Thesis process

I am organizing my important words so that I can develop a thesis statement by the end of the day.
I am most confident with these set of words than my previous sets, and I have realized that I am more interested with the process of emotive architectural experiences between the
Architect : User : Observer
What does that mean? I am not sure yet. I do feel closer to a solid idea though.

Next steps :
Thesis statement (1-3-9)
Collage with textural overlay
Analysis of Haptic Architecture and relationship between sensory vs. emotive and how they can be quantified through spaces.

Pastry Vignettes, Step 2

now it's time for words (thesis proposal) and possibly incorporating haptic architecture.

Pastry vignettes, step 1

I am trying to be more regular on posting, even if I am not completely done with what I am doing, just because I think the process is going to be very important to me when I'm done.
Tomorrow, I plan to add layer #2 to these vignettes, which will be a collage overlay. This is why the sketches are simple for now, because I intend to "fill" with more layers and ideas.



I am also beginning to create ideas/words for my parameters and also methodology. I believe these should be important for all emotive architecture, but I hope to push these further with my thesis:

CONTROL
MOVEMENT
CONNECTION
BALANCE
EMOTION
EDGE
TEMPERATURE
SMELL
SOUND
LIGHT
PRIVACY
SOCIAL
RELATIONSHIP TO NATURE

A white guy, a Mexican, and an Iranian walk into a pastry shop...

Many of the comments from the past blog entry asked about the pastry-cemetery connection.
I will explain more in the coming week, but for now I wanted to study pastry shops themselves, so that I could understand it fully before trying to add to the mental hypothetical program of the cemetary/pastry shop.
I visited 3 nearby pastry shops, all of different traditional origins. The intent was to map the walk-up experience, as well as the interior, which was very interesting in itself.
Below are images of each shop, as well was sketches related to each shop.
Biased or not, I felt (and my partners felt) that the Persian shop was the most successful at visually taking advantage of the colorfulness of the pastries. Because it is a shotgun plan, it was also easy to visualize this shop as a part of a emotive experience. Although there were no climaxes or sad spots, I observed people walk through the store making faces or clapping with certain pastries that they noticed.

One of my desires of the emotive experience from the last blog entry was to " have a choice of what part of the cemetary to visit based on how they feel or how they want to feel". This parallels with the individual pastries. A person can pick what they decide to eat after visually given every choice. This works with Architecture, as well. When you walk through a house, you are given choices of what room to enter by visually seeing what is around.

Going through these shops made me understand the human scale vs. the pastries, and create correlations between the shops and unrelated spaces. I was also able to begin developing a vocabulary (parameters) for a pastry shop.

Parameters will be where my next entry takes me, as well as my idea of the pastry shop experience. (plan to post tomorrow)

Let's pretend that...

My sketch problem (one of them) for this week was to design a pastry shop as a way to consider how designing one of these would differ from a cemetary design. In Middle Eastern cultures, the cemetary and the pastry shop go hand in hand. I am taking the idea of connecting the cemetary and the pastry shop together so that:
1. a visitor will have a choice of what part of the cemetary to visit based on how they feel or how they want to feel.
2. the above ground park section will be for public use, not limited to the cemetary attendants.
3. the pastry shop will be Middle Eastern style, which will create interest from others who have no knowledge of these cultures.

I plan to visit a couple pastry shops near my house (rough, i know) in order to get some ideas on what is important for the creator/consumer in these shops. i will post my findings and floor plans tonight.

I realize that I am jumping into programming quickly, but it is more a way to study the Architectural connection with creating an emotive experience for a visitor, rather than finalizing a floorplan. The site location is not important, nor are details such as what kind of kitchen equipment are used in the back. What is more important is considering each user of this site, and finding a way to architecturally improve their experiences.

Aalto Iterations

I took the ideas that I developed with Aalto's Sanatorium and made some collage/iterations.

01-patient bedroom/balcony - relationship to sun, view, separation from medical staff

02-reading room - social, relaxing, regularity of life


03-kitchen - senses, timeless, recollection

While collaging these spaces, I also realized that the different rooms all would have doors to physically separate from the rest of the building. As important as the connection becomes, it is also just as important for the choice to diassociate. In the case of Aalto's Sanatorium, long term patients need non-medical spaces in order to have moments of normalcy.
The complicated part is to understand how to connect disassociated spaces with the rest of the building.
Connecting the unconnected? I'm back into heterotopia mode. oops.

(images also updated to voicethread in case the advisors would rather comment on there)

Aalto's Sanatorium - timeline/parallels

I will upload this image onto VT so that you guys can mark on it if you'd like.

Connections in Aalto's Sanatorium

I am looking farther into Aalto's Paimio Sanatorium, and why this building has become a piece to study for my Thesis. Architecturally speaking, authors have spoken at length about the important furniture, finishes, and details that were designed by Aalto for this project, and it should be learned from and studied. However, my draw to the Sanatorium is the fact that even though the building serves as a long-term health care facility, it holds many connections to the real world (it's hard to avoid speaking about heterotopia as I'm explaining these connections).

Before I began thinking about a typical tuberculosis patient's day in the Sanatorium, the term "connection" only had one definition for me. I felt connections would happen in between rooms, mostly in the corridor, and they all were physical connections. As I studied the daily routine, I noticed that these connections were not the important ones. It is important to design a space where a person, however disconnected with the world, can have emotional connections with their surroundings.

On my sketch below, I show a timeline/section of a Patient A (noted with red) going through his day, and the emotional connections he has in each space that is created at the Sanatorium.
I ALMOST posted the floorplan of the building so that these locations could be seen in plan, but felt that these ideas of emotional connections would be too grounded and specific if I went that route. The important piece of information for my thesis involves how people are emotionally connected to spaces, and how spaces can create emotion.