This is who I am.

My design process is something that I have never understood. I always felt like I would just go, go, go and try to make sense of things. I felt as if each site, each program had something that it already wanted to be. I felt as if I was a sculptor. I felt as if the site boundaries were extruded up into a block and that my design would be chiseled out of this block based on the wealth of information that the site and program gave me. However, over this year I have found that to not be the case so much. I used to view architecture simply as architecture. I never really believed in meaning or anything deep with in architecture. I feel like that is a fine way to view architecture. However, over the course of this last semester I have started to gain another meaning to what architecture is and what it means to me. I have also started to look back at some of the things I have designed and pulled themes from them. On top of all of those things I have begun to learn about myself, I have learned what field of architecture I like to work in.

                Architecture, to me, used to just be the design of a building. If it looked cool to me, it was good architecture. It wasn’t because I wasn’t passionate about architecture. It was simply how my brain functioned. I simply didn’t have a deep personality. Everything was surface level. I thought people were silly with all of these different meanings and symbolism. However, over the last year I have grown as a man, and as an aspiring architect. My mindset has changed in the way I approach life. Every day I am evolving. This evolution has allowed me to see things in a new light. I no longer am stuck seeing things in a surface level perspective. My eyes have opened. Some of the things I once thought were silly are still silly. But, I now have a deeper understanding for architecture.

                I was on LinkedIn the other day; I was looking at an article written about Dan Overbey. That is when I truly realized how I approach architecture. I have never been good with words and often times have trouble putting what I mean to words. He practically spoke for me. Dan said, “I believe that designers always need to be cognizant of the relationship between spirit and matter. If our contributions to the built environment are not inspiring, they will not be appreciated.” This was the first time I ever had that, “ah ha!” feeling about my own architectural theory. It all made sense at that point in time. It wasn’t that the buildings looked “cool” to me. It was because they provoked a spirit inside of me due to the matter of what was in front of me. This can start to be seen in different scales. You can see how architecture brings out emotion. There are small moves that can be made to make people feel comfortable in a space, to feel safe in a space, to feel alone in a space. It is all about designing the perception of space. That is what architecture is to me.

                Looking back at a lot of my projects that I have worked on during my time here at Ball State I have done a lot of design work. I have a pretty good background in the construction industry as I have interned at a construction company for 3 years. This experience has been very valuable to me, but I can also see ways in which it has negatively affected my design process. I tend to dismiss ideas before I have ever even put anything down on paper. I simply say to myself, “Nah, not practical.” I have worked with clients who want things that look good until they see the price tag. Then, they start wanting to pull everything out of the project. By the time it is done, the building is as plain as can be. This is reality and I have accepted it. However, I am in school. I don’t have clients. I need to be pushing my design intentions as far as I can while I am here. Not sticking to practical solutions. In every project I have stuck to a square grid. This isn’t a bad thing. But, when you never break the grid it can start to limit the design. This is something I have been doing. When it comes to a design idea, I love the idea of pods. They are so adaptable to almost any situation. I love that I have started using pods in almost every design I do. But, I need to redevelop the pod. It doesn’t have to be square. They don’t have to line up. They don’t even have to have an order. I have a lot of untapped potential.

                If I were to pick an industry of architecture I would like to focus my career on it would be the education industry. I have always been above average in school. I have never been a stand out student. But, I always did well. I would like to help impact the lives and futures of children and adults alike in a way that can truly shape their future. I want to design classrooms that can adapt with the users. I want to help kids learn better at a younger age. I want to design educational facilities that promote healthy learning; not just industrialized learning that is only worried about kids’ tests scores. This is the type of architecture I want to design.

                This is my idea of architecture.

Open Plan///Le Corbusier Vs. Mies Van Der Rohe

The open plan for Le Corbusier and Mies Van Der Rohe were similar in a few ways but also had their differences. I like the way both of them accomplished the open plan. They have done it two different ways but they both do it in a way that works quite well. Le Corbusier uses a system of columns to capture his open plan affect. While, Mies Van Der Rohe uses a series of planes to capture the open plan. Mies Van Der Rohe does use the column as well. He even uses the column in some interesting ways that were somewhat of a revolution. However, Mies really changes things up with his use of planes.  Their horizontal elements are very similar to each other though.

Le Corbusier

Mies Van Der Rohe

                If you compare Le Corbusier’s Villa Savoye to Mies Van Der Rohe’s 50 x 50 House, you will begin to see some big differences between the two.

Villa Savoye

Floor Plan

Villa Savoye is an open plan but, by looking at the plan you can begin to see how much of the plan is open but then Le Corbusier places a lot of spaces in the back corners to allow for some more privacy in places that may need privacy. Comparing that to Mies Van Der Rohe’s 50 x 50 House and you can begin to see how truly open his plan was.

50 x 50 House Model

House Concept

The 50 x 50 House was never actually constructed. The interesting thing about this project is the column placement. Columns, at the time, were thought to be a corner element. Mies began questioning that and actually placed the columns on the center of the walls meaning all the weight was supported in the center of the exterior instead of the corners. This created a very different feel to the building. In terms of program Mies eliminated a lot of privacy. Not only did he eliminate a lot of privacy within the house he eliminated it from outside the house. The house was all glass curtain walls allowing the house to be somewhat of a doll house. You could see inside the house at all times. One area where they were very similar was their ceilings/roofs. They were quite low. The user didn’t have double story spaces or anything of that height. It was all very low. This compressed the user and forced them to look outward of the building. In Mies Van Der Rohe’s Barcelona Pavilion you can really see how he uses the plane.

Barcelona Pavilion

Floor Plan

He almost makes the user wonder when they have entered and exit the buildings because he has broken the building up so much and extended the building out onto the site. The open plan is still used here and created simply using planes with a few columns. The ceiling is low once again here and frames the view of the world.

                As you can tell, they both viewed the open plan a little bit different. But, you can still see some of the same aspects in each other’s work. Mies Van Der Rohe and Le Corbusier were very successful with the open plan and really helped push the new idea along. To this day people still love the open plan. Thanks to these guys, it may be something that never goes away.