R-3 Repository :: Browsing by Author "Wittenberg, Gordon"

Browsing by Author "Wittenberg, Gordon"

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37+
(2015-04-21) Trotty, William M; Schaum, Troy; Wittenberg, Gordon; Colman, Scott
Walls are edges between two distinct entities; urban forms that attempt to express neutrality as infrastructure while firmly rejecting interaction between opposing constituencies. Walls are usually contiguous lines; establishing absolute boundaries and absolute limits. Belfast, Northern Ireland is no stranger to walls. Over 100 currently exist in the city as peace-keeping mechanisms separating Catholic and Protestant neighborhoods. These highly visible urban forms create parallel communities with parallel services; producing redundant infrastructures and multiplying territorial subjectivities. The City of Belfast wants all the Interface Walls removed by 2020, but the citizens want them to stay. Of the 100 walls, it is estimated that 37 will remain. As Belfast struggles to create a new marketable image for world of a city moving forward, the interface walls spread out across the city remain a marker of its conflicted past. But there may be hope for reclaiming the city, and in turn, pushing Belfast into a more transnational urban landscape. Unlike the Berlin Wall, the walls in Belfast are non-contiguous boundaries between communities; navigating the city means commuting around and through the walls on a daily basis. The Interface Walls in Belfast do not act as literal walls dividing the city, but as symbolic walls. And as a symbol, the meaning and function of the walls can change. 37+ proposes creating this shift in the symbolic nature of the Interface Walls in Belfast by introducing more walls; a network of 221 insertions in the walls that house schools, clinics, pubs, and parks. These new lengths of Interface Walls create a datum in the city that redefines the symbol of the Interface Wall as a divisive edge; exacerbating the multiplication of infrastructures and subjects to a positive effect through serial deployment of shape, materiality, and program. This new urban identity for Belfast acknowledges and rejects the contentious territoriality extant in the city, converting urban forms dedicated to separating communities into attractors for the city that negotiate contentious space.
A Commons Lobby
(2015-04-15) Biroscak, Samuel; Whiting, Sarah; Wittenberg, Gordon; Colman, Scott
The social context of mobile work has dissolved the physical dominance of the workstation. The city, once anchored and animated by the clockwork activity of the downtown office, today absorbs this mobile workforce within coffee shops, parks, and public spaces, blurring distinctions between spaces of leisure and spaces of production. As the most visible threshold between the office desk and the city street, the lobby is uniquely positioned to establish social forms of work as a generator of architectural form. By concretizing public/corporate blurring within a highly visible container in the city, A Commons Lobby leverages the social nature of the mobile workforce to reclaim the office as a hub of social activity and a laboratory for new types of work. Lobbies typically serve as a publically occupiable control point, welcoming visitors while restricting their activity, aiming to impress without inviting anyone to stay. It is a spatial type perpetually at odds with itself. The lobby’s potential to transform the office is no more evident than in San Francisco, where the exponential growth of the high-tech industry has led to an internalization (and economic stratification) of the social and commercial activity that once animated downtown streets. As a site, this thesis operates on a new San Francisco live/work district in need of a formal and programmatic counterpoint to the bland anonymity of the typical office. An increasingly mobile workforce places more, not less, importance on the context and urban implications of production. By opening up the lobby as an expanded threshold supporting social, commercial, and corporate program, a new workplace typology emerges to reestablish the office as an urban protagonist.
A concept of home for the modern urban stranger
(1994) Brothers, David A.; Wittenberg, Gordon
The issues of domesticity in the contemporary urban realm will be examined in the following manner. I will first investigate the implications of what it means for a 'table' and 'chair' to exist in a space both physically and psychologically. Issues of value and a sense of place as well as the concept of civilization given any cultural context all begin with space defining elements associated with human habitation. As my research challenges the preconceived notions that society makes about modern domestic life, I will build a series of full-scale domestic furnishings that will critically reference my philosophical inquiry about the nature of place. The built forms will symbolize society's condition of mobility as well as function as usable pieces of furniture that inculcate the user to an adaptable sense of home.
A critical application of traditional urban patterns and housing typologies in a desert urban town: the case of Majes City, Peru
(1985) Torres Soto, Miguel A.; Underhill, Michael; Waldman, Peter; Wittenberg, Gordon
This thesis deals with a critical application of urban patterns and housing typologies through an urban design study for a new town in a desert region.The effects of an arid climate on urban life and the functional organization of a new town are examined together with the impact of cultural traditions of city building. Majes City is to be a component of the Majes Irrigational Project planned for the coastal desert of Peru. The climatic conditions and the geographic situation of the site are seen to be major factors in defining criteria for the spatial configuration of this town. Peruvian urban traditions and urban traditions common in other desert regions in terms of urban patterns are also studied in order to define further criteria for the design proposal. In addition, the design is based on a grid-block system which is an urban pattern with specific housing types in developing Peruvian cities. Hence, the design seeks to simultaneously respond to several contextual issues including: the site, the climate, people's culture and needs, Peruvian urban traditions and modern attempts to improve the urban environment.
