Some ideas that have emerged out of my first sketches have found myself concentrating on the creation of an entirely adaptable building. The intention here is to establish a single designed element that will be used throughout a building, with the general objective being to place few restrictions on the level of adaptability that might be achieved by the all users.
The first series of models (dodecahedrons) are relevant to this idea, but I think the second modelling (diamonds) are too sculptural, they are nothing more than stylised 'bricks'.
The dodecahedrons might prove to be useful, but at this stage they are not yet resolved formally as they don't even have a nicely fitting configuration (perhaps another polyhedron?). Despite this, there is some potential in this approach, I think. Within each element, there could be a range of functional things, like storage, services, or data. I'm struggling to identify an exemplar, but I know of some projects that use similar ideas to create an 'igloo' type structure out of a consistently used, prefabricated element.
As I was looking around for exemplars to further this design I recognised the limitations within this 'building block' type approach (at least in terms of model making in this early stage). I think that in this initial idea generating phase, there is not much I can do to refine the shape of this blocks unless I determine exactly the services, data, or storage (as mentioned earlier) that will go inside. These might be ideas to pursue later.
Incidentally, I came across some furniture design that prompted me to further look at some primitive ideas on creating a building envelope.
http://www.ball-nogues.com/ripcurlcanyon/
[click to enlarge]
The following model demonstrates similar ideas to the furniture, though it is intended to be constructed at larger scale. I’ve composed a small collage of visual touchstones for architectural imagery in East Timor (certainly not an exhaustive investigation) to create some sort of two dimensional ‘façade’ [or whatever]. From this façade I have extrapolated depth in a similar fashion to the chairs shown above, however, each layer could have a slightly different profile. In this model, most of them are cut out to create a hollow inside (carving out space…….architecture), while a few layers just have doors in them, to create dividers. The size of each created room can be adjusted like the playing of an accordion.
Maybe this could be perceived as a prefabricated portal frame….
[click to enlarge]
