Macro to Micro

This photo is my iteration of a portal door
before we decided what the portal would actually look like.

This is the abstrat design I made to represent symmetry next to one showing hierachy on our portal project.

Various photos of our project Portal ...Great Wall of China
Classmates working on project

Composition: The last couple of weeks first year class has been working on a continuation of our artifact encompassing design words such as symmetry, balance, construct, proximity, and order and others....This week my group was given the assignment for the great wall of China. We came up this a design for out portal which is a composite of all our vocabulary words and readings from history, design class and perception and design class. Our portal design we first did to smaller scale before committing to the true size. From micro scale we produced our artifact to macro scale. The photos above show my iteration of the portal and our groups final portal construction for Environmental Design class project.
In our Perception and communication class my group was assigned the Foust building and this week we are designing diagrams to show more detail that the usual plan of the building. There is a color coded functional plan, sometimes called the "bubble diagram". These are also used in city planning were black and white drawing won't do. Three different diagrams are used in this way . The Matrix Diagram showing proximity of building spaces to one another in a facility. the bubble Diagram conveerts the decisions which were recorded in the matrix into a different more useful graph and the Zoning diagrams where aditional layers of information are superimposed over multiple copies. (1. and-out from Suzanne Caberra's class). E. T. White Space Adjacency Analysis. Mark-up of the Foust Bldg. basement offices in blue, lounge light blue, stairs and lab sky blue,
This drawing is a mark-up plan to show relationship to the area and where offices and rooms are in the basement. Greater detail can be shown on a more detailed orthographic plan.

The Monastery of Cluny III show an extremely detailed plan of the monastic abbey with courts, forecourt, service court, approach court, the narthex or porch, the great portal, the hearth in the far back of the structure to the side of the main church are serveral other courts and building to service the religious community.

The most glorious and stupendous achievement was the construction of the Hagia Sophia Cathedral which was a combination of church and Empire. The dome of this cathedral though not as large as the Pantheon was higher. The attention to details in windows and lighting the surfaces curving and intersecting made this struction seem to be in motion bathed in the mystical suffused light. All the magnicent details put into this shrine would cause the participant to become awestruck at the spectacular beauty of this shrine." When the Hagia Sophia was finished on December 27, 537 Justinian reputedly enter the church with the Patriarch of Constantinople and exclaimed "Glory to God, who has deemed me worthy of this task. O, Solomon, I have surpassed thee" Justinian gave definitive form to this Byzantine architecture, fusing the Roman constructive practice with Greek science in the service of theological speculation, with an oriental luxuriouness celebrating the mystery of Divine Wisdom." P 292 Roth. This was definitely East meets West in architectural design.

Following an earthquake in 553 the done of the Hagia Sophia collasped but was rebuilt with a steeper hemispherical profile. When the Byzatine penditve had been developed round domes were place over square volumes this was know as the quincunx plan.

In studying the Cathedral and Gothic churches these were enormous undertakings to build such hugh Cathedrals in Europe which many still stand today. This monumental task in honoring God has never been duplicated in this present day era. Although many Catholic churches still build on the Byzantine and Romanesque design but not nearly as much in this twenty first century.

These Shrines and Catherdrals and Castle leave an lasting impression on anyone who has actually visited these structures many that still stand today even after many world wars and internal conflicts. It is amazing to me how architecture in Europe and the East can last so long where much of our architecture in the United States does not last not even in it's mere three hundred years history.

My hope after living in Europe in the late 1970's is that we as American's would hold onto some of our historic buildings and churches. I know that we are a young country but still it would be wonderful to pass our hertiage to generations to come instead of constantly tearing down and puting up newer and cheaper materials that don't last but a few decays insteads of a few centuries. When I lived in Germany in 1973-76 the house I lived in was three hundred years old and magnificently beautiful. The walls of this house were atleast a foot thick concrete walls. . Perhaps that has something to do with the longevitity of the houses in Europe. I have never seen anything in the states built so well.

A plan and arcade front of an Byzantine church.


These are a composite of projects from Design Studio class showing symmetry. The abstract design fans in black and white and silver shows symmetry by being mirrored on the silver back ground. This was drawn to scale of 1/4"=1' .

This design was my interpretation of heaven and earth...the earth being dark and heaven the opposite being light with an gold ribbon as my linear element keeping them together. This was from and old fable about the beginnings of life.

The design to the left is an abstract showing again symmetry with an silver element in center.