Housing Works Bookstore Cafe'

early bamboo studies

perspectival figure/ground exploration

analogue model

digital renderings

materials board

plan

sections

After in depth research into bamboo's life cycle/environment/state of being I began to derive spatial concepts from the plant to be applied to a redesign of the Housing Works Bookstore on Crosby St. The bookstore was to be designed in conjunction with Plyboo as a material supply partner, in a dual-branded output.

The space was an attempt to recreate the experience of bamboo's rapid re-growth, both horizontally (through its rhyzome and root system) and vertically (through its culms) on behalf of the user. Using the board as a building block, I created a series of models that emphasized this rapid movement in space.

I then began to think about the inherent dualities in the plant, the matrix of what is growing below ground in conjunction with what is growing above. This brought me to the realization of the inherent programmatic dualities in a book store cafe'. One program, the cafe' is an open environment for both eating and socializing with others, and the other - a bookstore intended for the very privatized act of reading. These two almost paradoxical entities are both independent and interdependent of one another. There is a very tentative oscillation between the two in one space.

In order to articulate these two behaviors each space is framed with bamboo as a construction material but in two very different ways in order for the experience of the space to dictate the use of it. The private reading space, is completely cladded in a soft bamboo fabric. The cafe' is an open air exposed framing, sans any cladding. The design utilizes a sloped, interconnected, circulatory system as a connection between cafe' and private reading space, just as rhyzomes connect clumps of bamboo culms in the plant's native environment. This slight sloped space is meant to emphasize a sort of postural growth within the user as he moves fluidly throughout the space. Furthermore, as the user moves into the private reading space, the flooring slightly slopes into the basement begins to reveal the inner workings of the bookstore's basement, which houses a  complex sorting and cataloguing system. The space becomes a dialogue between all of these elements and their correlation to one another.

Perform-ing Space

    The true intersection of performance and architecture lies in the idea of the event. The insertion of the human body, paired with its actions applies not only a greater understanding of the meaning of space, but creates space around it. We do not merely exist, but create. In many performances and choreography the main spatial cues are often the expressive movement of the dancers themselves, which only then allows the spectator to understand the entirety of the performance space. 

Perform - ing space is a comment on these very spaces through an exploration of the performance 'Ocellus' by the dance theatre company, Pilobolus. This piece deals with the continuity of the human form, with 4 performers who are constantly morphing their figure around one another with an uninterrupted connection to the other 3. To understand the space that this performance creates, I began to map the movements of each figure using purely line drawing. I then, brought my studies into the 3rd dimension, by mapping each movement with wire. In every few intervals, I wrapped the wire structure in a thin clay band to illustrate the space created by the performer's movements. 

Those studies then became the ground work for the structure itself. The spectator is elevated onto a "stage", as the space morphs in conjunction the movements of the dancers. This project is meant to create an active audience, as opposed to a passive one that merely sits and watches, but thrusts them into the very space created by the performance. It is a breaking of the 4th wall, and a merging of spectator and spectacle. The audience is meant to move around the entirety of the "stage" and speculate about this notion. It rids the performance of the burden of representation and creates a performance of perception. 

Metropolis Installation ICFF 2011

Collaborative project between 11 architecture and interior students for Metropolis Magazine.