Generative Framework
Fall 2022
Carnegie Mellon University
Professors Heather Bizon, Ala Tannir, Vicky Achnani
In Collaboration with Graham Murtha
Looking at the idea of agency through an urban lens into the context of architecture, the design evolved with the focus of creating a platform for people to be able to make a space their own. This began with the study of material histories and public art around the city to create spaces that are aimed at working with people instead of just for them. The idea of agency, for the human and the non-human to work in symbiotic relationships to give everyone an equal voice was an important part of the design process. This, throuhgout the process, came in different forms, explored through the process of model making and sketching. The three sites; Monongahela Incline, Strip District, and Brunot Island in Pittsburgh, all had historical contexts that had rich material pasts. This context helped us create rich systems that derived principles from what existed before.
Our initial exploration of design, which aimed at creating a common ground for different kinds of people, bringing together various forms of transport into one monolithic structure helped us realize that we wanted to actively stray away from impositional or overprescriptive design; something that might actually involve people in the design process. This led to the creation of our ruleset, a framework of relatively flexible constraints on architectural language to create spaces that are people- and site-specific. To explore this in different contexts, we chose three very different sites; the Monongahela Incline, a steep site, almost untouched by humans; Brunot Island, a post-industrial context in proximity to water, and an existing parking garage in the Strip District, a very urban setting.
The three different sites posed very distinct challenges; extreme topography, edge conditions with an everchanging river, and a commercial context with a pre-existing program. Exploring the application of all of these rules on these sites, we ended up generating three vastly different hypothetical designs, each of which use different materials and programs to create site specific architecture and using the human lens to design for potential experiences, all from just our five rules. This drawing was the most effective in putting our idea across. The drawing, along with the conceptual models, were effective in putting across the ideas behind each rule and test how they would manifest themselves in very different contexts. The same set of rules were also explored three-dimensionally through model-making to test how the rules would manifest themselves physically in all three sites.
While the rules that were developed were relatively conceptual, we were inspired to explore their application in the context of actual tectonic systems. These drawings explore the hypothetical construction using as much material from the site as possible and in a way that would help involve the members of the community the intervention was situated in. These mereological tectonic drawings helped us visualize the final forms and challenge our initial ideas. The context of the pre-exitsing garage in the Strip district and the untouched foliage of the Monongahela Incline resulted in very different forms that applied the same ruleset. The ruleset application in the case of Brunot Island, a post-industrial context, lead us to almost amphibian architecture, allowing us to explore ways in which structures could adapt to different topography and their changing roles in relation to water. Using materials like steel pipes and grass for thatched roofs, this context also led to vastly different forms.
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