Artifacts of Questions Asked

The cyclic trajectory described here exemplifies a loosely defined, continuously evolving set of questions, results, and methodologies that have emerged during the process of design by making. Through a series of prototypical building components and assemblies this collection presents a design process that began with a top-down program-specific design process that informed the development of a unique building system and enabled a bottom up formal exploration. As the design thesis for the first professional Master of Architecture degree, this exploration surrounds the design, fabrication, and deployment of a series of component-based building assemblies. One example, the SEEDS Pavilion At Hawks Ridge, serves as a remote base of operations for a local youth organization that supports field-based environmental education. The pavilion continues an investigation of user assembled construction and is based on a component group that can be assembled on-site by camp children. Each building component was manufactured using on campus fabrication laboratories and was assembled on-site by a group of supervised SEEDS camp student-volunteers during a two-day design-build workshop at the Hawk's Ridge Preserve in Floyd, Virginia. The form of the structure is derived by the limitation of component number, size, and assembly sequence and represents the conflict between a parametrically derived prescriptive shape and the forms that result from the bottom up exploration of the physical system itself. The component-based construction is made possible by a series of nodal linkage assemblies designed to accommodate variations in on-site conditions using a strategic 'sloppy detail' that enables a high degree of assembly and deployment tolerance. The following collection of sequential images outlines construction of several prototypical components and assemblies and is intended to represent a continuance, not an end, to a long-term effort.