A library for the Texas Environmental Center on the campus of Rice University
(1992) Wasley, James Hedgcock; Wittenberg, Gordon
Architecture plays an important role in giving form to the philosophical paradigms, social institutions and physical circumstances that define a culture in a given place and time. This thesis proposes to give form to a new cultural institution in the Texas Environmental Center Library within the physical and institutional context of Rice University. This thesis also gives form to new philosophical paradigms concerning humanity and nature, both through the design of the library and through lecture material created to bring the emerging discipline of environmental ethics to bear on the problems of architectural theory and design.
A mobile dwelling
(1989) Snyder, Gregory M.; Cannady, William T.; Wittenberg, Gordon; Sherman, William H.
The proposal of this thesis is to explore the ideas, implications, and manifestations of a mobile dwelling. The thesis implies an investigation and conjecture of the nature of a mobile existence today; an exploration of of existence within the dwelling itself as well as the relationship between the dwelling and the landscape or context in which it is placed. The ideas provoking the thesis are to a certain extent in response to the mobile home and travel trailer, but more specifically to the ideas and potential of a mobile dwelling which they suggest but don’t fulfill. The thesis is not a re-evaluation of the mobile home as it exists, but rather a design problem which explores fundamental ideas of inhabitation within the discourse of architecture. To return to the seminal ideas behind a mobile dwelling allows a variety of speculations and attendant explorations which are denied by the stigma which the mobile home operates within today. If the dwelling is the place where an order relative to the world is constructed, then the mobile habitat must allow for many constructions. The taxonomy of landscapes can range from singular relationships of machine and garden to the displacement within a built urban or suburban context. Through a plurality of contexts the mobile dwelling confronts its potential: the ability to structure and inform an existence amidst a collection of contexts. The mobile dwelling then becomes a discursive element mediating the individual and the collective, allowing a critical and speculative existence within an interpretive structure. The mobile dwelling itself will provide for the fundamental physical needs of an individual. It will provide for bathing, eating, and sleeping. The articulation and definition of the object will allow an interpretive structure for those needs to be manifest within, as well as elaborated upon relative to the displacement of the mobile dwelling relative to a variety of contexts.
Abounding Interiors
(2014-04-24) Hergenroeder, Alicia; Wittenberg, Gordon; Witte, Ron; Colman, Scott
Within the history of the graphic plan, cell-based and wall-based plans comprise a dialectic of definition and openness. A new type of architectural project whose formal legibility operates predominantly in the plan has emerged and combines the logics of the cell and the wall. As a formal study, the abounding interior plan falls into this third category, leveraging the open-ended wall and the celebrated object-room. As a result, both implicit and literal forms define the abounding interior in which distinct formal configurations become legible depending on a perceptual bias. The design of the abounding interior posits that the plan drawing has value as a composition and as a generative, perceptual device. In fact, the graphic plan can exceed its two-dimensional capacity and create an architecture which upholds and elaborates that graphic character in a three-dimensional way.
Adaptive reuse of aircraft carriers
(1994) Pervanis, Athena; Wittenberg, Gordon
The modernization of the U.S. Naval fleet along with recent cuts in defense spending, have led to a number of vessels being decommissioned. This, coupled with the need for additional detention facilities, has led to the proposal contained herein, where decommissioned seafaring vessels, specifically aircraft carriers, instead of being broken up, are modified and adapted to serve as correctional facilities.
Aero City
(2018-04-17) Tu, Sidian; Schaum, Troy; Wittenberg, Gordon
Aerocity is an imagination of urban interactive terminals, where the airport becomes an extension of the city and the city becomes part of the airport. The thesis focuses on the interface where infrastructure meets the urban fabric. Guided by an outlook of future technology, the thesis challenges the hard boundary of airport security line and its reflection in the city and the architecture. Instead of utilizing airport as a new town strategy towards the Aerotropolis model, Aerocity focuses on the revitalization of exiting fabric. Through a series of urban planning strategies, the thesis searches for the realm where industries, commerce, and people can coherently reside along the infrastructure. Aerocity foregrounds the transition between different cities and celebrates the seam line of air traveling. Through the juxtaposition of the old and new, the thesis proposes a new regional airport typology where its cultural identity is constructed through its context.
