The proposal for the education center at Bartram forest, an educational forest in the wider Milledgeville, GA, envisions a scientific apparatus for learning, a light machine that barely touches the ground creating a delicate educational space that hovers above the ground while inflicting the least damage and impact to the site. The apparatus itself is thought as a generative machine consisting of kinetic pairs is driven by program reconfiguring itself in a wide range of spatial positions before it stabilizes in the most suitable location and disposition in the site.
Stretto Fugue | Opera House, Oslo
Ryan Deatton-Crooks
ARCH 6051: Computational Design Studio Athanassios Economou, PhD Architecture Program College of Architecture Georgia Institute of Technology Spring 2000
Keywords: Opera house; Architecture and music; Fugues; Shape grammars; Landhuggers
The opera house is envisioned as a spatial analog of a music compositional process - perhaps the most parsimonious and recursive one, the fugue, with its maximum self-sufficiency of content. In the fugue, the more such self-sufficiency is manifested in the form of unity, the more all the shapes stem from one basic idea, that is, from a single theme and the way it is treated, and the more artful it is. In its highest form, which may perhaps be a merely theoretical construction, nothing would claim a place in a fugue unless it was derived, at least indirectly, from the theme. (Schoenberg, 1975, Style and Idea). A stretto fugue, from stringere, meaning to draw close or tighten, denotes, in music, the temporal compression in the repetition and development of the theme and its imitation in a fugal composition. The response begins before the original theme is completed. This layering of tones creates a relationship that binds the two lines together in perfect relations (unisons, octaves, fourths, and fifths), though both progressions are distinct. When this relationship is continually stressed, the composition can be termed a stretto fugue. The opera house here is modeled after a spatial relation between two triangular prisms, a spatial idea that produces a continuous and oblique perception throughout the building through all its scales - from the urban to the detail.
75/85 Edge | Housing, Midtown, Atlanta, GA
Jeffrey Green and Yi Lo
ARCH 6051: Computational Design Studio Athanassios Economou, PhD Architecture Program College of Architecture Georgia Institute of Technology Spring 2001
Freeways cut through cities dividing previously knitted neighborhoods leaving aside each time two “sides” relegated to isolated development and turned in on themselves leaving a wasteland along the edge of the freeways comprised of a patchwork of parking lots and billboards. This work seeks to tackle the possibilities of this edge condition and the ways in which the boundaries between the vehicular nature and the speed and scale of the highway and the pedestrian nature and the speed and scale of the city can be mitigated. Specifically, this work proposes a prototype that would address both the edge itself and the two dissimilar sides in a flexible and adaptable way that can deployed in many other cases as well. The parti consists of several layers in a serial nested way: The first layer is that of the large glass billboard which lines the highway. Its scale and placement augments the driver’s experience of driving in a chasm through the city. The next layer is an in-between zone that consists of vegetation. This hanging garden means to provide a buffer between the residences and the noise and air pollution created by the constant flow of traffic. This zone actually subsumes the existing frontage road which doubles as the service drive for the retail and commercial development. In turn, a new street is created on the opposite side of the building that conforms to the existing urban fabric and architectural language. The proposed building intends to fill in gaps and may vary in length depending upon existing conditions. The building would provide ample underground parking and street-level commercial and retail development. The second floor acts as a buffer zone between the public program of the first floor and the private program of the upper residences and houses all of the amenities for the residents. It includes fitness and laundry facilities, and multipurpose gathering spaces for a variety of sizes and diversity of activities. Also incorporated into this transition zone is a space fully equipped with computers and supplementary equipment intended for both occupational and recreational use of the residents. The result is a building with two distinctive faces that attempts to address and conform to the needs of the language of the modern highway and that of a traditional city.
