Project 4.1

Your final project should be considered a summation of the excercises that you have worked on throughout the semester. The issues introduced and explored using a heretofore abstract spatial and tectonic language will be reconsidered in a more concrete and substantive context with the introduction of absolute scale and program.

Program:
- An archival space of +/-400 sq. ft. with a room for one person to study what is being archived.
- An exterior space for a group of people to gather.
- A path (itinerary) that demonstrates an organizational logic and establishes relationships between and within the surrounding context and the construction(s).

You should be able to identify four "moments" (points of particular importance) in your project. One should be a point of entry (negotiating inside/outside); (at least) one should be a threshold (a "between" space that mediates between up and down, light and dark, inside and out); the other(s) may be particular to your project.

You may dig into the site (to a maximum depth of 10', but the material that is removed must be relocated elsewhere (it may be broken up). You may carve into, or through, the wall, but it cannot be removed or relocated (it must remain intact). Thea rchive does not necessarily have to incorporate the wall.

Light is an implicit constituent of each oft he programmatic spaces. It should also be considered in the design of your path.

Please keep in mind:

The program is given, but the results should reflect your intent.

The location of the wall somewhere on your site begins to shift the site from an anonymous undifferentiated plane to a landscape with specific spatial implications. Depending on its position, it first bisects the site either N-S or E-W; it may also suggest a point of entry, orient the inhabitant, interrupt the view, or cast a shadow that may further divide the site into light and dark. These implications are something you should be aware of and respond to; to literally build on.

The introduction of an enclosure immediatly distinguishes inside from out and the walls that delimit the enclosure serve to both unite and divide the space on either side. Consider what is being brought inside (progammatically) and what is being excluded. Openings provide points of connection (visual or physical) between the two realms.

To dig into the earth is to simultaneously merge with the context (the earth) and remve yourself from it.

To build up is the reverse: it is to simultaneously remove yourself from the earth, but connect with the surrounding space.