BDES1020 Continuous City <Amani Badra>

Abstract

Given the Place Vendome in Paris as our precedent, we were asked to research into the history, tradition and context of the city. In doing so, we were able to design a building to fit into this context. My building consists of a restaurant on the ground floor and two apartments spanning the three floors above it. One difficulty in designing the building was coming up with a function. Although in Paris apartments and restaurants are common, I eventually decided to design the restaurant and apartments but with the cladding and appearance being the attraction of the building. The designing of a building of common function and uncommon form was done to represent the persistence of tradition. In a city as historical as Paris, many people would rather the continuation of the symmetrical, highly ordered stone buildings of Place Vendome, where others would prefer something modern, breaking away from the overwhelming tradition of Paris. Hence my building aims to attract attention not only physically, but also to bring to light this issue of tradition versus modern. The building is made entirely of metal skin, a stark contrast to the surrounding stone buildings. I initially planned to keep the existing facade of the buildings of Place Vendome and change the outlook of the building towards the back. However like my design, my cladding changed a number of times. So in a bolder attempt, I decided to make the whole building very different to its surroundings; a deliberate misplacement in a rather repetitive site. It also furthers the notion of advancing forward through the addition and deletion in numerous areas. As such, the form of the building looks as though it is shifting in one direction. I am satisfied with the outcome of my work, but it came with many challenges week by week. Repeating each weekly exercise three to four times was common throughout the semester, however with every change and modification I built up better ideas that led to the end result.