Field + Tower
- Discipline
- Architecture
- Semester
- Autumn 2017
- Course
- Outlines of the Built Environment
- designer
- Wade, Michael
- faculty
- Wilke, Ben
- Location
- Columbus, Franklin, Ohio, United States, NA
- Description
- This was a project by Michael Wade for Ben Wilke's ARCH 2310 course in Autumn 2017. The Field + Tower project involved creating a tower that resides within a 48' x 64' landscape. The landscape (designed by Dan Kiley) at the Miller House and Garden, in Columbus, Indiana, was suggested as a precedent in creating the landscape. To create the landscape, students were initially instructed to place a number of posts (toothpicks) of varying heights into a rectilinear datum (quarter-inch graph paper on foam core) in order to create two large, public spaces, and one smaller, private space. The posts later evolved into different types of vegetation, such as trees or hedges. A limited vocabulary of vegetation and ground covers were used, in accordance with the Miller House and Garden precedent. Students were instructed to thoughtfully consider the placement of the public and private spaces and any circulation that led to or connected them. Additionally, a wall would surround the landscape, and two entrances/exits would connect the landscape to the world outside it. The tower design was generated by transforming five squares each into other quadrilaterals, and then arranging these quadrilaterals in a mostly vertical manner. The quadrilaterals were also extended 3-Dimensionally so as to give the tower depth. The tower was finally placed into one of the original public spaces in the landscape. One public space, one observation deck, and three private spaces were then carved out of the tower, and circulation (stairs) was added to the outside of the tower in order to connect these rooms to one another and to the landscape below. The model was created at a quarter-inch scale, as were the drawings. Students were instructed to use foam core to build the tower and landscape, and to use primarily white materials in modeling vegetation and ground cover. Students were also given the option to use a colored fake moss to emphasize the trees. In my specific experience, I looked for ways to stretch design possibilities while working within the guidelines of the project. For instance, I used grid-points to approximate circles, thus creating curved features even within the rectilinear datum provided. I used varying elevations in the landscape to emphasize different features in certain ways, such as placing the private space higher than the rest of the landscape to obtain more privacy, or placing the tower on a fairly high and flat part of the landscape to emphasize its figural objectiveness. I explored the idea of compression and expansion, thrusting landscape visitors through a narrow corridor of dense pine trees before letting the landscape open up at the end of the corridor. For the tower, I was fascinated by the idea of a hanging room, and so I created a space that dangles from the topmost shape. I also chose to place as much of the circulation as I could on the hidden side of the tower so as to not disrupt the more aesthetically pleasing facade on the side visible from the garden. Finally, in modeling the landscape, I chose to use a bold green artificial foliage to represent deciduous trees, and a deeper green artificial foliage to represent pine trees. The greens emphasize the trees against the otherwise white model.