ARCH 4410: Architectural Design
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AUTUMN 2014: 20th JAMES E. GUI ’54 COMPETITION CHICAGO: Dormitories at the University of Chicago Design Project Description Residential environments for undergraduate students on college campuses have provided idealized places of living and learning for centuries. In the Middle Ages, when the Oxford and CamBridge courtyard complexes evolved from monastic cloisters, a persistent typology was formed. Courtyard block housing eventually provided the campus faBric for Yale and other early campuses, while Thomas Jefferson developed a uniquely American campus model at the University of Virginia. Modern student dormitories have more recently evolved into programs and patterns that conform with new academic lifestyles. Often situated on historic campuses, these recent dorms have established new archetypes while adapting to existing university urban plans, types and expressions. Noteworthy modern examples include Alvar Aalto’s Baker House on the Charles River and Eero Saarinen’s Morse and Stiles complexes at Yale. More recently Lewis Tsurumaki Lewis’ dormitory at the College of Wooster and Stephen Holl’s Simmon’s Hall at MIT have continued a tradition of expressive campus residence halls. Contemporary housing markets and university educational oBjectives have set interesting new agendas and expectations for residential complexes that enhance the communal quality of student life. University of Chicago—Site Description Our project to accommodate 800 undergraduates at all ranks (freshman through seniors) is sited on 55th Street and University Ave forming a gateway to campus from the Hyde Park neighBorhood to the north. Peirce Hall, 1960’s housing by Harry Weese, will be replaced with landscapes, promenades, and student rooms, with social, study, commercial and dining facilities. The new Campus North Residence Hall and Dining Commons will provide for 8 “houses,” or student group clusters with allied amenities at the urBan intersection. It is located near the University’s Smart Museum, Gerald Ratner Athletics Center, and the Henry Crown Field House. The site is four blocks north of the Midway Plaisance, a linear urban park that spans one mile from Jackson Park on Lake Michigan at the east end to Washington Park on the west. Part of the lakefront marsh eco-system, the low-lying area was envisioned By Paul Cornell and South Parks Commission in 1850 as a “chain of magnificent lakes.” Olmstead, Vaux and Co. was hired to design the park, but plans were lost in the great Chicago fire of 1871. Later the Hyde Park 1 Midway Became the centerpiece of Daniel Burnham design for the 1893 World ColumBian Exposition, and from this original usage the term “midway” was adopted for the amusement zone of state and county fairs across the United States. The University of Chicago had opened as a co-educational secular school in 1890 with donations from John D. Rockefeller and land given by Marshall Field III. Frederick Law Olmstead returned the Midway Plaisance to a park after the Fair, and the green area became part of the University, which expanded in 1926 by building colleges on its south side, eventually including Mies van Der Rohe’s School of Social Serve Administration, Eero Saarinen’s Laird Bell Law Quadrangle and Tod Williams and Bille Tsien’s Logan Art Center. University of Chicago—Housing “The University is far stronger when we create vibrant communities of learning and friendship for our students in our residential system. High-quality collegiate housing, located centrally on the campus, is an enormous asset in supporting the educational goals of the faculty, in developing active and stimulating learning communities among our students, and in encouraging patterns of lifelong friendships among our alumni.” John W. Boyer, Dean of the College, University of Chicago Currently about half of University of Chicago undergraduates live in campus dormitories, in which the University seeks to provide “intimate communities in a big city,” with implications for safety and security. University leaders seek to increase the numBers to 70%. Across campus, groups of 60 to 100 students are organized into “house” collectives that share amenities, social spaces, dining tables and a common identity. The House System tradition has developed relationships across class levels and among alumni toward a common goal in which “school, work, home and recreational lives are knitted together for a full college experience.” UChicago’s residential environments address a social mandate that includes relational oBjectives as part of its academic mission. Research and Chicago Site visit The design phase of the project will be preceded by a series of research exercises and a visit to the proposed building location. (see Course Calendar) Housing typology precedence