ARCHITECTURE 100B
UC Berkeley | Spring 2017 | Prof. David Orkand
Precedent Study
EDP Headquarters
by Aires Mateus
Lisbon, Portugal
The EDP Headquarters is unique in which vertical fins wrap the entire building and ground plaza. Indentations and extrusions of these fins throughout the facade allow a variety of transparency, which reveals different areas of office spaces and outdoor terraces while conveying a continuous language by literally wrapping the entire site as one.
The ostentatious wrapping is also a sustainable shading strategy to reduce solar heat gain into the building. The fins are angled such that it is perpendicular to the sun's path to minimize glare. The fins are also structural elements, in which for every 3 fin, a horizontal truss connects to another fin on the opposite side which supports the floor plates.
The project consists of two towers and a public plaza on ground level. There are two bridges on opposite ends of the site that connects the two towers from ground level to first floor. This slanted bridge allows for a passage system underneath from off-site into the public plaza. The massing of the towers includes 'carved out boxes' that translates into double-height outdoor terraces and two main core systems in each tower with an open plan.
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Conceptual Cut
An unfolded corner of an arbitrary building
demonstrating shading strategy, facade detailing, space organization, structure and materiality.
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Good Food Project
Conceptual Model at 1/16" scale:
This project revolves around the idea of interconnecting twisting columns and beams.
These thin and narrow columns twist on one end at varying degree of angles. At a certain height elevation, a connecting beam 'shoots off' in the same direction to another twisting column. This condition is repeated multiple times at different height elevations which creates a complex interconnecting web of twisting columns and beams.
Through color gradation, this diagram shows the connecting relationship between one column and another as well as its conjoining beams.
This diagram also shows the condition of column treatment when it meets the ends of the site -- it gets sliced off by an imaginary bounding plane on each side. It conveys the idea of an infinite plane of interconnecting twisting columns and beams beyond the site's parameters, which this project only shows so much. The columns on these edges that get sliced off by the bounding planes are major determinants of the facade's components, openings, contours and the alternating materiality between metal panel and expanded metal mesh.
Analytical Model at 1/8" scale showing facade view and elevations:
Materials:
3D printed objects, plywood, metal mesh, acrylic paint, spray paint, tacky glue, super glue, clear acrylic.
The twisting columns and beams translate into the implementation of division of space as shown by irregular floor plates and area segments that are different from one floor to another. On the levels where beams connect to one or more column to another, the beams produce a bizarre criss-crossing visual of long lines that stretch in various ways across the site, which produces small area segments. As a result, the irregular floor plates are produced by joining select segments together and are adjusted to the necessary program area.
Plans & Sections:
