Re-Housing Public Activity-Case study and design development

Site Selected: Southeast Corner of Gould St & Yonge St (Gould Site)

Typology: Gallery-“The Art Square”

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       Reason for choice of combination of site and typology:

Site: Adjacent to the central hub of Toronto, the site which initially housed the Empress Hotel becomes ideal for the thesis exploration of a public-private realm. The site being connected to one of the most important thoroughfare, is exposed to streets that are flocked with people circulating between offices, shops, education centers, etc which makes it an ideal location to offer a public function such as a gallery which will not only provide an activity that is different from what is offer there dominantly-shopping and retails, but also add a bit of shared culture back to the heart of the city.

Typology: The face of the area is formed by the infinite number of commercial billboards flanking the building facades producing a cookie-cutter wall of noise that promotes purchase. The ratio of commercial signage to locally-produced art is 100% to 0% which brings about the selection of the typology to be a Gallery that would exhibit local art and creative works that characterize the city. Another driving factor for the choice is the fact that the site is in close proximity to educational facilities such as Ryerson and George Brown where students are involved in creating artworks in design courses, marketing courses and urban planning courses. The gallery would be an ideal place to feature their work and allow public engagement to association where both could reef off knowledge of each other. A counter argument could suggest that Ryerson already has a gallery to exhibit but the fact that it is inside campus building makes it less accessible in unrelated pedestrians being informed of displays going on inside. Creating a “art-square” in the path of pedestrian circulation is more equipped to cater public interaction with the work and offer a different activity to otherwise a one-dimensional program site (Commercial hub)

Outline of Site Analysis:

·     History of site: The site was initially house to Empress Hotel (built in 1888) which was used as a hotel for most of the part it was standing then converted to house offices and street-front businesses during the 90’s.After the collapse of one of its facades, a proposal was made for demolition which was delayed as the site was which was being designated as a heritage side.However, it was a fire that brought the building down on 3^rd January 2011 and now remains as a vacant site.

      Surroundings :

• Adjacent to the site is 7 storey Ryerson University’s Student learning centre which offers public spaces for student activities and is expected to generate a large flow of student moving along the intersection.

• The site is along the main arteries of the city- and the Yonge and dundas intersection is marked as Toronto's first scramble crossing,(pedestrian diagonal crossing). Active thoroughfare.Bustling with  movement.

• Close to Dundas Square- the first public–private partnership in Canada to operate a large outdoor public square. The square attracts both tourists and residents by its flexibility in use and the multitude of activities it offers. It accommodates community celebrations, theatrical events, displays, marketing stunts, live music by buskers, concerts, temporary street stalls, etc

Characteristics/ Fabric of Location to draw upon:

1. Busy thoroughfare-  Movement and flow, intersection 
2. Yonge is primary artery-  Street & streetlife, continuous connectivity
3.  Square-  Accommodate or replicate nature of activities in the square, openness 
4. Adorned with prominent billboards and store fronts since back in the 1920s-  Nature of display  to public and means of attracting people in.
   

·     5.What functions are offered besides shopping in the area?-library?open square with no define functions?

-         Provide a forum to exchange ideas

      6.Pressence of more neon lights than anywhere else in the city- Light used to indicate life at nightfall.

                                                                                                                                                                  Case Studies:

Although most of the examples I am putting up are quite small in the scale of their operation (such as a house) it is the concept that I found to be helpful.
Case study_01:Flexibility and Transparency

Two projects by Sou Fujimoto that I found interesting in terms of their concept and how it relates to what I want to propose.Both projects dictate a form of flexibility in use of space,each in its unique way.

- create spaces within spaces that blur into one another and have no definite boundaries or pre-determined routes through them, requiring the user to create their definition through use.(flexibility)

-creates visually and physically engaging spaces through its spatial organization and offers social interaction.

-relinquish prescribes spaces.

- Transparency and visual continuity

House NA

The project explores the concept of living in a tree.The architect describes that a tree has many branches, all being a setting for a place, and a source of activities of diverse scales. The intriguing point of a tree is that these places are not hermetically isolated but are connected to one another in its unique relativity. To hear one's voice from across and above, hopping over to another branch, a discussion taking place across branches by members from separate branches

-Through stratification of floor plates in various scales throughout the space, this house proposes living quarters orchestrated by its spatio-temporal relativity with one another, which is similar to a tree (space created by its branches)The 914 square feet house has a series of 21 floor plates at varying heights that give the feeling of living in a tree.

- It can be considered a large single-room or a collection of smaller rooms if each floor is understood as rooms.Expresses a unity of separation and coherence.People can be close together or apart depending of how they choose to use the space.

