final site and detail

Through probing and optimizing exercises, this phase nurtures select seedlings while developing combinatory logics, or ground rules, and establishing a site as an emerging structural matrix.When a possible site has been established, it is analyzed to reveal both rhizomatic and hierarchical qualities. Here, as in crystallography, cellular formations and infrastructural networks are tested for their integrity and stability as well as for their deviations, dislocations and enclosures. Potential points of intervention are identified and internal growth is manipulated and exaggerated through external reference.Finally, aberrations emerge from the meshwork and become objects of architectural speculation further guided by the programmatic demands of a gym.
This diagrams the gym's multipale spaces and distinct circulation
If the diagram is split in thirds around the spaces the left section is, middle section is, and the right section
The darkest box is the entrance and central gathering space
The ovals are personal spaces to do exercices alone
The double box shows an upper and lower space
The other boxes show the public gathering spaces for exercises


Theses are the final gym








1/2 Scale detail model of a particular moment in the model which captures the main entrance with added detail compared to the entire site model






Intial test for detail model

Plan of model

The beginning of the final

The final Fitness Studio model is the most comprehensive piece of your design work. It is a proposal that answers to core architectural demands, such as structure, shelter, program and circulation.

It will be read in context with and against your midterm field model (basswood limit 6x18x24) and show how much the default tectonic field - the site - has emerged and grown into an occupied building structure. Though based on the same tectonic language, the final model will differ significantly from its predecessor. While the midterm model established a language, the final model uses that language to compose a building.

While the midterm model was general, open and low-res., your final model is SPECIFIC, ENCLOSING and HIGH-RES.:

The final model is SPECIFIC in its response to the volumetric demands of your body in exercise. The body envelope (result of body analysis assignment 11) is understood as a measure of the human figure to support your sense of scale; it is also understood as a generator of specific spatial characteristic acting upon the structure, expanding the field and leaving traces of its spatial identity (It is not the sufficient volumetric expanse for a room as a restrictive program envelope).

The final model is also specific to the circulation derived from the project's exercise routine. The Fitness Studio is made up of a specific sequence of performance spaces generating a spatial continuum. The circulation space overlaps and loops providing for moments of contemplation and isolation as well as spaces of interaction and gathering. With the final model in hand you can give a 'walk through' of the Fitness Studio.

The final model is ENCLOSING as it provides the primal architectural function of shelter. The degree of openess and juxtaposition of open and enclosed space is specific to the programmatic needs of each exercise routine. However, each Fitness Studio provides some amount of enclosed space that allows for protection from environmental forces. Building entries and openings are articulated with great care to define these moments of transition. Outdoor spaces providing room for parts of the exercise routine are defined as performance ground and distinguished form the default site by the level of built-in resolution. At very few moments the final model resembles the midterm model; it is the uninhabited parts that communicate the transition to the general field.

The final model is a HIGH-RESOLUTION model that incorporates a specific tectonic syntax on dramatically different scales. The finer the grain the more responsive the building fabric to the programmatic demands. It is a high-resolution structure that incorporates distinctly different hierarchical levels that perform together as one coherent structure.

The structure of the final model is of much higher definition than the midterm field model. The final model not only passes the physical 'shake test' of structural stability; but it reveals a clear understanding of the system's hierarchical qualities. Primary load bearing elements are distinguishable from secondary elements and enclosure, screening modules.

Functional differences among building parts are incorporated. Walkable surfaces are treated differently than ceiling surfaces. Haptic, visual and lighting conditions are discussed on the model's smallest scale.

Sections with space

Inhabitals spaces insterted in to sections

The Program begins with space and scale

This is the matrix that shows the evolution of the inhabital spaces


ciculation diagram 1

circulation diagram 2

circulation diagram 3 and 4

Assignment:For a moment we take our focus off the ground and return to the training routine established in Week One. We identify body positions and derive the spatial demands for each exercise of the routine. While articulating the spatial characteristics of the exercises we introduce scale as an architectural means, starting with 1/4" = 1'-0". Ultimately we form an understanding of scale in relation to the human figure.
The Movements - of crowds, dancers, fighters - recall the inevitable intrusion of bodies into architectural spaces, the intrusion of one order into another. The need to record accurately such confrontations, without falling into functionalist formulas suggested precise forms of movement notation. An extension of the drawn conventions or choreography, this notation attempts to eliminate the preconceived meaning given to particular actions in order to concentrate on their spatial effects: the movement of bodies in space. Rather than merely indicating directional arrows on a neutral surface, the logic of movement notation ultimately suggests real corridors of space, as if the dancer has been carving space out of a pliable substance': or the reverse, shaping continuous volumes, as if a whole movement has been literally solidified, 'frozen' into a permanent and massive vector. (Bernard Tschumi)
We also want to show some appreciation for the phenomenological conditions specific to each exercise. Performing each activity, how does the body experience space? Is your routine designed to build endurance, strength or speed; how does that affect the exerience? Privileged Wordset: Develop a matrix of terms that relates the Exercise (noun) of your routine and its Activity (verb) to a Spatial quality (adj.) Example:
warm-up / to crouch / compressed
warm-up / to stretch / expansive
warm-up / to jump rope / continuous
sparring / to jab / measured
sparring / to swerve / dented
sparring / to duck / depressed
The authenticity of Architectural experience is grounded in the tectonic language of building and the comprehensibility of the act of construction to the senses. We behold, touch, listen, and measure the world with our entire bodily existence and the experiential world is organized and articulated around the center of the body. Our domicile is the refuge of our body, memory and identity. We are in constant dialogue and interaction with the environment, to the degree that it is impossible to detach the image of the self from its spatial and situational existence. "I am the space, where I am," as the poet Noel Arnaud established. (Juhani Pallasmaa)
In addition to the individual moments of perception we map the procedural character of the routine. From the bodily procession emerges an infrastructural, navigational system, which currently comes in the form of an abstract notation - a circulation diagram. It defines the sequence of spaces and spatial potential of an overlapping and loosely knotted path.

Light study Interior investagation

The are light study pictures that look at interior spaces, what happens to those spaces when shadows are added and changed. This is about having fun with the spaces i made previously, what can i do to enrich them, and how light and shadows gives them a new life.