DESA1002 'Nine Quarter City' - <Jack Dods>

Abstract

This semester provided me with an opportunity to create an actual building through the processes outlined for the exercises which we had to do. I very much enjoyed the steps from finding a site, dividing it into blocks and then developing an appropriate building. Having the city of New York made for a very exciting experience in which we could experiment with height, scale and use. Many of the research topics and collages were useful in acting as guides for the development of my final plan. The ‘Astoria’ went through several developmental stages form rough draft floor plans right through to the finished presentation. Using many techniques I was able to make a building which I feel fulfils my desired outcomes. As is required by the weekly tasks, the building has grown and developed as I have become more engrossed with each exercise. There were some exercises which I felt were superfluous or irrelevant to our overall process. For me, the ‘Fragmentation & Appropriation’ exercise seemed a waste of time as I had already formulated a draft floor plan and making a ‘cut and paste’ floor plan and section from other buildings was just confusing and unhelpful. That said, the majority of the exercises were very constructive and forced me on many occasion to look at my project from a different angle and thus formulate many different ideas. I was slightly disheartened with my end result purely for the reason that it ended up being quite pragmatic. My design language seemed to be quite traditional for the majority of my plans and this was not my intention - it just happened like that. I am by no means an advocate of classicism. That said, I believe my building does fit into the mesh of New York styled buildings as it draws much inspiration from much of its architecture. Overall I very much enjoyed the entire process and have definitely gained much knowledge about the process of design and my own design language as a result. I look forward to next year with much anticipation!