Rhizome | i75/85, Atlanta, GA
Jean Kim and Simon Lee
ARCH 6051: Computational Design Studio Athanassios Economou, PhD Architecture Program College of Architecture Georgia Institute of Technology Spring 2001
Urban space (housing + working + shopping + parking + entertaining) is conceptualized as a dynamic construct engaging multiplicities of speeds and degrees of engagement of public and private interfaces. This project envisions such structures over the interface of Atlanta I-75/85 highway with the city itself in the form of rhizomatic spaces that spread obliquely to it. The highway paradoxically cuts through, divides, but also structures the city. Starting from a typical zoning program the project is organized transversally, aiming to connect existing sparse programs along the highway (public transportation, student housing, parking lots, football stadium, social housing, popular restaurants). Spaces and paths function as a fluid whole floor plates distort, shift, merge and split to create hybrid open spaces that maximize the presence of the site. Its order is not generated by static forms, but by transient deformations and discontinuities, within which fragmentation and difference occur.
Scarpa-esque | Meteorological Center, Sullivan Island, SC
Jeffrey Schilds
ARCH 2011: Architecture Design Studio Athanassios Economou, PhD Architecture Program College of Architecture Georgia Institute of Technology Fall 2001
The narrow strip of land on the Sullivan Island, SC, overlooking the Atlantic ocean exemplifies the fragile nature of the landscape in east US and its annual exposure to the weather elements during the summer hurricane season. The design for the meteorological center exemplifies this fragility by focusing on the detail of the architecture of the project and the ways this detail is carried out throughout the project at various scales. A Scarpa-esque sensitivity in the articulation of the details is worked throughout the project from its overall parti and the dimensionless grid of the constellation above to the ways this scheme is carried throughout the project in the articulation of the site strategy, the programmatic distribution of the program and the landscape features to the articulation of detail in wall-making and the apertures of the center. The community classroom of the meteorological center is situated remotely in a pier formation at the waterfront.
Weathered
Katie Newell
ARCH 3011: Architecture Design Studio Athanassios Economou, PhD Architecture Program College of Architecture Georgia Institute of Technology Fall 2001
The design proposal of the regional and meteorological center and field center on Sullivan Island, South Carolina, takes on the theme of time and weathering to suggest an architecture that begins from order and gradually gives in to fragility. The spatial relations between building components are compressed and shoved one against the other to further imprint the given site’s proximity to the Atlantic Coast, and by extension its susceptibility to inclement weather during the summer hurricane season. The overall scheme is completed by generous ramps / dunes that tie the project to the site and allow the pedestrians and visitors to explore the project from a variety of angles.
Density | MMPT, Gulch, Atlanta, GA
Kim Jensen and Michael Kolodgy
ARCH 6051: Landhuggers Design Studio Athanassios Economou, PhD School of Architecture College of Design Georgia Institute of Technology Fall 2003
Atlanta is anticipating a 2M people growth over the next twenty years. This growth can be accommodated over high-rise buildings in the center of its core or it can be dispersed in over a larger area of low rise, crawling mat buildings over the existing networks as well as in close proximity to the interstates providing new opportunities for urban morphologies. These new sites can restructure the urban fabric of Atlanta both at its interstate intersections as well as in its central core once full of transfer stations for the trains and nowadays a void, empty space with no function ir identity. The project proposes a vast injection into downtown Atlanta that features organizational rigor and iconographic markings. The site is the Gulch and the program is connected to the systems and stations of the Multi-Modal Passenger Terminal. The different networks of program, pedestrian, vehicular, Marta bus, taxi, Greyhound bus, GRTA bus, Amtrak feeder bus, metro, Amtrak rail, Georgia commuter rail, are all intertwined, each keeping its identity and still combined spatially in a crawling urban mat mega-structure.
In-between | Glass Art and Community Center, Doraville, GA
Matt Williams
ARCH 3012: Visual Computation Design Studio Athanassios Economou, PhD School of Architecture College of Architecture Georgia Institute of Technology Spring 2007
The proposal for the Doraville Glass Art and Community Center creates a literal and metaphorical new center for the community functioning as a new public garden and a unique three-dimensional lenses to capture light and celebrate the program of glass art. The organizational parti is derived by the spatial relation of horizontal and oblique zones and their resolution in variants of the helix form. The project seeks to create a unique experience through an ascending and descending movement within a constantly changing volume completely immersed in light. The embrace of natural light furthers the dynamic qualities of the project whereas daily and seasonal changing moods are captured and expressed through the facade and structure and onto the space within. This further enables the freedom of expression whether it is through the actual making of glass for specific lighting conditions or the design of gallery displays.
