Coco Knots: January 2011

Monday, January 24, 2011

Construction Documents - Restaurant & Office

The building is designed as a heavy, rough-finished precast concrete volume, with large punched openings to denote interior space hierarchy. The first floor opens up the corner of the building with a California Cuisine Restaurant. The Second Floor is laid out as a typical office. This is a steel frame building clad in precast concrete panels.

The Restaurant opens up to the street by stepping in 7' behind the cantilevered 2nd story. This provides for a public area used for seasonal markets during the day, and outdoor dining in the afternoons and evenings.

Rendered elevations showing cantilevered 2nd story, and material treatment of the facades. Rough precast concrete cantilevers heavily above warm, finished redwood (dark oiled teak) siding. On North Elevation, the rough concrete touches ground to denote privacy of spaces beyond, and provide an appropriate medium for climbing plantings.

The section below is taken at the exterior soffit. Note precast concrete detail.

Typical details.

Voronoi Generated Form - Visionary Urbanism

The studio effort was led by visionary futurist Glen Small http://www.glenhowardsmallarchitect.com/

As a collective, the studio developed a selected site in San Francisco (each student developing an individual block).

The main focus of the project was to connect all 12 blocks with an elevated pedestrian platform, provide visual and experiential continuity, and address sustainability through integrated design. Due to the nature of my design, I was responsible for my assigned block and overall site pathway development.

Site analysis concluded with some interesting observations on scale, geometric subdivision, and growth patterns (see site analysis diagrams). These same ideas of subdivision and formal reciprocity led to explorations of Voronoi geometric decomposition. A Voronoi diagram is a specific kind of spatial decomposition based on distances between a specified set of objects.

Explore Voronoi systems: http://www-sop.inria.fr/members/Pierre.Alliez/demos/voronoi/

The infrastructure pattern seen below is based on a Voronoi diagram between all programmatic nodes. There are two layers of subdivision. One primary infrastructure for direct connection between large public centers, and a secondary subdivision, for an alternate leisure path.

Walkways - Integrated Infrastructure

Physical Model of Walkways

Voronoi pattern was generated @ http://www-sop.inria.fr/members/Pierre.Alliez/demos/voronoi/ , and results were imported to CAD for site specific development. Model is laser-cut paper, assembled and layered to a span of 6' x 8'.

Site Analysis Diagrams

3D Model

The following images explore scale application of Voronoi geometries. Voronoi subdivision allows form continuity through different programmatic and spatial requirements. Solid and void, path and node are visually and experientially reciprocal. See below for further subdivision.

Integrated & Ergonomic Shading System

The following pattern is derived from a typical orthogonal elevation overlaid with Voronoi geometries. The subdivision system introduces secondary and tertiary mullion members, that can perform individually (ergonomically controlled shading & hydroponic frames) for a true integrated curtain wall system.

Click image above to Animate

The Voronoi system also informs spaces, visually and structurally connecting the exterior with its in respective interior.

The same subdivision system allows for an integrated roof structure that collects water, solar power, and diffused light to large interior courtyards.

Physical Model