

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Activity 2 – under, in, on and above architecture

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Architecture is construction of ideas and experiences in built space. It is also sculpture of natural light. Taking these two ideas, you will explore single spaces and forms that allow natural light to enter in different ways. In addition you will explore creating these spaces under ground, in the ground, on top of the ground and above the ground- all places architecture is built! Create 4 models that allow light to enter in different ways while responding to connections to the ground in different ways. Draw your four spaces from above, in section and in plan. Move your ideas around in your imagination, on paper, and in construction!

Activity 3 – Make an Architecture Timeline

Since the beginning of time, humans have built shelters for protection. As settlements of people collected, different types of buildings were needed. As communities flourished, cities developed. People in different places and different times have built architecture in response to culture, society, technology, climate and the environment. When we travel we can visit buildings from other centuries that still exist and imagine what they meant to the people who created them and what they mean to people alive today. Research architectural timelines and create one that starts back at least three thousand years ago. Draw and label significant buildings from each century up to the 20th century and the invention of the modern-day tall building, the SKYSCRAPER. Try to add the tall buildings on to the drawings of the historical buildings. How tall do you have to go?

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Activity 4 – Design A Pavilion!

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Design a pavilion for eating, playing games, doing homework, talking with friends. Design the floor plan of your pavilion at ¼"=1’-0" scale. Calculate square footages associated with the design. Include major features like doors and windows. Print the graph paper and draw the exterior elevations of your pavilion. Align them with your floor plan.

Models are additional tools that designers use to study solutions and to communicate their ideas to others. Begin building your model by gluing a copy of your original floor plan drawing to a piece of cardboard. Use your elevation drawings to measure out the exterior walls onto cardboard to be cut out. Glue together one corner of the exterior on the model base. Build up the rest of your exterior walls and your interior walls using your elevations and floor plans as guides. To finish your model, build a removable roof. Photograph your pavilion. Submit your pavilion.

Activity 5 – Build A Symmetrical Pavilion!

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Think balance. Think parts to whole, top to bottom, inside to outside. This pavilion should express the idea of balance. How you do that is up to you. Explore the word balance. Try to look at buildings and see if they are balanced. Can imbalance suggest balance? Define balance and create a pavilion that expresses a static quality. Give it a local or global topic.

Activity 6 – Build An Earth Day Pavilion!

This time, think like nature. Start by doing a series of line drawings that demonstrate one of nature’s verbs. Use a word like grow, flow, wrap, radiate, mirror, multiply, etc. The movement and expression of your lines should exemplify nature’s verbs. Then think about making your drawn expression a spatial experience. Turn your 2-D lines into 3-D form studies. Make five different study models out of stiff paper. Make the models quickly. These are called working or study models. Put your lines and models together out on a table or pinned up on a wall. Evaluate them. Choose a direction from one or more of your conceptual ideas. Develop the design in a 1/4” finished model. Photograph your model and submit it to the gallery!

Activity 7 – Make a Digital & Physical Pavilion

Working with models is different than modeling digitally. Physical models allow us to study views and form in tangible perceptible ways: turning the model over, adding parts, subtracting pieces. Digitally modeling a project allows us to rotate our design, set time of day, apply sunlight and shadows, apply materials and give us an experience of walking up, to, and through the building. We can learn and understand different things with these different ways of making space and form. Working in both ways is the best of both worlds! Design an earth day pavilion. Make physical study models and then digitally model your creation in SketchUp! Be a well rounded designer!