Janus | Maker Space, GT
Chandi Jundal and Charles Woodbridge
ARCH 3012: Design Studio Athanassios Economou, PhD School of Architecture College of Design Georgia Institute of Technology Spring 2010
“After comprehending the outside of the object, the child likes also to investigate its inside; after a perception of the whole, to see it separated into its parts; if he obtained a glimpse of the first, if he has attained the second, he would like from the parts again to create the whole” (Froebel, 1896). The classroom of the future is envisioned here as janus interface with two divergent faces, ambitions and compositional strategies: the exterior makes reference to the site adn the GT campus and expresses regularity. The interior creates a new personal identity and expresses change. The threshold between the faces serves as an inviting transition between the urban and individual experience. The educational spaces are formed out of a rule set that transforms lines into space and specifies the emergent transitional space around the courtyard as the core of the project.
Cave | Maker Space, GT
Brittany Utting and Crimson Changsup Lee
ARCH 3012: Visual Computation Design Studio Athanassios Economou, PhD School of Architecture College of Design Georgia Institute of Technology Fall 2011
This learning space for the future is conceived of as a conduit of light. Hovering above the landscape, it uses both light and shadow as expressions of both geometry and occupancy. The oblique cube represents the lens within which reality can be re-represented. This CAVE, the oblique cube, serves as the stage on which the ritual of learning is projected. Inside this cube, the algorithms of the light machine generate a drama of light and color, exploring reality and un-reality. The occupant, suspended within this virtual medium, experiences a new representation of reality - something abstracted and surreal. This immersion in an alternative reality expresses the dynamism and mutability of human perception and our understandings of reality and our awareness of the artifice.
Project Delta | Maker Space, GT
Eric Morris and Annie McCarthy
ARCH 3012: Visual Computation Design Studio Athanassios Economou, PhD School of Architecture College of Design Georgia Institute of Technology Fall 2011
The multi-valency of the proposed brief - an educational space that interfaces problem-based learning, collaborative learning, discourse areas and informal learning spaces, lends itself to a compositional strategy that uses principles of folding to seamlessly connect the discrete programs. Robert Viñoly’s beach/tent house project is used as a case study to derive such principles and formalize them in a shape grammar to control formal variations of folded planes. The scores and the angles of the folding planes create a large set of spatial possibilities for the programmatic usages in both plan and section and a multivalent space to facilitate the diverse modes of learning.
Tetris City | Student Dormitory, North St, Atlanta
Annie McCarthy and Erin West
ARCH 6051: Landhuggers Design Studio Athanassios Economou, PhD School of Architecture College of Design Georgia Institute of Technology Fall 2011
The underlying compositional strategy of the dormitory is drawn by a fusion of modular strategies derived from a three-dimensional version of Tetris and interlocking housing modules, and actual precedent work drawn from the Whale at Amsterdam, NL by Fritz Van Dongen, the Schots 1+2 at Groningen, NL by S333 and the Simons Hall at Cambridge, MA by Steven Hall Architects. The housing grammar produces a rich set of variations of modular interlocking neighborhoods developed around vertical cores along with their own public spaces and all around an inner courtyard addressing the whole complex. The project remains within the five story limit to emphasize its landhugger morphology and bound within a human scale the North st and Techwood Ave, the two streets bounding the housing complex.
75/85 Torus | Student Dormitory at i75/85
Keyan Rahimzadeh and Jessica Marquardt
ARCH 6051: Landhuggers Design Studio Athanassios Economou, PhD School of Architecture College of Design Georgia Institute of Technology Fall 2011
A set of L-shape modular blocks combine in various ways to produce a rich set of configurations in planar and sectional space. These configurations are readily translated in nested courtyard schemes at various scales ranging from the unit itself to the complete assembly. The selected scheme from the housing grammar is developed above the 75/85 interstate that bounds the GT campus to provide a visual entry to the campus at North street and a symbolic presence of the institution at the highway below. The programmatic core of the project consists of graduate housing for GT students along with community space and retail at the ground floor. The GT housing requirements include 107 units to accommodate 238 beds in various arrangements of one-, two-, three- and four-beds per room at a total area of 90,000 sq.ft.
