CASE STUDY: YOKOHAMA TERMINAL – by F.MOUSSAVI & A.ZAERA- POLO

Yokohama International Passenger Terminal was the product of inventive architectural methodology and socially conscious thinking. This Project start by declaring the site as an open public space and proposes to have the roof of the building as an open plaza, continous with the surface of Yamashita Park as well as Akaranega Park. The greatest conceptual strength of the project is perhaps its sensitive relationship with the urban waterfront. With the observation deck doubling as a fully accessible public plaza, the terminal seamlessly emerges from the neighboring Yamashita and Akaranega Parks to make one uninterrupted, universally accessible urban parkscape.

The Project starts with what the architects have named as the “no-return pier” with the ambition to structure the pier as a fluid, uninterrupted and multi-directional space, rather than a gateway to flows of fixed orientation. While the contours of the building occasionally betray an element of randomness, they are in fact generated by a single circulation scheme that dictates spatial organization. Specific interlocking circulation loops allow the architects to subvert the traditional linear and branching characteistic of the building.

The project is produced as an extension of the urban ground, constructed as a systematic transformation of the lines of the circulation diagram into a folded and bifuracted surfaces. This structure is especially adequate in coping with the lateral forces generated by the seismic movements that affect the japanese topography.

Its radical, hyper-technological design explored new frontiers of architectural form and simultaneously provoked a powerful discourse on the social responsibility of large-scale projects to enrich shared urban spaces.

The floors of the second floor and rooftop are finished with wood to give a feeling of a ships deck. An extensive, gently curving observation deck with planted grass areas, open to the public on the rooftop. This way, the Terminal is designed to serve as a working pier as well as an enjoyable and relaxing park-like public facility for Yokohama residents.

Parametricism is a great new style “Finding forms not by thinking but through stimulations”.Yokohama terminal is an architeture based on advanced computational techniques. Parametricism would be the topic that I would like to do research on. This avant-grade architecture addresses to the social demand via a rich panoply of parametric design techniques.

CASE STUDY: WALL HOUSE – by FROHN & ROJAS, Site: Santiago de Chille

TEXT:                PRIMITIVE  FUTURE – by Sou Fujimoto

This Project is a design investigation into how the qualitative aspects of the wall as a complex membrane, structure our social interaction and climatic relationships and enable specific ecologies to develop. This project breaks down the “traditional wall” into a series of four different layers with private and public spaces slipped into the house. It’s worked inside out with the outer layers more connected to the outside whereas the inner most layers are more detached. All layers are connected at the same time detached. It gives us lucid and yet a experience of profound diversity.

Sou Fujimoto talks about what a good / interesting architecture is, for example “ Can something without a purpose or something which exceeds the purpose be built?” Nest and Cave both being the primal state of architecture is still different. Nest is something which is hopitably designed to be a functional place. Whereas Cave is something that naturally occurs. Cave with its unexpected expansions and intersting contours is interesting to live.

Architecture should be practiced in gradation. The author like to see architecture along the line of transition. Between Black and White there are endless shades of grey. The process/ transition / In-betweens is what interests the author.

A house is a room and city is a house. Its really interesting to see house has a heirarchy of rooms and city is a heirarchy of buildings. It could be seen viceversa, house as city and city as a house. The fusion of inside and outside.

Relational logics are given between the advanced architecture and the environment. Its focused on the perceptive phenomena originated among the domestic spaces and elements annexed to these.

The six kinds of relational logics are:

Positional relations, system by illation; Metaphorical relations, systems by analogy; Atmospherical relations, systems by interaction; Intangible relations, systems by correlation; Disturbed relations, systems by alteration; Environmental relations, systems by energy.

To Break free from the illusion to control nature and understand the complexity of nature. To have a better combination of nature, culture and information. Environmental relations helps us to understand that in order to tame nature we should connect with it.