MISUSE 02: “Draw” (model) section cuts upon the established work plane using model and detail lines. In Revit, sections are constructed by attaching system, loadable, or in-place families to the default work plane in plan and then cutting the families using a section box. Misuse 02 works against the tool by establishing a pseudo-orthographic method.
1- The Architectural Detail:
- Read Ford_The Architectural Detail_Ch 4.
- Define selective detailing, animated joint, articulated joint, adjacent joint, dissonant joint, autonomous detail, system family, loadable family, in-place family, displaced views, cut views, stitched views, and section box.
2- Constructional Material Conditions:
- Interrogate elements, materials, and spaces of the site.
- Document what exists by cutting sections through the building site.
- “Draw” section cuts through the existing building.
3- Constructional Narratives:
- Establish a part to whole relationship between the existing and new through the Constructional Performance 1 detail.
- Program the transition by changing awareness in engagement.
MONDAY 10.28_DETAIL DISCUSSION (Due Wednesday 10.30)
Here is the link to the playlist of songs played at First Avenue: First Avenue Playlist_ARCH 451 Censored
In class, we discussed selected passages from “The Detail as a Representation of Construction”
“We architects must also first study the skeleton, just as painters and sculptors do in order to give their figures the correct form. For the cladding of every natural object is, so to speak, an exact reflection of the inner skeleton, which, in that it presents us with the perfect construction, can be called a work of architecture. But logical construction is the dominating element here, and the cladding is not a loose covering entirely negating the construction like a badly fitting suit but is totally rooted in the inner building and ultimately a form of decorated construction. This is how we want to find our way back again to the body… For the present, therefore, it is necessary to study the skeleton-dry construction in all its simple robustness-in order to arrive at once again the full body, but without the confusion of clothing.” (Becca & Erica, pg 137)
“Just as in the human body the external form is an indirect reflection of skeleton…so the concrete envelope could correspond to the structure in the same way and could also show the same deviations at certain points determined by aesthetic considerations.” (Kate & Sydney, pg 138)
“If the structure is not fit to be exposed, the architect has not done his job properly. Anyone who hides a column or a load-bearing part, weather interior or exterior, is depriving himself of architecture’s noblest and most legitimate element, and its finest ornamental feature. Architecture is the art of making supports sing. And if the person who hides a column, pillar or any load-bearing part is making a MISTAKE, the one who builds a false column is committing a CRIME.” (Joe & Nate, pg 145)
“Mies’ American buildings appear to display more structure, but they faced the same problems as Berlage’s, primarily fireproofing. Mies’ solution was conceptually closer to Wagner’s, the use of a representational frame. What appear to be exposed steel buildings of the period are more often secondary frames covering real structure.” (Levi & Sam, pg 149)
“It is not farfetched to think that the Smithsons saw themselves performing a transformation analagous to the creation of the Doric order, translating an architecture of metal into one of stone in the way that the Doric translated wood construction into stone.” (Jacob & Zach, pg 153)
“This is a practice seen in many contemporary buildings, the application of superfluous constructional features in combination with the suppression of real ones, to the end of achieving a “modern” image. It is, in its way, not less historicist than the neo-Colonial work of Robert A.M. Stern. This is not non-detailing; it is selective detailing. Its intent is to be the paradigm of the construction of the building as a whole, and it is a highly legitimate form of detail, but also a highly deceptive one. ” (Evan & Noah, pg 163)
“Modern architecture was about the modern vision and the modern predicament, not about modern construction and modern technique. The problem, however, is that modernism has discarded none of the formal and structural elements that the constructional philosophy of modernism has generated. All of Le Corbusier’s Five Points remain in place, allowing for the occasional truss or even constructionally articulate detail. The language of modern construction remains; the philosophy does not.” (Kayla and Lucien, 170)
For Wednesday, the following are due at minimum:
1- Add the details you have “drawn” into the sections you have “drawn” of the First Avenue Site. How do you translate the detail?
2- Print your inserted details on letter-sized or tabloid-sized paper at scale.
3- Answer the three (3) questions (printed) about keywords from Ford_Detail. Also consider the following questions:
- To expose or not expose?
- What is meant by, “the language of modern construction remains, but the philosophy does not.”?
DoArch Constructional Performances 