GT Next | GT Nest, i75/85, Atlanta, GA
Anya Ray
ARCH 4885: Landhugger Studio Athanassios Economou, PhD School of Architecture College of Design Georgia Institute of Technology Fall 2018
A building that hovers over the site, with minimal connection to the ground expresses the need for imagination and ideas to be able to grow and become a reality. Through the use of one simple spatial relationship, a light, delicate, complex, highly expressive, highly aesthetic, and highly performative structure grows. The spatial relationship is approached in three different ways, as the building mass, as a skin system, and as both\ the structure and circulation of the building. The GT Nest will highlight academic, entrepreneurial, and performance spaces. This expressive building will reflect the aspirations and knowledge growth of the students who inhabit the space, designing the next innovative technology. The performance space will enable students to showcase their work, which the community can come, witness, and be a part of the evolution of the designs. There will also be temporary housing for guests, such as visiting professors. In order to create privacy, the housing units cannot be reached by the main circulation, but by its own separate entrance.
Lattice | 75/85, Atlanta, GA
Reem Alshamaa
ARCH 3885: Landhugger Studio Athanassios Economou, PhD School of Architecture College of Design Georgia Institute of Technology Fall 2018
The underlying parti of the design is based on a variation of network patterns inspired by Stiny’s ice-ray grammar. The rules here are deployed in a combinatorial fashion connecting alternating sides of a square frame that is divided in five equal increments on each side to produce 25 different possible variations. These rules can be expanded or contracted on different angular shapes. An overall urban frame envelopes the complete bridge and both its flanking sides overlooking the i75/85 producing two structures on the ground level on either side of the bridge unified by a great canopy on top. The networks of the ice-ray recursively divide both parts into smaller networks to accommodate the complete program of the university innovation hub and hotel.
Makers’ Garden | 75/85, Atlanta, GA
Benjamin Tasistro-Hart
ARCH 4885: Landhugger Studio Athanassios Economou, PhD School of Architecture College of Design Georgia Institute of Technology Fall 2018
The I-75/85 Midtown corridor is a fourteen-lane strip of Interstate that runs parallel to the campus of Georgia Tech and serves 289,000 vehicles per day. It is an incessant flow of vehicles, goods, and people and still a divider of the main campus of Georgia Tech and its new Midtown extension. This divider provides for an incredible opportunity for a marker of the institute to be grafted. Within this marker which takes form as a singular line pulling away from retaining walls of the interstate, traditional mediums of learning in the form of reconfigurable study spaces and lecture hall are negotiated to heighten the experience of fluid movement at the human scale. Joined to the pavilion of traditional learning by the makers’ garden, a new mode of academic engagement emerges in the form of a lightweight makerspace which fosters education as learning-by-doing which contributes to the culture of experimentation present on Tech’s campus. Through architecture which better connects the existing campus to Atlanta, Georgia Tech will gain new academic spaces for students and faculty and simultaneously embed itself in the eye of the traveler as an institution dedicated to bringing the future.
Incidental Infrastructure
Autumn Clayton, Emma Thomas
ARCH 6049: Design and Research Studio Instructor: Athanassios Economou Georgia Institute of Technology Fall 2024
With a large percentage of people currently cost-burdened by increasing rent prices, there is a desperate need for solutions to this problem. In Atlanta, there stands unused space underneath the bridge sections of Marta. Our proposal is to take back this unclaimed space through a procedural method involving the invariable of the column. The new technology, Shape Machine, allows us to utilize this procedural thinking method to offer a unique and innovative solution to this housing crisis.