Agency : A Diplomatic Gap in Havana
(2013-09-16) Batista, Maria; Colman, Scott; Hight, Christopher; Wittenberg, Gordon
This thesis examines the territorial, spatial, and political Gaps inherent in the Embassy as program and type. Located in Havana, the project transforms such Gaps into an architectural strategy for the Embassy of the 21st century. An Embassy serves a practical and symbolic purpose. It administrates Visa applications, at the same time representing a country’s culture and projecting its political power. In an Embassy one country’s sovereign territory is embedded in the physical territory of another, making the Embassy the spatial embodiment of a political boundary. The exterior is charged with the politics of the boundary while the space inside is a neutral limbo – a territorial and political Gap. The Embassy is sited in Havana. A politically isolated country, Cuba provides a fertile ground to explore the changing Cuban-American relations. There is now the political possibility for diplomatic interaction, but without an American Embassy in Cuba, there is no physical space for this exchange. An Embassy is needed to facilitate Cuban immigration while at the same time engaging a new diplomatic relationship between the two countries. The time is ripe for a new Embassy.
Along the Line
(2015-03-12) Lu, Na; Colman, Scott; Geiser, Reto; Wittenberg, Gordon
The thesis focuses on the plan and design of a new urban axis based on the HSR at the suburban town, Baohua town, along the HSR between Shanghai and Nanjing. With the HSR as an urban trigger, the project redefines the function of infrastructure as a public promenade. Through design and plan of the axis and the landmark space it connects, the future satellite city will not only embrace the resource brought by high-speed rail, but also rethinks and adapt vernacular culture and industry to create a variety of leisure and low-density spaces for the residents. The project redefines the relationship between city and infrastructure. The infrastructure is not simply designed for transportation, but transformed into occupiable public space. Through the planning of the urban axis, the infrastructure efficiently supports people to commute locally, regionally and nationally. Through architectural intervention, the infrastructure is designed to connect and blend into the landmark spaces. It become an urban promenade to experience the city.
Alternative spatial frameworks in high-density housing
(2002) Park, Minsik; Wittenberg, Gordon
My thesis is an investigation of alternative spatial frameworks in high-density housing. My thesis proposes that ordinary dwellings can be transformed into extra-ordinary space through the use of spatial frameworks. I believe this Habitat '02 is one possible prototype housing. Still I have to study more but, it contains a lot of potential for the future and I hope it will be an ideal project for the next generation.
Animate Length: The French Connection
(2016-04-21) Daurio, Patrick; Vassallo, Jesus; Wittenberg, Gordon
This project takes on the highway as its site of investigation by merging infrastructure and architecture to address and redefine this imposed urban edge. Situated along the Boulevard Périphérique in Paris, which forms the municipal boundary of the French capital, this project proposes a single building of nearly one mile in length to unite the city with its suburb. At this scale, architecture leverages the potential of duration to address the dispersed audience of the car passing beneath the building. Thus, this project activates the filmic potential of the car; by attaching length to speed, an architecture of animation begins to emerge as one that produces a new reading of the architectural object through the movement image, creating a phenomenal engagement with architecture only previously possible in film.
Architecture for a sustainable society
(1993) Marks, David Emerson; Wittenberg, Gordon
Modernism has radically endangered the nature of mankind's relation to the planet upon which we depend for survival, and humanity now has the ability to destroy our environment. Modern culture is unsustainable, and to avoid disaster new patterns of existence must evolve. Architecture must be a part of this change. Many forms of architecture for a sustainable society have been posited. Some for a mass society of central control, others for a society returned to the agricultural village, and some for a society of self sufficient individuals. These fail because they are utopian. Sustainable architecture for America must address the reality of the suburbs. In order to reduce waste of land and energy, a denser fabric is needed. But this fabric must offer the amenities of the suburbs, therefore I propose a melding of the traditional row house and the suburban house types.
Architecture in 2½ dimensions
(2008) Carr, John; Wittenberg, Gordon
Complex forms call for complex formwork—flat material is often laminated together or stretched over an underlying structure to produce a curvilinear surface. Or perhaps there is another way? As templates for production, patterns possess an under-utilized potential for generating forms with complexity beyond that of simple pasteboard box construction. This thesis is an investigation of that potential, pursuing pattern-based techniques for constructing stressed-skin structural panels from plywood.
Arctic Aerotropolis
(2014-07-15) Glass, Emily; Wittenberg, Gordon; Hight, Christopher; Colman, Scott
Arctic Aerotropolis is a proposal for a new airport city in Nuuk, the capital of Greenland. The ambition of the project is to investigate the urban and architectural implications of the aerotropolis (an airport that has effectively become a city apart from the metropolitan area it serves) as both an economic and architectural device for generating new local markets. In doing so, this thesis also seeks to expand upon disciplinary questions regarding the design of the airport and its typology. Nuuk, Greenland, population 16,000, was chosen as the site for this project because of its unique climatic and economic circumstances. Greenland is one of the few countries whose landmass extends deep into the Arctic Circle, and it has long been thought to contain a large portion of the region’s rare earth, mineral and oil deposits. Until recently, these deposits were inaccessible due to the thick Arctic ice but because of global climate change, they are being uncovered as the ice thaws. Implementing an international airport in a town of this size, one with very particular patterns of development determined by its extreme climate, unpredictable weather and little flat land is a challenge. I propose that it is possible to rethink the airport by situating it as close as possible to the town and locating its components in the city, thus using the airport to catalyze future development and investigate how architecture and urban design can inflect, engage and link with economic development. Greg Lindsay and John Kasarda write in their book Aerotropolis that “[i]n Amsterdam, home to the world’s first aerotropolis-by-design, Dutch planners have a saying: the airport leaves the city. The city follows the airport. The airport becomes a city.” In this case, the opposite is true. The airport comes to the city, and the city becomes the airport.
