Framework

FRAMEWORKFraming the column, joint, and event as a means toward

spatial and tectonic

hierarchy

Robert Russell Deane

Advisor::Patrick Doan

Robert Russell Deane

Bachelor of Architecture 2010Undergraduate Thesis

Advisor: Patrick Doan

Virginia Polytechnic Institue and State University

June 2010Burchard Hall, Blacksburg, VA

on 32 lb hp premium laserjet paper

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Matthew Stark [adv]Chloe Csadenyi-Benson [my third space] Jared Clifton [collaborator]Jay Osborne [electric nomad]P’s Second Years [hard workers]Adam Bricker [go to]Doug Becker [swedish chef]Rachel Cowen [just dance]Colin Stewart [BEAR]T. Rees Shapiro [BIKEpiper]Otto Peter Broeder IV [tchussi!]XYZ Gallery and Crew [more ART]

Me Family [makamecrazy]

Patrick Doan [be the ball]Hilary Bryon [cowboy boots]Paola Zellner-Bassett [sword dancer]Jim Bassett [perfect human]Carol Burch-Brown [work of art]Alessandro Ayuso [make it/nites]Frank Weiner [the diagram]Kelly Lonergan [mosquito man]

Many thanks to the following people who have challenged me and kept me close to their own work, love and commitment :

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Abstract- A Framing Device 1 Frame 2 Column 4 Joint/Reveal 6 Event 8 Gallery 10 Model 1:50 46 System, Tool, Framework 49 Make a Temporary Wall 60 Drawing 62 VSAIA competition 2010 74 WORKS 79

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Architecture is a framing device.

Architecture is a frame towards a mediation of physical joints, reveals, and entities in space. The thesis explores the programmatic manifestation of a gallery which, investigates how through the design process, construction, and curation architecture becomes a framing device that establishes a hierarchical order within a building and town. As a means of study; a column, a joint, and a reveal all become dynamic elements that act in the framing of an event. The events of framed space become critical to architect’s and designer’s understanding of space and tectonics. The engagement at multiple scales, from detail, to room, to urban intervention follow the same system or economy, not only in the literal construction but also in the revealing of those parts.

FRAMECOLUMN

WALLJOINT/REVEAL

SCALESYSTEM

SPACETECTONICS

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Abstract

“Frames re-present what they frame. Such re-presen-tation invites us to take on a second look, bids us take leave from our usual interests and concerns and to at-tend to what is thus re-presented.” 1

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FRAME

GALLERY- Blacksburg, VA room, building, urban joint

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as COLUMN spatial, tectonic, order, presence

in JOINT/REVEAL detail, inhabit, scale, opportunity

in EVENT construing, construction, curation

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“Column. An upright structural member, square, round or rectangular and usually slightly tapering. It can be isolated, engaged or attached to a wall. Nor-mally intended as a support, but sometimes erected independently as a monument. In classical architec-ture it consists of a shaft, capital, and, except in greek Doric, a base.”2

COLUMN

The column is a mediator

The column served as the architectonic vehicle for this exploration, from a literal perceptive tool of space in the process of recording and iteration, to a proposed generator for a wall, room, and building. The reveal, and joining of parts provided a continual sense of performance, scale and surprise.

The column was investigated at two scales and methods. As a series of seven foot tall 3 1/2”x 3 1/2” wide markers. As a series of structural, building supports that make up a room for art.

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JOINT/REVEAL“A function of the detail often appears incomplete and vague in its structuring principle. But, by unifying in itself function and representation, the re-use of a de-tail becomes a creative catalyst. It becomes a fertile detail.” It is ”the detail as joint. Architecture is an art because it is interested not only in the original need of shelter but also in putting together spaces and ma-terials in a meaningful manner. This occurs through formal and actual joints. The joint, that is the fertile detail, is the place where both the construction and the construing of architecture take place.”3

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Joint engages scales from the human to the town. The connection, and thoughtful separation or reveal of tec-tonic parts allows for an opportunity of inhabitance and ‘fertile’ potential. Marco Frascari argues that knowl-edge of a certain scale can influence multiple through an ‘adoration’ of a detail.

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EVENT“The formost skill of the architect is, likewise, to turn the multi-dimensional essence of the design task into embodied and lived sensations and images; eventu-ally the entire personality and body of the designer becomes the site of the design task, and the task is lived rather than understood.”4

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GALLERY

A room for art, curation, and movement.