Our proposal aims to introduce a variety of social housing units to support the need in Atlanta. Using Shape Machine software, we developed a code of ‘bays’ that can be placed either randomly, or through step-by-step selection. The bays are comprised of a series of studio, one-bedroom, two-bedroom, and three-bedroom apartments. In Shape Machine we have set ‘rules’ that can read the code we give it and replace with the needed bay configuration. Our proposal is an output of a generated Shape Machine configuration, to which is specific to the site. Using the rule set in the future, we hope that our design rules can be implemented in the 10+ potential locations along MARTA.
Shape Machine is a developing Rhino plug in that was utilized in this project for unit population along the chosen MARTA site. Shape Machine has the ability to visually recognize an input and replace it with a drawn output. Our automated system makes it easy to input the MARTA columns and generate limitless different configuration combinations either completely random or with an assigned number of each unit. This allows the designer to test many different combinations that will impact social structures, circulation, and culture within the project.
MARTAVille
Mason Belleza, Anushka Kibria
ARCH 6049: Design and Research Studio Instructor: Athanassios Economou Georgia Institute of Technology Fall 2024
Atlanta is in need of additional affordable housing, and we look to the MARTA rail system as the site for an innovative solution. By working underneath the elevated sections of the MARTA rail, our proposal transforms this neglected industrial space into a new affordable housing system, the MARTAVille. The Village maximizes each unit’s access to light and outdoor space through the use of courtyards and balconies, and is punctured by communal spaces built around the columns supporting the bridge above. The proposal uses the new Shape Machine technology to lay out its linear master plan in a manner that connects each unit’s outdoor spaces, in order to maximize the use of these spaces in an under-bridge setting and develop resilient communities.
Large sections of this part of Atlanta are taken up by single family housing and industrial areas. Many of the properties nearby to the rail line have been neglected in recent years By introducing greater density through affordable housing, the area has the opportunity to revitalize itself. There are 47.6 miles, or 251,000 feet, of MARTA Rail Lines in the city of Atlanta. Over 30% of the rail network is elevated, totaling roughly 39,400 feet. Furthermore, there is 27,500 feet of buildable area underneath these sections, leading to 1,430,000 square feet of space. 84 column bays. We could fit 773 single bedroom, 386 2 bedroom, or 193 3–4 bedroom apartments. The average cost per square foot in Atlanta is roughly $150. The cost of construction across the entire West End 7,500 ft (1.42 mile) line would be $58,500,000.
Mind the Gap
Avia Zaken, Jullianne Coughlin
ARCH 6049: Design and Research Studio Instructor: Athanassios Economou Georgia Institute of Technology
Affordable housing is a prevalent issue throughout many cities, including the city of Atlanta where 27% of households are cost-burden, and on average 40–60% of household incomes is spent on housing. The team used the coding software, Shape Machine, to devise a solution on how to integrate housing under the MARTA bridge, creating a mathematical and economical proposal for the replication of this design in any applicable city. The basis of the code was devised using rules inspired by the floorplan of Carabanchel Social housing in Madrid, Spain. The continuous apartment layouts allow for private and naturally lit and ventilated spaces.
The mission is to use architecture to accomplish social equity and define the future of affordable housing. Considering the housing affordability in the Atlanta area, we have the opportunity to use underutilized space beneath the MARTA railway to create a community of 440 units.
Aplysina | Center for ecological processes @ GT
Daisy Acosta
ARCH 3016: Landhugger Studio Athanassios Economou, PhD School of Architecture College of Design Georgia Institute of Technology Fall 2020
“we have to make buildings that do more, using less” (anonymous)
Georgia Tech has an active research program helping to expand the proportion of power generated by clean energy sources, through the development of low carbon technologies like hydropower, biomass, geothermal, wind, and solar. These technologies are helping to not only significantly reduce pollution but improve our energy security by accessible and affordable energy supplies.