Bookstores/soft capsule: A retail prototype for small independent business
(2001) Zhang, Qiao; Wittenberg, Gordon
Soft capsule is a new architecture prototype for the small independent business. It clusters the merchants of similar type (such like bookstores) with supporting program and common space. Soft capsule provides a structure for the small independent business to compete with chain stores by lowering down the cost of infrastructure. It enables the small business to operate in a larger system, while maintaining their individual scale and character. Soft capsule also animates an urban area with open air and pedestrian spaces.
Both If And Either/Or
(2016-04-20) Baklik, Robert Dan; Wittenberg, Gordon
As our contemporary urban environments intensify it becomes the task of inclusive cultural centers to address diverse constituents and specific functional needs as well as provide a communal space for many to share a common experience. This thesis investigates the Hypostyle Hall typology as an architectural means of producing space that simultaneously allows users many discreet spaces and a singular shared space. Using the Hypostyle as a scaffolding for difference, this project replaces the ground floor of six contiguous, New York University-owned blocks in Manhattan with a single student center that structurally supports the higher floors of the existing buildings on the site and also creates a vast public space that engages the city at the level of the street. The arrangement of columns and articulation in the ceiling produce a diverse range of spatial densities that carry aesthetic and functional implications at each scale. This allows the student center to support many activities and groups of users to have their specific spaces and yet remain openly connected.
Cast of Civic Characters
(2015-04-14) Altshuler, Joseph; Finley, Dawn; Wittenberg, Gordon; Colman, Scott
The Cast of Civic Characters is a civic complex for Houston that couples municipal service counters with other public amenities including an auditorium, dining hall, outreach center, gym, and pool. Each program is housed in a separate small building that takes on the likeness of an animate creature. The collective “herd” occupies a single city block. This thesis posits that creature-buildings intensify architecture’s communicative and storytelling potential; by soliciting a fictional vitality, they mythologize architecture’s agency and enable public institutions to craft narratives about their identities. Formally, each Character is generated from an extruded profile that is broken along a central seam, hinged, and partially rotated according to a shallow angle. This technique conjures an image-able figure that is graphic and immediate, but also temporal and modulating from multiple vantage points. The simple act of slightly rotating the elevation condenses both pictorial and sculptural perception into a single architectural form.
Cincinnati Shuffle: Subhierarchies in the Stagnant Grid
(2012-09-05) Westermeyer, Amy; Whiting, Sarah; Colman, Scott; Schaum, Troy; Wittenberg, Gordon
This thesis investigates the use of an operational formal architectural strategy to reinvigorate instances of failing city fabric. By introducing hierarchy and nodal destination elements into the urban grid, the existing field is transformed into a network of catalytic centers. Frame is employed as a permeable mediator between the existing grid and insertion, creating a permeable superblock that is both contextual and stimulating. The Over-the-Rhine district in Cincinnati, Ohio, is one of these failing city fabrics. Directly adjacent to downtown, this once vibrant neighborhood has experienced massive depopulation and deterioration. It’s population has dropped from 45,000 to less than 5,000. Currently, 66% of the buildings in the area are vacant or have been demolished. Over-The-Rhine lies between downtown and the University of Cincinnati. There is potential in creating a growth corridor between these two poles through Over-The-Rhine, stimulating the stagnant grid. A nodal infrastructural transit corridor is inserted between Downtown and the University of Cincinnati. Stops along the corridor act as point insertions in the fabric, forming nodal hierarchy. Incision activates the existing context through connection, deploying both a top down and bottom up approach. It creates a large centralized entity framed by and connected to context. It creates a range of scales, allowing for programmatic variety, an urban characteristic that the enclave lacks. It is strategic in working with the fabric, mediating flows and taking advantage of the porous grid condition. Each incision, in order to successfully attract from both downtown and the university, contains programmatic elements from each pole. This integration creates a complex interaction of program, as well as new partnerships between Downtown and University entities. It is a new approach for both Downtown and the University to address the failing fabric between.

Browsing by Author "Wittenberg, Gordon"

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