presentation draft - initial script

may be too light on the program+site analysis... perhaps the images make up for that? really, time is a big factor, so the presentation needs to just enough to engage the jury with the intent of the thesis, the nature of the process, and the substance to its resolution/conclusion.

here it is for now:



PATTERN PROCESS thesis presentation narrative 1.0 10.07.2008 jonathan healey

intro
This thesis explores different notions of "pattern" through the testing of representational techniques for the purpose of revealing non-architectonic relationships of structure in the process of architectural design.



prologue
STRUCTURE
Question emerged from previous studio work: What other structural systems are relevant to architecture beyond the architectonic? How can the relationships among these structures determine design?

MORPHOLOGY
Presented as a quasi-methodology precedent, I briefly surveyed "morphological design" as a study of the relationship among structures. My observations of the figures and configurations of skeletal systems, taxonomies, and topologies suggested characteristics of "pattern" in a conventional (2D) understanding.


research
PATTERN
office da quote - pattern qualities through thickness, space deep, surface conditions; also pattern analysis through media methodology

To begin an inquiry into pattern as a multi-dimensional entity, I studied the methodology of "patterning" in fashion design, where form and volume have a critical relationship to the flat-pattern template in the process of fabricating and tailoring. See initial concept study. Important observations from the exercise were the development of an emergent graphic for analysis, a simple latent hierarchical system internal to the complex form, and the effecting of dominant relationships (e.g. cuts) to affected relationships (e.g. secondary creases, lines of rigidity). Also observed was the variety of seam potentials, as categorized by their performative condition of abutting, overlapping, etc. (see clothing seams).
conceptual analysis - models+diagrams


In order to further explore "pattern" within the discipline of architecture, the study required the context of subject (or human activity), object (or space-form), and location (see: Heidegger, Building Dwelling Thinking). Thus, I proposed an engagement of a case site with a programmatic vehicle as follows:

SITE
The site selected is the former Collins Company factory and its sponsor town of Collinsville, Connecticut. The site is approached as a found condition, loaded with extant stories and latent histories of man's engagement with the power of moving water for nearly three-hundred years. Here, edged-tools such as axes, machetes, and plows were produced from 1826 to 1966. The products of the factory plowed Nebraska into the Union, colonized the banana groves of Latin America, and armed John Brown's revolution at Harper's Ferry. The factory's techniques in manufacturing and power-harnessing innovated industrial processes throughout the world. Today, the town and factory complex exist as a scenographic and iconic place memorializing the decaying industrial culture of New England and the Industrial era.

LIVING NEED
(howard mansfield quote) - remaking as a method of preservation, continuity, and living
As the site currently struggles in a static state of economy and image, an agenda of preservation necessitates the reintroduction of a dynamic state to create a model of "living history". As such the programmatic vehicle proposes engaging the factory complex with a progressive model of industry that repurposes the grounds of the factory, the existing facilities, and the factory's relationship with its town.

PROGRAM
The Connecticut Fuel Cell Center is a research and development laboratory operated jointly by the University of Connecticut and private industries. The fuel cell itself is potentially a revolutionary product in its use of renewable resources to produce clean energy. A fuel cell produces electricity by chemically isolating electrons from hydrogen or biowaste fuel inputs, emitting only water (H2O) and organic waste. True to their name, fuel cells indeed function cellularly as their application can range from powering a cell phone, to a refrigerator or scooter, to a neighborhood or campus, to South Korea. They are portable, stackable, and networkable.

The Connecticut Fuel Cell Center program is built on the network-based model of Social Production. This method relies upon the accessibility and connectivity of many individuals diversely vested in the focused event. Similar to the structure of the internet, the Social Production model establishes a a consistent protocol and language among its participants, and exploits the scalability and granularity of the product to facilitate testing and invention. It relies on the casual participation of the general public in the acts of testing and inventing.

Critical to the production is the establishment of network hubs or pools where individuals can gather, collect, and exchange. The Connecticut Fuel Cell Center itself is composed of four Pools. These facilities reflect the research and design process at hand. They are:

-the Info Pool (for academic and presentation facilities)
-the Prototype Pool (for manufacturing hardware and deploying models for test)
-the Feedback Pool (for participants to download test data and receive service support)
-the Assessment Pool (for data analysis and synthesis for future models)

The priorities of the Center are:

-innovations in product, manufacturing technique, and application
-public engagement with industrial innovation


INITIAL STUDIES:
formal site analysis - sketches+models
program analysis - diagrams+models
content site analysis - narrative/photography+mapping/drawing

The program analysis produced graphic diagrams of the "social production" process, as well as prototypical models for hypothetical spatial requirements. These prototypes are byproducts of a method of delaminating dichotomous spatial performance types: servant/served, static/dynamic, individual/collective, and hidden/revealed. The relationships were studied first as separate two-dimensional diagrams, then recombined as a three-dimensional model, which then produced a series of configurations of spatial types which coincided with the specific needs of the unique program Pools. Later, these concept prototypes found form and scale, according to the unit requirements of the program, and tested on site.

The content and formal site analysis concluded in an intervention strategy that focused on the derelict portion of the factory complex east of the rail overpass. The only two existing means of vehicular access occur in this area. The lower canal remains active, flowing through two operational sluiceways, one involving a functional wheelhouse. Upon the recommendations of historical assessments, the Granite Building and Lower Forge were targeted for material remaking and programmatic repurposing. Vintage maps of the factory described the various factory processes and their locations over the decades. Scars of these events are often extant as ruins or projected as voids in the landscape.

As evidenced by the analysis, this research yielded a broad palette of "patterns" identified by a variety of representational methods:
activity, material, tectonics, land, processes, making, movement, flowage, volume, form, surface, template, time, seasons, historic, fictional, future, prototypical, ideal, existing, new...



design
PROPOSAL
Introduce new patterns to existing patterns;
develop critical "seams" where patterns join: how are these seams expressed?
develop the architectural resolution of these moments across the site; (master plan... propose broad expression of the integrated patterns / the re-made site through "master plan")


SEAMS
what & where are the dominant relationships?
what are the spatial/formal implications at these moments?
how do the forms/configuration/scenes operate didactically to reinforce the living history and ideals of the site? when do stories & ideals merge / conflict / coexist? when & how is the experience of the place between these patterns?


ARCHITECTURAL CONCLUSION
resolved by a collection of montage scenographic compositions, each studying a critical seam;
broad expression of integrated patterns supported by: program master plan, sectional diagrams, map of water processes (aka "how is the water different?"), double drawer diagram of "Pool" mediating town/access/factory/water connections, potential animation linking new seams with images of historic, temporal, etc..................
*scenographic = of or belonging to scenography, scene-painting, or drawing in perspective


CONCEPTUAL CONCLUSIONS
{Each of these "patterns" I recognize as structural systems, in that they are self-contained topologies of values or elements. Both the topological dynamic of each set as well as the qualitative implications of each set may be evaluated relative to other, different structural systems so as to inform and influence the figuration and configuration of a greater whole... More on "how", etc as I continue to resolve architectural design]