The design proposal here capitalizes on this research program and proposes the creation of a new Center for Ecological Processes at this most visible part of the campus – its interface with midtown, the North bridge. The design of the new center will be guided by biomimicry principles. Biomimicry (imitation of living) aims to take inspiration from natural selection solutions adopted by nature and translate the principles to human engineering. The biomimicry approach aims to favor “choices” tested by nature which had millions of years to understand what works best and what doesn’t. Designs following biometrics will ultimately allow human productions to be more efficient, resilient and sustainable. Biomimicry principles of interest here include: using low energy processes: minimize energy consumption; replicating strategies: repeat successful approaches; and harnessing freely available energy: use of solar/renewable energy.
The design parti of the building-bridge is based on the formal and material properties of the aplysina, –– a group of sea sponges known for its tube shape, bright colors, and chemical defenses sand and filtering. The form: 01 absorbs + filters air pollution; 02 absorbs + filters rainwater; 03 absorbs solar energy; 04 filters traffic noise; 05 absorbs wind energy; 06 “filters” traffic (automobiles + bicycles + pedestrians). The program of the Center for Ecological Processes consists of biomimicry sustainable labs, low carbon technology labs, fabrication labs, education spaces, and offices.
The new Center for Ecological Processes at GT will promote environmental awareness through its research and production towards new low carbon technologies and biomimetic innovations. By providing an area for collaboration between all six schools on the ever-growing field of biomimicry studies and simultaneously showcasing these systems through the building’s translucent skin across the busy interstate, a literal interpretation begins to form. Active program (spaces of learning, exhibitions. labs, systems) is purposely placed on the outer edges of the structure/acing pedestrians and cars and the more private and administrative program is left in between.
Blur Building
Sean Li
ARCH 3016: Landhugger Studio Athanassios Economou, PhD School of Architecture College of Design Georgia Institute of Technology Fall 2020
Data centers take up more energy to power data to a cellphone over a year than the energy that is required to power a fridge during the same amount of time. Data centers require the equivalent of a medium sized city energy consumption to be operable. How do we create awareness of these whilst encouraging a more sustainable method of energy supply for data streams? Atlanta is the fourth fastest growing area in the country and Georgia Tech is in the center of it all. And there is always the perennial push for green too.
The design proposal Blur addresses these very challenges by foregrounding them––literally and figuratively–– at the interface of the Georgia Tech with the wider community of Midtown, and the city of Atlanta at large, by proposing a state-of-the-art data center at the North bridge, spanning the i75/85, the busiest highway in the state and the background for a stream of 300K cares passing under it every day.
The building is proposed as a joined interface of all six colleges of Georgia Tech featuring a shared, collaborative workspace, mixing chambers between colleges, the main premises of GT VIP (Vertically integrated Projects) to support faculty/student driven research projects across multiple disciplines, and a datacenter to power it all producing in essence a blurred hierarchy of research initiatives to evoke and expand Georgia Tech image as one of the leading research institutes in the twentieth-first century.
The form of the hybrid data center acquires its form from the flow of the traffic circulation and the highway below by continuous tectonic folds and slippages flip evoking a hovering technological plate connecting the campus with the city, projecting its identity to the state and the country at large and supporting a hybrid of programmatic functions of labs, classroom, auditoria make spaces and computing power, to spark innovation and support GT’s commitment on the improvement of the human condition.
ReBalance: CEISMIC Center @ GT
Benjamin Ullrich
ARCH 3016: Landhugger Studio Athanassios Economou, PhD School of Architecture College of Design Georgia Institute of Technology Fall 2020
The Center for Education Integrating Science, Mathematics, and Computing (CEISMC), part of Georgia Tech’s College of Lifetime Learning, connects Georgia Tech with K-12 communities across Georgia and beyond to expand access to STEM/STEAM education, spark student success, and strengthen the future workforce. Through hands-on learning, teacher development, strategic partnerships, and rigorous research and evaluation initiatives, CEISMC supports thousands of students and educators each year – advancing the Institute’s mission to broaden impact and opportunity.