This building further explores a developing hierarchy and how these elements work on a specific site in downtown Blacksburg, Va. The hierarchy of parts manifests as a room, defined by a grid of steel columns, a floor, a wall, and a roof. The column mediates the double-height room. Spatially, it is an inhabitant-a guard, and implies a continual wall depending on approach. Tectonically, it inscribes lines, planes, light, into the surrounding materials and connections.

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The building inhabits a current parking lot and dump-ster area, a break in the volumes and walls which stretch Draper Road and the Virginia Tech commuter lot. The presence of the building invites pedestri-ans down to a sunken plaza, following the sectional change from draper.

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14 aerial image: bing.com

16 Blocks-Downtown Blacksburg, Va

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Scale 1/2”=1’Column-Plan

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0 3 6

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1/8 in= 1 ft

3 6 9 12 ft

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211/8 in= 1 ft

0 3 6 9 12 ft

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The room is open to multiple uses. A series of sliding walls along the trusses provide for a curator’s needs, along with other moving temporary walls, screens and columns.

The columns define the grid of the building, and me-diate floor, ceiling, material and light. Order and hi-erarchy come forward, stating a permanence while providing temporal opportunity.

The Building order is divided by a series of two par-allel running walls. This reveal follows the sectional change through the next city block to main street. It holds the building’s stairs and divides building/bodily necessities and the open gallery room.

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The design process:While the architecture acts as a framing device the process itself frames the development of the work. Through drawing, photographs, film, and a series of full-scale temporary columns “frameworks” the design was developed.

SYSTEM, TOOL, FRAME

scale: 1 ft= 1 ft

Development of the wood 2x4. Searching for a building element or material that found its way into the building process relatively often, I chose a standard 2”x4”x8’ piece of Spruce wood. The developed dimensions in the building industry are made, such that a worker can carry this material, addressing his or her hand and the limits of carry over a distance and spatial limit. I cut them down to 7’in order to question the frame of a standard door height, ranging from 6’8” to 7’. The power of two, put together vertically, filling out the plan of the square, expresses a ½” reveal between them. These two, put together left a question in-between of a space to look through, measure, and even inhabit. This space, ultimately led to a housing of my process, one that has tried to answer some of my questions of how archi-tects really measure their own work. This limit of dimension and material has ultimately lead me to a means of variation and iteration at a full, built scale, as it relates to my architectural ideas.

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53scale: 1 in= 1 ft

as instrument/marker-metal compression joints placed

6’ 1 3/4” (my height)

5’ (viewing height)

1’ (base measure)

Framing the siteSurvey, draw, record

The column tool stood on the site as a perceptive in-strument. As a means to survey physical dimensions, mark viewpoints, and be its own installation.

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Framing the ProcessBuild, take apart, build, take apart, build

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The system of columns developed into a flexible and mobile framework that could provide a space to de-velop, hold, and display work and models. These columns raised their own questions as they began to follow early design intuition. A simple choice of mate-rial, scale, and joint, challenged this notion of frame.

During work, exhibition, and installation these col-umn provided their own event, constantly changing due to use and inhabiting space. Their spacing hon-ored the dimensions of the work displayed, for exam-ple, arranging to the 3 foot wide drawings, creating a physical wall, and idea of connection and framework.

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Make a temporary wall

As an effort to use the system in a display space, The columns were part of an exhibition held at XYZ student gallery, a block from the proposed site. Needing to separate two shows, an addi-tional wall was needed within the main room. The role of the column and its variable base sys-tem, allowed for some give within the space.

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Drawing 12’x6’ composed of 36in x24in vellum sheets. medium: graphite, colored pencil, spraypaint.

The dimensions of the drawings worked with the di-mentionality of the column tools.

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Belle Guards2010 Virginia Society of the AIA competitionFinalist

Walls as Frames

Belle Isle, a well-visited island in Downtown Rich-mond, Va on the James River, was the site for a weekend long competition questioning history, inter-action and involvement.

Instead of a column, I questioned the presence of a wall, or multiple wall fragments which shared a typological identity. These movable walls would bring together the island as roaming fragments of a greater order.

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MAKEBUILDFRAMERE-MAKE

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1 Harries, Karsten. The Broken Frame: Three Lectures. Washington, D.C. : Catholic University of Amreica Press, c1989.

2 Fleming, John. The Penguin dictionary of architecture and landscape architecture / John Fleming, Hugh Honour, Nikolaus Pevsner. London : Penguin, 1999.

3 Frascari, Marco The Tell Tale Detail

4 Pallasmaa, Juhani. The Thinking Hand: Existential and Embodied Wisdom in Architecture. West Sussex: John Wiley and Sons Ltd, 2009

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WORKS

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