Assignment 2: Site Mapping

(click HERE to download autocad file)

Brief:

This exercise aims to combine site analysis with networks analysis, asking that you consider ‘ the site’ as the nexus of dynamic visible and invisible flows, rather than just a physical place.

1-Visit the location as soon as possible, and start documenting.

2-Peel away the physical, social, and virtual layers of the site in order to yield an exhaustive 'survey' and reading of the site. Look at ecological, infrastructural, social, topographical, transportation, information networks.

-Historic Development of the Site

-Environmental Factors: Prevailing Winds, Solar Exposure, Orientation, Major natural features of site.

-Access: vehicular and pedestrian access and flows during the day & night
-Views: views to and from the site

-Topography: Level change within the site/ adjacent plots.

-Different architectural typologies of the main street: entrances, open spaces, historic type, heights

-Character of the site and relationship with adjacent plots.

3-Pay attention to:

-Built form, Appropriated spaces, Social rituals, Signs, Movements & rhythms, Public Spaces, Residual Spaces

-The different demographic groups you encounter there presently and those you expect to accommodate when the library becomes functional.

-The site in time: daily movements and rituals of the area (day /night, workday/weekend…)

4-methodologies for your analysis:

-Develop an anatomical understanding of the site through the use of lateral and longitudinal sections to examine the relationship of the site to the city

-Trace paths and trajectories of people, commerce, activities, objects, trash that are taking place on the site and next to it. Draw the places of intersection and overlaps formed by the crossing of two or more paths. What are the dynamic or static relationships inherent in these nodes? Examine the conditions of boundary, circulation, and stoppage existing in the x, y, and z coordinates.

-Zoom in and out. Shift your scales of perception from a Google earth flyover to a pedestrian experience. Do the relationships of solid and void change with this shifting perception? How does a representation of scale inform spatial and social hierarchies present in the given context?

Draw. Measure. Photograph. Approach the site in a car, then on feet. Draw its major axis to major urban and natural landscape

-Come up with a list of constraints and opportunities for your site.

5-Required techniques and media:

Notated Sketches, Axonometeric drawings, Photoshop collages, Video stills, Perspectival studies, catalogues, models.

Eventually, you need to depict the emergence of one selected parameter, represent its dynamic system, and effective ly codify it in your architectural analysis. Due Date: October 20.


n.b. week 3 reading are now available. please respond to them by this saturday.