parallel and skew

Starting from an analytical hand drawing, the project explores the evolving of a concept through the help of digital fabrication tools; digital paper cutting, laser cutting and 3d printing. Following the hand drawing, the project explores digital paper cutting techniques resulting in 2.5D models; laser-cut models start suggesting 3D spaces and tectonic ideas; lastly, the 3D print models elaborate solid elements of architecture.
Knowledge, techniques and ideas that make both form and space, are then used in the last phase of the project – the design of a research center for oceanography and residency for the oceanographers in the South Bay area in San Francisco.
The project and the initial drawing starts with the idea of a pair of parallel and skew lines and how they can be explored through different spatial situations.

university of california berkeley
advanced architecture program

project 1

Project 1 explores lines and surfaces to imply space and create a self-structured surface. The models, having no functional program, allow to speculate and imagine the structure of a new architecture; having no scale and no site, they are able to create spatial conditions and degrees of architecture. Exploring cuts and folds through drawing and fabrication, the project 1 starts to imply the third dimension.

drawing digital drawing superimposition skin surface lines self-supporting folding cuts crease

project 2

Project 2 produces the spatial typology with a specific method of assembly and connection. Fabricated through laser cutting, the models emphasize the poetic structure, tectonic assembly and material connection. This step creates a spatial system through the designing of systems of connection.

assembly interlock parallel skew notch tectonic rotating planes joinery attachment

project 3 - innards

The 3d printed models push towars thickness – solids and volumes: complex, small integral forms set within and intersecting the whole. They speculate on spatial relationships between physical body and a tectonic environment, this way emphasizing the interrelation between movement, body, and time.

solid body movement perforate intersect extrusion cut

project 1 + 2 + 3 - research center for oceanography and residency

The culminating architectural project will be sited at the edge, between the urban fabric of San Francisco and the Waters of the San Francisco Bay. The research center for oceanography and residency for the oceanographers in the South Bay area in San Francisco, combines knowledge and ideas from each of the steps; aspects of the spatial situations generated on each phase are used in the programmed building and site.