Silvia's blog: researching through architecture: February 2014

Thursday, 20 February 2014

Art and intimate spaces

Thinking back to the sense of space that light can give you and also what kind of experience I want to give to people visiting the columbarium, I found out this project for a cemetery complex in an ancient italian town, by Andrea Dragoni. The entire design is in travertine due to a strong and clear will of the architect .

SOURCE: http://www.dezeen.com/2014/01/07/cemetery-andrea-dragoni-plazas-artworks/

What I really like of this project is how the architect plays with solid volumes and voids that are spaces as well. Also light plays an important rule, and each gap of light is studied to obtain a certain viewpoint for visitors. Furthermore, he designed not only a memorial and cemetery space but also a public space.
In fact people can visit the complex feeling it also as external visitors. This is obtained thanks to designed public spaces that alternate the actual cemetery space. These spaces have been used for installations by different artists and have been designed inspired by James Turrell' Skyspaces.
I would like to create the same experience in my project but at the same time I would like to involve the park as well, to make people feel where they really are and, in some way, find confort in nature.

This means that I will have to decide if the plan will be inclosed in it self or it will be opened, so that it will be completely permeable.
For what concerns the installations, I can keep the same idea or try to obtain the same kind of space but using light instead of art.

SOURCE: http://www.dezeen.com/2014/01/07/cemetery-andrea-dragoni-plazas-artworks/

Thursday, 13 February 2014

Sensing Spaces

Some days ago we went to London just for the Sensing Spaces exhibition. It was a very interesting experience that has opened my mind about what really makes a space different. It's so funny to work with light: to produce different effects, to make people feel different sensations and to obtain different atmospheres. But it's not just light that change the sense of a space. Materials too have an effect on space: for example different surfaces reflect light in different ways.
This is exactly what happens in Koshino House, by Tadao Ando.

SOURCE: http://www.archdaily.com/161522/ad-classics-koshino-house-tadao-ando/koshino8_mariana/
Photo from Wikiarquitectura © Mariana

As it's possible to see from these pictures there is an hard work for what concerns interior and exterior spaces. Here, the main material used is concrete. And concrete, since it's a cold material, it's accompanied with wood for what concerns floors. In the image below, it's possible to see these non casual holes in the wall that, in a wonderful way, give light to the corridor. I say non casual because distance and height is due to the staircase on the other side.

SOURCE: http://www.archdaily.com/161522/ad-classics-koshino-house-tadao-ando/koshino10_gonzalo/
Photo from Flick © Gonzalo Perez - http://www.flickr.com/photos/49942362@N03/

Looking to this picture I feel very calm due to the presence of a calm light that goes in this room thanks to a gap between the ceiling and the wall. If there wasn't any gap, it wouldn't be the same experience for who come in this space. I think I will try to use these kinds of effects of light to give these sensations. First of all with the columbarium space. This because it will be useful too. Infact, moving this kind of gap I can obtain the same effect on the columbarium wall and have light exactly above it.

SOURCE: http://www.archdaily.com/161522/ad-classics-koshino-house-tadao-ando/koshino9_gonzalo/

Photo from Flick © Gonzalo Perez - http://www.flickr.com/photos/49942362@N03

SOURCE: http://www.archdaily.com/161522/ad-classics-koshino-house-tadao-ando/koshino11_gonzalo/
Photo from Flick © Gonzalo Perez - http://www.flickr.com/photos/49942362@N03/

Sunday, 9 February 2014

The wall: different approaches

Still talking about the wall, doing my research I found out different and original ways to treat of menaging the topic. So now I'm going to desplay some of the most interesting projects I found out.

The first one is the Women's Monument in Memory - Female Victims of Political Repression in Santiago, Chile. The project is by Oficina De Arquitectura – Emilio Marín + Nicolás Norero, done for the Prize in 2004 and built in 2006-2007.

This is a totally different approach to the memorial topic, full of meanings and strong in its concept. The wall is transparent to look both to the past and future. The material chosen makes everything lighter, not only talking about the design but also as the experience that parents and people that know the victims can feel. I think that this monument is also a way to help people to face a pain like this.

<<A transparent wall that does not divide the lives, that at any time and from any place, allows us to watch towards the past and the future, through the absent faces in the posters that the relatives of the victims of repression take tight to the heart.>>

Sandra Palestro, Award Presentation Speech Memorial Memory Woman, Santiago, September 27, 2004

SOURCE: http://plusmood.com/2008/10/womens-monument-in-memory-oficina-de-arquitectura/

Tuesday, 4 February 2014

The wall

From the beginning of my research I know that the wall will be a very important part of the columbarium. When I say wall I'm talking about that wall/element that will house the ashes or just the memorial paques. That wall is the main element of the columbarium because it's the place where you are going to find the name of a dear person, the place where you are going to stop to cry, pray, think... It's also the place where people put flowers or other stuff beside to their dear person plaque. So it must be an elemnt well designed because it is going to carry the love of lots of people.

Talking about the wall, I thin about the project "Memory and light" by Daniel Libeskind, in Padova, Italy.
This projet is a memorial design for the victims of the 9/11 attacks on New York City.

SOURCE: http://daniel-libeskind.com/projects/memoria-e-luce-911-memorial/images
Photo by Bitter Bredt

As you can see from the first picture we can find again the element of water, in fact the project is nearby Piovego river. The design is composed by this big book open in the direction of the Statue of Liberty in New York. So we can find a kind of a historical relationship between the region Veneto and New York due to the emigration of italians in America, in the past.
The light is the main character of the design that we can find both in the "book" and on the wall. The shape of the wall accompany visitors towards the main memorial element where we can find a piece of a beam from the World Trade Centre attack. When it's dark this wall becomes illuminated and acquires a new strenght full of meanings.

SOURCE: http://daniel-libeskind.com/projects/memoria-e-luce-911-memorial/images
Photo by Bitter Bredt

Sunday, 2 February 2014

Elements: water

Through my research I found out that when we talk about death, the element of water is often used.
For example in the Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri a river is used both to carry dead people to the hell and to the purgatory. So it's an element that accompany any soul.

SOURCE: http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Pur_02_dore.jpg

A river, when crossed, optically divides and makes recognize two different kinds of spaces and I would like to use this elemento to mark the border as it happens in this project at the Westminster Presbyterian Church in Minneapolis: a Urban Columbarium and Courtyards by Coen + Partners Studio.

The main key element of the project is the permeable wall but, for me, the artificial river is a good and important element too. In this case, this is a urban design project and this explains the material chosen for the wall and also the necessity of the noise of the water to cover the one from the street. I also like the use of the wall to divide the urban area from a more intimate space and, at the same time, the continuity due to the presence of the same kinds of trees.

SOURCE: http://archinect.com/features/article/89230/showcase-westminster-presbyterian-church-urban-columbarium-and-courtyards

Photo by Paul Crosby

SOURCE: http://archinect.com/features/article/89230/showcase-westminster-presbyterian-church-urban-columbarium-and-courtyards

Photo by Paul Crosby

SOURCE: http://archinect.com/features/article/89230/showcase-westminster-presbyterian-church-urban-columbarium-and-courtyards

Photo by Paul Crosby

Introducing me

Hi!

My name is Silvia, I'm 23 years old and I come from Rome, Italy. I studied a BA in Architecture at the Roma Tre University and now it's starting a new challenge for me with a MA in Interior Architecture and Design at the Nottingham Trent University.

Here I'm going to share my opinions, my ideas, my works and above all my questions about different topics related to architecture and interior designs, my design studios, communication techiques and all those things that can help me to make me know and manage different research methods.