-When used by larger number of people, the distribution of people across the entire house will potentially form a platform for a network type communication in space.

Primitive House (developed in 2001,presented in the 2010 Venice Biennale )

In the primitive house the architect explores the concept of a cave as opposed to the concept of a nest where in a nest a space is prepared for human habitation while in a cave which is a naturally formed space that is used for dwelling requires a creative act on behalf of a human to utilize the space.

- The building is based on a thin, split-level steel frame

-There are no fixed stairs but a group of steps, which can be treated as both furniture and repositioned and moved around to function as stairs creating multiple interior pathways

-ambiguity of the cave offers a surprisingly flexible architecture which is explored here as in like a cave the inhabitant adapts and makes the space adapt to serve his needs.

- horizontal plane used as a generic surface which are without a specifically defined function, they can be used as a desk, shelf, bed, chair, etc and therefore upto one’s imagination.

Observation: Although both spaces cater to flexibility in use of space and social interaction. The distinct separation or maintenance of the private realm from the public is absent. The success of the semipublic and public are evident but consideration for the private seems to be absent. Varying degrees of transparency perhaps could have served in creating that sense of privacy. 

Case study_02: Merging of Public and Private functions

Four Boxes Gallery by Atelier Bow-Wow 

Program:Indoor-outdoor exhibition area, Workshop, common rooms, and residential facilities

Located on the grounds of the Krabbesholm Højskole college in Skive, Denmark, the three storey building is conceived as four boxes replicating in function the Bento Box (traditional Japanese box for serving dinner) where smaller and bigger spaces supplements each other and together form a tempting frame for the meal.

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The gallery contains outdoor and indoor exhibition space that are flexible enough for displaying a diverse artistic production of student works and those by invited artists and therefore comprise of both dark and light areas so that any media could be presented in the best way. 

- Outdoor galleries and a large indoor gallery make up the two lower boxes, the third box is a smaller exhibition room in the middle, the fourth box a private workshop area for artists in residency at the top.

- Provides private space while serving as a public building. Spaces defined autonomously where the building is brought to life by its collective use. Spaces are to be read and used independently by its users. Building as a framework for occupancy within which students and artist they generate meaning and significance.

- Duality in design of space. Can be perceived as devised from the inside out where as the tower moves downwards the spaces squeeze out and are allowed to spill to the outdoors in the courtyard space for exhibition while in totality the building can be thought from outside in.

- Outdoor spaces have certain level of enclosure, the courtyard has physical border to provide protection where indoor spaces don’t contain themselves.

- Fine lines of demarcation between private space and indoor and outdoor.Ensure through formal expression, scale and enclosure, that space is comfortable for both private and public use.

- Creates a hierarchy of light in “gap spaces”- which are the leftover spaces in between the four boxes of the gallery that bring light into the building. In an urban scale where “gap spaces” can refer to small urban cracks between buildings that can be filled by some function, in a much smaller interior context it is defined by the negative spaces created by the changing volumes through which sky can be glimpsed.

- Instead of opening out completely to picturesque views of the gardens only certain distinct views are framed with cut deliberate cuts on wall edges.

- Wall residence at the top perceived as a sanctuary which avoids a view of the social space of the school by the use of a wall and offers privacy.

Case Study_03: Varying modes of display and interesting mixed use spaces

Dutch Pavilion.China, Guangzhou, 2011

Inspired by the grid-based artwork of Piet Mondrian (1872 –1944). The pavilion was realized as a three-dimensional modular system,which enables visitors to walk through the wonderful world of contemporary dutch design from the fields of graphic design, product design, fashion and architecture represented through samples, presentation panels,websites and videos.

 - Interesting integration of varying modes of display

- Paths of circulation and stops for sitting( viewing areas) integrated together,

Case Study_04: Blocks of exhibit unified by circulation.

21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art by Sana,Kanazawa, Japan

-Circular in form, the building has no front or back, leaving it free to be explored from all directions
-The building contains community gathering spaces, a library, lecture hall, children's workshop, as well as museum spaces. 
-Variously proportioned rooms placed inside the circular building - the model based on a chain of islands or an urban space –are all connected through circulation spaces which can function as transitional and gathering spaces.
-Gallery spaces are of various proportions and light conditions - from bright daylight through glass ceilings, with a black-out possibility, to spaces with no natural light source. Their height range from 4 meters to 12 meters.

-The design that allows the visitor to decide on the route through the museum, combined with the flexible gallery rooms that can adapt to every type of media, guarantees the trans-border diversity of the programs that will be held in the space. The intention behind all of these elements is to stimulate the visitor's emerging awareness

-Varying transparency of the skin allows view both to the exterior and interior courtyard.