studies will be coordinated in sections By individual instructors, while selected urBan theory-driven topics of inquiry will be shared across sections to broaden and deepen all students’ knowledge in several areas. We will provide small group tours with University of Chicago campus planning personnel on site on Friday afternoon, Sept 19 and Saturday mid-day, Sept 20, for advanced sign up. The oBjective of the site visit is to document and comprehend site issues in situ while Beginning to apply theoretical framework introduced through inquiries. Students will Be asked to commit in advance on one of the tours and be present at that time. Preparation for the 19-22 SeptemBer Chicago site visit will also include: 1. Section research topic inquires jointly presented on 9/17—Knowlton-Main level, and 2. Student organized plans for specific building tours while in Chicago 19-22 SeptemBer. Section Topic Inquiries: Each instructor will focus research oBjectives to introduce a framework for understanding the larger context and relevant contemporary themes that will situate the design proBlem. The output of this preliminary study will be shared across sections and collaborative research findings will be included in the 20th Gui Competition publication. Visual presentations and discussions will take place before the senior trip to Chicago. Presentation formats will be determined by individual section instructor. Deadline: Wednesday 17 SeptemBer. 2. Chicago building tours and documentation: Students are encouraged to plan ahead with an amBitious agenda to visit works of architecture and design that they have not previously seen and are of greatest interest, especially in relation to their research topic. Prior to departure, students will identify and gather relevant information to facilitate visits. Documentation will Be required and evaluated as determined By section instructors. A studio gallery style review will take place following the site visit. Deadline: Wednesday 24 SeptemBer. UG4 ARCHITECTURE 4410: ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN V 2 Prof Cruse: What Follows Form? Chicago architect Louis Sullivan’s classic essay of 1896, “The Tall Office Building Artistically Considered,” is best known for the recycled aphorism “form follows function.” Less well-known, although perhaps more illuminating, was the response of Sullivan’s partner at the time, Denkmar Adler, who in his essay of the same year, “Function and Environment,” amended and expanded Sullivan’s argument. He wrote: “’function and environment determine form’ using the words environment and form in their Broadest sense.” Our section will examine the larger impact of function and environment on form through an analysis of three themes of as they relate to Chicago buildings and architects. The themes are Building envelopes, Building services and Building landscapes. We will read Sullivan’s and Adler’s essays, and then Build a catalogue of works to study and analyze. Prof Diles: Structure and Character Description: Students will identify, research and document innovative structural systems developed By Chicago architects. Specific attention will Be paid to the relationships that develop Between a Building's structure and the character of its architecture at multiple scales. Structure will Be examined not only for its role in holding the building up but also for its ability to produce or inform spatial organization, materiality and atmosphere, memoraBle urBan images and architectural theory. Exemplary Chicago architects and engineers to research: William Le Baron Jenney, Burnham & Root, Mies, SOM (Bruce Graham & Fazlur Khan) and Bertrand GoldBerg. Prof Lewis: Chicago Infrastructure: Reading the City through its Systems. The studio will investigate the city's infrastructural systems as a way to uncover Chicago's urBan development. Students will take advantage of Chicago's extensive GIS datasets, using ESRI to overlay information aBout transportation, hydrography or other networks. Maps will allow students to research and hold questions about the city, as well as test hypothesis about emerging relationships Between components. UG4 ARCHITECTURE 4410: ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN V 3 Prof. Kochar: Chicago Delirium “The Metropolis strives to reach a mythical point where the world is completely fabricated by man, so that it absolutely coincides with his desires”. Quotes Rem in Delirious New York. His fascination with a “culture of congestion” is perverse considering Manhattan as the archetype of the Metropolitan condition. Knowingly UIC has Been a hot Bed radicalizing economic concepts that has promoted economic liberalization in countries like Brazil, China and India, forcing them to adopt neo-liberal strategies indirectly facilitating a culture of congestion, under the guise of rapid growth since the 1990s