https://www.ceismc.gatech.edu/
The design proposal rebalance reenvisions the role of the CEISMIC building at the GT campus as the beacon and the lever of GT connecting GT’s commitment to the local community and its aspiration for global outreach. The proposed design for a new CEISMIC center at Georgia Tech is located on the most prevalent position of the campus at the North bridge connecting the GT campus with the Midtown. The parti consists of three interconnected ideas: an asymmetric cantilevered structure expressing the balance between two unequal two sides – GT’s global and local mission; the exposition of its structure – an exoskeleton to foreground technological innovation; and a multimedia-colored skin to further project GT’ mission in innovation and technological excellence. The core program of the center is developed over a series of suspended spaces over the North bridge along three massive cantilevers in the form of hanged workshop spaces, classrooms, galleries, lounges, computer labs, a research library, office spaces, and auditoria. GT mission and CEISMIC projection over the 75/85 would be projected to 300K passing cars every day.
Transcendence
Kathi Tran
ARCH 3016: Landhugger Studio Athanassios Economou, PhD School of Architecture College of Design Georgia Institute of Technology Fall 2020
“The needs of learners are changing. Workforce demands are evolving. More so than ever, higher education is expected to create graduates who get jobs, but also provide education that transcends along one’s career - preparing learners not just for their first job after graduation, but for their third or fourth. Institutions must create new knowledge for industry. They must be a place where new companies are born, and serve as an economic engine. Universities must also be an active citizen organization of their local community and of the world. So, how does Georgia Tech prepare itself to respond to those demands?” Rafael L. Bras, Tech in 2040: Creating the Next in Education.
Arts, technology and engineering continue to be disconnected despite the effort in academia at large to create a new synthesis between them. This quest is the driver to the project, code-named “Transcendence”. Transcendence is an architectural design proposal for a multi-media lab for research and design at Georgia Tech. The proposal aims to provide a public space that merges the arts, technology, and engineering together and encourages unconventional mixing and matching of different disciplines to contribute to GT NEXT’s initiative. The project is housed in the center of Georgia Tech and Midtown Atlanta at the I-75/85 connector. The North Avenue bridge acts as a physical and metaphorical connection to people and opportunities.
The proposal draws inspiration from Strange Attractors, a mathematical field of dynamic systems that evolve, that inspired how people and ideas could possibly move within a space. This created a series of figure eight forms with which two opposite nodes are created to that symbolize a duality between humanities and technology. The technology node is orientated on the northwestern side of the bridge to be close to Georgia Tech. The humanities node on the opposite side cater to the spaces that require more physical presence and human interaction. This node is orientated on the southeastern side closer to Midtown Atlanta. Finally, the middle space that connect these nodes together represents the physical and conceptual combination between the two, ‘the nest,’ an exhibition space for collaborative work. This space is located above the bridge and over all vehicles and people.
A series of ramps within the space allows for cross-fertilization of ideas and people to mingle while the atriums provide cross views between the programmed spaces. The first level is mainly offices and modes of circulation while the second level is for studio spaces, maker spaces, immersion spaces, and other open spaces for collaboration. The third level on the southern side is connected to the second level via ramps and houses studios for any mode of arts, libraries, and more open spaces. Finally, the fourth level houses the café and auditorium space. The organization of these programs allows users to enter the space, ascend upward and mix within the spaces and between people, to walk through the exhibition space and witness progress firsthand from projects, and to finally end at the top to reflect on the achievements of the community. Transcendence aims to provide a public multi-media lab space for research and design that merges the arts, technology, and engineering together and encourages unconventional mixing and matching of disciplines to create the NEXT.
Diopter
Ena Strikovic, Melissa Holgado, Tyler Pirovic
ARCH 6001 Landhugger D&R Studio Athanassios Economou, PhD School of Architecture College of Design Georgia Institute of Technology Fall 2023
First-place prize in Design competition for the Savannah Innovation and Technology Park design challenge
[Diopter] noun. A unit of refractive power that is equal to the reciprocal of the focal
length (in meters) of a given lens.