Initial design exploration:

First Conceptual Idea:

I started by looking at the existing buildings on site.Since most,nearly all are glass box buildings adornened with storefront, they appear rigid and solid to me and given the fact that the site is at a node, I feel the the form of the building give an impression of lightness and be comprised of a collection of parts intead of one single box housing the gallery.

Secondly looking at the predicted circulation that takes place on and around the site, and give that the SLC building for Ryerson has open up the corner at the ground level, if the gallery space also vacates the ground level or atleast the corner of the ground level a promenade can be created while opening up the entry to the adjacent road.

So I was looking at something that would give the impression of being light, and free itself from the ground,something that forms a totality through a number of volumes that are connected and that got me looking into tree house.

 I was intrigued by how they can be a conjunction of separate entities that are associated together by character,proximity and links(bridges) between them.How inspite of being solid, how they give the impression of lightness as they are raised of the ground and how they allow the ground-the street to wind up with them and therefore taking circulation and the street condition up.How they can be conceived to be stratified on multiple levels replicating the nature of branches and yet be connected through relativity.These volumes can be of varying scales and nature.How when they are composed of multiple volumes, how they requires a journey from indoor to outdoor and back into indoor as a continuous flux.I was interested on how they exist as floating platforms.
I then tried looking at forms which reflected some of the characteristics of a tree house to further explore the idea of multiple floating volumes connected by a circulation pathway that take one from the street and around the gallery and back to the street level

These are a few initial sketches I had made to put down my idea:

Here I was trying to explore how a collection of planes (resembling branches) can be connected by a continuous circulation loop that goes in and around the gallery spaces, creating varying scale and volume of spaces and how that circulation path could make one move between spaces that are "indoor-semi-outdoor and outdoor"how then can a visual connection be created between those traversing the path from the interior and exterior.
This would be aligned my first strategy: Blurring distinction between indoor-outdoor..public-private..the form-and formless.
The indoor outdoor and closed and open system relationship will further be explored as gallery spaces would alternate in nature where they will be needs to provide walled and enclosed surfaces to display art, larger or more open gallery spaces for sculpture and exhibits of the kind that can be view outdoor, workshop areas and discussion pits which could move between indoor and outdoor.
The promenade on the ground level would become a mediator between the street and the function.Thus the transition between public and private.

My initial idea about implementing Strategy_02: Connection to the City would be through 1)creating the node or square condition on a smaller scale within the gallery building.Multiple volumes of gallery spaces intercept into a common public spaces/transitional spaces/circulation spaces which are then connected to a central node space(break-out space) located central to the journey or loop.The public spaces or transitional spaces within the circulation path provide an orienting device for visitors to easily navigate the gallery and a space to house large scale art exhibits.
Just diagramming the relationship:

2)The circulation loop starts at the street and the designed street then wraps in and around gallery spaces bringing the street condition inside as circulation and flow become the primary characteristic of the site.
3) Re-create the scramble crossing condition as found at Dundas square.Circulation pathways would need to accomodate the use of gallery volumes separately and together based on need.With that in mind circulation paths would need to provide alternative route options that can be designed in a way to re-create the dundas square pedestrian crossing situation.4)Continuous walls with strategic cuts will frame artwork for passer-by who engage visually with the building and for those inside frame significant views of the city life outdoor.This nature of framing can further associate itself to the storefront and billboard condition where strategic view of artwork and activities inside the build can attract passer-by to come and engage in the space.
As seen in a few of the case studies, spaces within spaces that blur into one another and have no definite boundaries and require the user to create their definition through use gain in essence the attribute of flexibility which aligns with the third strategy:Flexibility in use, function and form.Stratification of floor plates,allowing varying levels of interception-visual and physical-will offer different levels of interaction in them and allow a variability of use.Varying scale of spaces and the combination of indoor outdoor spaces will allow flexibility in altering the nature of display.
Program:
As suggested in my first desk crit.The programs in order to address the thesis issue of blurring distinction or rather identifying and reconfiguring distinction between public and private, the defined program needs to offer not only private space (admin offices for example) and public functions( exhibition spaces) but also functions that fall between the public and private to further investigate how they can attain qualities of both.

I am still adding and checking off functions or shuffling between colums.This is what I have at present.Will be altered.

I will be updating more development shortly.I have some more ideas that I am working on but need to get them formatted to upload.Just wanted to have some of the work up.The texts and thoughts need further refinement and organization.Will work on it.