Architectural Design II
Project 3
Project 3
objective was to design a proposed non-denominational chapel located on the
campus of
SUNY Farmingdale. The setup was: The College wants this to be a profoundly
spiritual place that
people of all faiths can worship and reflect on lifes
events. The College
believes
this can be achieved by the creative use of light. Select a site on campus; the
College
is looking
for guidance from the Architect. The building should be integrated into the
fabric of
the campus.
The College explicitly requests the design not be symmetrical. ( Click link for Project 3 )
The first step was to do a site analysis of Sunny
Farmingdale to better understand the campus and find a location for the
project.
After the analysis I picked a location for the proposed
building, the solid yellow area in the image below is the general
area of the
site. Also the reasoning for my choice can be seen in the link (Philosophy) and reading the philosophy
statement.
As a class we each did some back ground on how other
Architects used natural light in their buildings.
Each student an Architect and a building to research, I
did my research on the church of SantAndrea
by Gian Lorenzo
Bernini. From the research we received learned techniques used in the past,
things
that worked
and things that did not. The link here is the presentation of my research (Presentation).
From here some light experiments were done with models to
learn how to control light. Along with this
section views were made to better illustrate the
different ways to control light.
With the research done I started the design of the
non-denomination chapel. First starting with a narrative,
then rank
and sorting, last a rough orientation/spatial plan. After a handful of
variation I decided to use the
one below. Click her for
narrative (Narrative).
For the design work I hid the site plan to make viewing
much easier. From the rough spaces I placed in
the functions and created the circulation path.
From here I started to create the 3D model of the
building, first by extruding the walls and developing the special interactions.
With the basic building plan done I then started to
develop the main part of the project, which is to capture and control natural
light. I started
with the smaller mourning chapel, this is mainly capturing light from mid-day
to sunset. My idea for this was to
have low lighting by using a backlighting effect with a
series of broken walls. A mourning area should have low lighting and be
more privet, hence the mostly closed off area.
To better show this I created a cross-section view of the
mourning chapel with light shown in yellow.
Next was the meditation chapel, this is capturing light
from sunrise to mid-day. The idea here is to have a well lit area for people to
think, read, study, etc. The towers are light chimneys
oriented to get light from the morning and mid-day sun. The chimneys funnel
light
all the way down to the space below, but there are only
thin slits between the chimney and the wall. This will wash the walls with
light,
so the area will be well lit with indirect light.
To better show this I created a few cross-section views
of the meditation chapel with light shown in yellow.
The first picture is a side view of the light chimney,
the second is the front of the left wall, the third is the
front of the
right wall.
The last part was the main chaple,
because this is a large space and the main area I wanted to light it for most
of the day. I started
with desighning the roof to take in light
at dusk and dawn. The roof has 3 levels with an opening between each, there are
small
walls that controlls when the light
comes in.
To better show this I created a few cross-section views
of the main chapel with light shown in yellow.
The first one is a cut to show how the roof will light
up, the ledges create a backlighting effect and
reflects light up away from the floor.
To finish I put the roofs on the other parts of the
building, the change in color helps to contrast the roof making it easier to
see.
These are some views to show the interior of the
building.
The elevation views starting from the front and going
right.
And now to put the building back into context with the
site, this first image is an over view of the site with the building in place.
The rest of the images show how the building helps to
create the existing formal lawn with the surrounding buildings.
The next few images are to show how the building would
look when the sun is lighting it. The first two are at
6:00am (sunrise) and the second two are at 5:00pm
(sunset).