Diopter is a unit of measurement that measures the bend in light. This measurement is used metaphorically to provide the provide the design parti for the proposed urban plan. The proposal here uses Shape Machine to generate urban grids from simple mappings we made from a series of light refraction studies. Similar to a theodolite, we mapped out a grid and then mapped bending lines over that grid. We then assigned those mapped lines as a certain road type depending on the four that exist in Savannah: main roads, minor roads, side streets, and alleyways. Each of these had a certain width that we applied quickly using Shape Machine. Now, with road widths and blocks, we were able to generate multiple urban plans from the mapping of bending light. These iterations would inspire and influence our final urban plan.
After establishing our method on how to create an urban grid, we began to apply the logic to the site on Hutchinson Island. First, we created the simple grid. To create a grid, we looked at the coast of site and recognized it as the sites edge, similar to Savannah’s city walk edge. We knew we wanted the incubators, accelerators, and schools to represent our edge on this new innovative Savannah. This edge would capture the Savannah that the river morphed and bent out of shape and project it onto the site. Taking inspiration from our light studies, we wanted our grid to show a bending of light. So, we created two grids that bent into each other.
First primary X-axis roads were set on the site. The distance from road to road was determined from the new development currently being built directly next to our site, as seen in the site photos and site plan. Next, the primary Y-axis roads, followed by the secondary X-axis roads or alleyways. Once the simple rectilinear grid was created, we looked towards our mapping studies and applied a series of “bent light” lines. These then became main commercial boulevards that cut the grid. This now established our final urban plan.
From the urban plan, we first focused on creating an extensive and connective network of green space. At every vertex and meeting of roads, we put a parl. Then the green space would travel all over the site, connecting to one another, until you reached the coast, which we pictured as a large park looking back at the city. This method allowed us to main over 30% of the green space on the site.
The next step was applying the built form. Any block that was not a park as built form. From the built form, we created a system of private green spaces, for things such as backyard parties. With all these layers combined, we had our site fully designed.
The block system on the site needed, to us, to be fully mixed use, flexible for individual client use, and with a focus on community interaction. We looked at existing cities as precedents such as Paris and Barcelona. While program maintains flexible for client use, we viewed the first floor as commercial functions only, keeping it store fronts and restaurants, similar to Savannah, for maximum enjoyment and walkability. The remaining floors would depend on client use but the top floor would always be residential.
Parks Combinatoria
Jayita Vasanth Shetty, Riya Shah, Shruthi Hariharan
ARCH 6001 Landhugger D&R Studio Athanassios Economou, PhD School of Architecture College of Design Georgia Institute of Technology Fall 2023
“In a union, indeed, the things between which there is this relation are called parts, and taken together with the union, a whole. This occurs as often as we suppose a plurality of things at the same time to be One. One, instead, means something that we think of in a single intellectual act, that is, at the same time.” G W Leibniz, Dissertation on Combinatorial Art, 1666
Leibniz’s Ars combinatoria (combinatorial art) is a bold formulation of a theoretical model that assumes that all reasoning and discovery, verbal or not, is reducible to an ordered combination of a relatively small number of simple concepts (or words, numbers, sounds, or colors), just as words are combinations of letters. The work here uses the blueprint of one of the most recognizable urban grids in the history of town planning to rework a new alphabet of gardens and urban spaces to use as a generator for the design of the new Technology Park in Savannah, GA. This new parametric alphabet, playfully named parks combinatoria, applies Leibniz’s principle of combinatorial art to the design of an alphabet of park and green spaces and investigates their effects in present in the formation of the new proposed urban environment of the Savannah Technology Park. Green Spaces come in various structures, sizes and functions. Some are functional in nature. Most are recreational. A few are residual. Whichever form they take up, they improve the imageability of the fabric making spaces more habitable and vibrant, opening up opportunities for improved engagement, economy and health.
Parks combinatoria allows for a multitude of organic and harmonious interpolation of green spaces with city blocks that could be arranged in a variety of permutations and combinations creating opportunities for different degrees of interaction ranging from intimate to a multiplicity of organizational options. The design system is a conscious design attempt to rethink the rigid central green public space in Savannah and rework it in a fluid, parametric, ever-changing organic green space designed for interpolating through and interconnecting the city blocks.
