WELCOME~
Urban Studio
University of California, Berkeley
Fall 2015
Instructor: Nicholas-de Monceaux
Collaborator: Alvin Hwang
I have to admit I was quite shocked the first time I got the design brief: “Decompose an Oxford T-shirt and record the process in drawing”.I thought this is supposed to be an Urban Studio, and I had no clue at all how on earth an Oxford T-shirt has anything to do with an urban problem(Still not even today). Anyway, I am quite relieved seeing the same amount of confusion inside my classmate’s eyes.
“This is supposed to be a struggling studio”- by an experienced senior student
Anyway, After Three wks or so we finally shift from all the fabric and sewing thread into something familiar, The city. We are supposed to bring what we have learned in the previous exercise into this new chapter. I mean I guess what the instructor meant by then is probably more of the representation skill, the way to use proper line weight and color difference to differentiate the information on drawings. Somehow, me and my partner seemed to have pushed it too far, We felt in love with the delicacy of fabric, so we brought the fabric idea into the project.
Also, we start the analysis of the site itself. The city of Oakland seems to have faced too many challenges – sea level rise, growing population, crime, identity, etc. Our original idea is simple, build upwards for more density. We are imagining a giant, ethereal roof hovering over the city, providing infrastructure and shelter to the city below. Kind of like the Manhattan dome from Buckminster fuller. The drawings above are series research we had about existing urban fabric and something we interested the most- the existing condition of the roofs on-site.
In the next stage of design. The proposal is a combination of idealistic future city imagination and a celebration of current but hidden city patterns and systems. We propose several layers of roof structure being built on top of the city and being supported by the existing&proposed infrastructure systems, mainly the pipes. It’s a system in which the roof serves the pipes, the pipes support the roof, and people live in between.
The roof has the main function of collecting water for its residents. The top layer would collect water from the constantly rolling-in fog from the bay. The second layer would collect the rainwater in the winter, and prevent moisture from going out during the dry summer. The lower layer of the roofs would create a unique and fun space for people to live in.
The roof is mainly constructed ed by a lightweight tensile structure. The form and material of the roof allow the possibility of eliminating the boundary between nature and man-made city, creating a multi-layered microclimate.While designing the structure, we think of the massive scale of the infrastructure and how much energy is being used to build them. We believe the pipes should become the structure of the roofs. Again, to use less but achieve more. The pipes are also exposed, to celebrate all the stories behind them.
There’s no need for redundant coveringAnother exploration at this stage is about representation techniques. In order to show the roof, infrastructure, the relationship between them and the gigantic scale of the proposal, We have chosen a special worm eye perspective view, see the first drawings above this paragraph. We physical model part we are learning from Archi-zoom’s no-stop city, we created a reflective surface around the side of the model container box to express the infinite expansion of the system So that one can somewhat feel what it likes to live in a future city like this.
I would like to quote a saying from the last century by Mr. Buckminster Fuller: “It is now highly feasible to take care of everybody on Earth at a higher standard of living than any have ever known. It no longer has to be you or me. Selfishness is unnecessary. War is obsolete. It is a matter of converting our high technology from WEAPONRY to LIVINGRY.”We believe that our envisioned city will be a practice of “Livingry” in the realm of architecture.
Let’s dream of living under the big roof!
