Overview

What’s your concept of Nature?

The central issue explored in this studio is our social constructs which separate our concepts of the ‘natural’ and the ‘artificial’.  To charge this constructed dichotomy between the natural and the artificial, we begin with Goethe’s assertion that “even the artificial, now that too is natural.” “Nature” is after all, a concept. We form our concept of nature by distinguishing it from what we call artificial.  But where do constructed wetlands fit within this dichotomy?  They are constructed and yet they enable natural processes to develop.  Or what about artificial reefs, such as the sinking of battle ships which encourages aquatic life to attach to the surface of these ships generating over time into dense underwater ecologies?  Instead of separating the built “artificial” environment from the “natural,” what if instead we see the built-environment as an extension of the natural?   How might this affect our concept of nature?

Site-Driven

To encourage the interaction between the built-environment and the natural environment, the studio begins with the development of a distributed network of water retention across the site, forming an epigenetic landscape which should inform the buildings set upon it.  This distributed water-retention network filters urban water run-off much like a massive system of bio-swales, and in so doing encourages local wildlife and plant life to inhabit this landscape as a constructed wetland-like environment.

Program-Driven

The program for the studio is a Neurobiological Research Center and extension of the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry (OMSI).  The primary challenge of this combined program is making visible this private research component within the public exhibition domain.  As a research laboratory typology, a further design criteria is to encourage social interaction and the social construction of knowledge between research cluster to research cluster.  Finally, with the introduction of the proposed Portland-Milwaukee lightrail station into the site, a further social interaction is desired between this mass public transit interacting through/with the program, without actually entering into it.

In summary, an interactional sensibility is encouraged through the site-driven interactions between landscape and architecture and between the program-driven interactions between private research and public exhibition.

Studio Structure

This third-year undergraduate architecture design studio is engaged in a two-quarter comprehensive design studio.  In Winter quarter, each student develops their own schematic design proposal for the ACSA Steel Design Competition.  In Spring quarter, students will work in teams of two, selecting a colleagues schematic design project, in an in-depth design development process.