ELEVATION STUDIES
SOUTH WING
In terms of materiality, the South Wing is predominently made out of concrete. The initial idea of it was to leave the concrete as it is exposing its raw form. However, to create a texture to the elevation, vertical lines were emphasized showing the joints of the concrete.
To break the monolithic form the concrete, I decided to create a number of openings for windows and doors. This is done to soften the form of the south wing as to prevent it from looking excessively rigid. I took the inspiration from a precedent of concrete house by Matteo Cassari Architects.
Exposed precast concrete was the first choice for the exterior.
The diagram shows how I have arranged the precast concrete to produce a uniform elevation throughout the south facade.
WEST WING
Moving on from the concrete wall I decided to look into patterned concrete. One of the precedents that I looked at was the Technical School Library facade by Herzog and De Meuron.
It is quite interesting to see the technique used which is screen printing by using concrete retardation solvent. I also looked into carved concrete.
Initial South elevation
I looked into a building by SPEECH Tschoban and Kusneztov which is the Architectural Drawing Museum located in Berlin. The interesting part about this museum is the way they made the facade of the building. The architect employ a technique of repetition of images on all of the four levels. They also played with the sizes of each of the paneled drawings to create asymmetry on the building facade.
The diagram shows the way the architect emplys the different sizes of drawings. The increasing and decreasing of the drawing sizes allows to create a hierarchy on the facade apart from the building itself .
The above panels are some example of imagery that I could be using on my building following the concept that the museum used. I wanted to used this technique as it allows me to create images but also texture to the bulding facade as it carves into the concrete wall. However , I would employ the usage of varying sizes of concrete panels to create the effect desired.
From the precedent I decided to create imageries of Hulme as the building is created fro the community of Hulme as it creates a realtionship with the people.
DEVELOPED SOUTH ELEVATION
The west wing houses the clasrooms where the structure is predominently steel frames to contrast with the heavy monolithic form of the North and South Wings of the building. As for the exterior , I looked into a precedent of the Tietgen Dormitry in Coppenhagen because of the push and pull effect of the building
I wanted to do this because I wanted this part of the building to have the feeling of randomness to it. The push and pull effect helps the building to achieve this but at the same time still have a sense of unity to the building. Hence what I did was I took the form of the dormitory which is in a circular form and reshape it into a straight form to sui my building.
The original dormitory building is a circle with the push and pull effect on the inner and outer circle
Copying the form of the building , what I did was apply the same concept of the exterior to my building which has a straight facade
The push and pull effect had allowe me to create these pocket spaces on the building exterior which is one of the main spaces inside my building. I did this as to create small spaces for the people to have some private time with theirselves.
MATERIAL CHOICE 1
In terms of materiality, I have chosen to use ceramic claddings on the outer facade. The reasoning for this is because I wanted to create colourful exterior for the West Wing as opposed to the more monotonous North and South wing. However, ceramic feels heavy ; same as concrete which could not create the contrast I wanted
DEVELOPED ELEVATION ( CERAMIC )
MATERIAL CHOICE 2
Apart from ceramic , I also contemplated the usage of timber as the cladding. This is because it is a stark contrast from the heavy monolithic feel of the concrete as it is softer to the eyes. However, the setback for using timber is that it will not be available in variety of colours as ceramic is.
DEVELOPED ELEVATION ( TIMBER )
In the end, I have decided to move the design forward with timber as it is more suitable for the feel of the building that I am currently trying to achieve
