The Panoptic Insanitarium

The Panoptic Insanitarium
Design Development
Paul Goss
Paul Goss
The Panoptic Insanitarium
Design Development
Lower Downtown, Denver, Colorado
California Polytechnic State University
San Luis Obispo, California
Partial Fulfillment of Bachelor of Architecture
Advisor: Karen Lange
Winter 2009
c - concept statement
pm - program massing + development
st - site + topography
pc - prime cuts section
sd - structure development
cs - circulation + stairs
2s - 2 systems
d+d - diagram + draw
dd - design development
concept
Architectural laboratories of surveillance and unreality
Transparency
Surveillance
Synthetic Reality
Technology
Exhibitionism and voyeurism
Assumptions
Boundary
High and low
Developed and undeveloped
Sun and shade
Natural and artificial
The creation and exploration of transparency, surveillance and synthetic
realities. Architecture as a device to help understand how our society uses, and is
shaped, by technology, as well as explore how changes in technology changes the
urban environment. i.e. Coney Island. A laboratory to explore the binary extremes
of technology, behavior and social status and control through experimentation,
observation, technology and juxtaposition.
c
Architecture as a laboratory to explore: the binaries and
boundaries of the site, and how transparency, surveillance
and technology are used to create synthetic realities and
shape urban environments.
program massing
Binary: Power and powerlessness/anarchy
What:
Greed and submissiveness
Who:
Voyeur and Exhibitionist
Visibility and invisibility
See and be seen
Voyeur and Exhibitionist
Record and erase reality
Knowledge and creation
The camera records and extends reality across the media landscape
Those who desire synthetic realities
Natural and artificial
Two forms of escape from city
Reality and invention
First hand experience of an event vs. a dis
tanced, artificial experience
Technology and low-technology
Embracing the media culture vs. avoiding it
Technophile and technophobic
Ascension and descension
Gaze on city and removal
Watch the city, the city watches you
Earth and sky
Horizon and the unattainable
Tangible and intangible
Public and private
Knowledge and secrecy
Blurring boundaries
Presenting real or artificial identity
pm
The site is a void and unavoidable
The axis disconnects and reconnects
The camera records and erases reality
The train transfers and transforms events
Transparency reveals and conceals
The image is created and creates.
You are in power and under the influence of power
You watch and are watched
You see the spectacle and are part of the spectacle
Observation/observed tower/platform – 4500sf
Surveillance lab (3) – 5,000sf
Computer space – 4750sf
Mechanical – 50sf
Circulation - 200sf
Theater – 5,500sf
Stage – 1500sf
Seating – 3500sf
Bathrooms – 200sf
Circulation – 200sf
Film room, Film editing lab, Camera rental, Media
space – 20,000sf
Virtual Reality/technology and society research
– 15,000sf
Skate – 10,000sf
Installation space (3) – 2000sf
66,000 sf
pm
Theater
Film Editing
Research
Surveillance
Install
Skate Park
Tower
Exhibitionism
Voyeurism
Technology/Low
Film Editing
Research
Watch/watched
Surveillance
Research
Natural/Artificial
Film Editing
Research
Record/Erase
Film Editing
Surveillance
Ascend/Descend
Tower
Tower
Camera
Topography
To devise program juxtapositions, I tried to use a hyperationality strategy
like OMA used for the Seattle Public Library. I examined the program binaries,
and what program elements satisfied them. Because the different program
elements fulfill different sides of the binaries, I was able to establish relationships
between the different program parts to take advantage of the opposing binaries.
I also drew from my second material experiment, in which a dividing plane was
acted upon by myself and a friend, based on our visual focus and a camera.
pm
11
site + topography
st
15
a
17
To begin to design and make the topography, I diagrammed the
site, focuisng on the different attractors and influences on the site. The four
main elements are: the axis, the skyline, the river, and the boundary. Once
each of the diagrams were completed, made of composite diagram of all
the attractors interacting. From there, I digitally modeled the topography
based on the diagrams, and continued to develop the topography digitally,
and then later in models of different materials.
st
19
st
21
st
23
st
25
prime cuts
Developing the program and the topography together was
accomplished through a section exercise. I began with a section sketch of
the topography and general massing, and then added layers after layer to
the drawing, developing program relationships and massings, structure,
circulation and the blend of topography and program. I then layered the
drawings with the digital topography to develop a composite section.
pc
29
pc
31
structure development
Structural development began with precedent studies of Diller +
Scofidio’s Eyebeam Museum and Massimiliano Fuksas’ New Trade Fair Milan.
The Eyebeam Museum uses a structural concrete ribbon between Vierendeel
trusses to for structure and circulation. The beauty of the architecture and
organization of the eyebeam is the way it serves the goal of contrasting,
dividing and mixing the two separate pieces: Resident vs. Visitor, Production
vs. Exhibition, technology vs. media, etc. The structural ribbon serves to create
program juxtapositions as well as the circulatory connections through the
program spaces that help to architecturally establish the division of the 2 parts,
as well as the added interest when they mix.
My own program can be broken down into two broad categories of technological
interactions and human interactions
Technology: Camera Topography
Surveillance labs
Film editing
Human: Theater
Research
Installation
Working off of that division, the I will base my circulation of the precedent of
ramps passing around and through the varied programmatic areas.
Fuksas’s design for the New Trade Fair, Milan, features a glass rood supported
by a reticulated rhomboidal truss that was designed as a landscape reflecting
the altimetry of dunes and craters. The flowing system undulates and dives down
from the roof to the floor in places. The roof structure is supported by regularly
spaced, thin branching columns.
sd
Diller + Scofidio Eyebeam Museum
Massimiliano Fuksas New Trade Fair Milan
35
A system like that can be implemented similarly for my topography.
Experimenting with ways to pull the topography vertically through the program,
but push the idea further to incorporate these places into the architecture via
light, circulation, exhibition spaces, etc.
The structural development evolved into a system of steel ribs or trusses
for both topographies. The ribs run predominantly in the cross section, with fewer
members running the length of the building to tie all of them together. Vertical
support is achieved through the three cores of vertical circulation where the roof
topography swoops down. Structural curtain walls support the perimeter This
system allows the inside of the space to remain column free.
sd
37
sd
39
circulation + stairs
The circulatory pattern is based upon several factors. It contours to the
artificial camera topography, ramping gradually up and down with the topography
while giving access to the various program areas along the length of the building.
The circulation predominantly moves along the lenth of the building, along one
main axis that parallels the pedestrian axis on the site. There are also short
circulatory routes perpendicular to the main axes. Three vertical circulation
cores give access to other leves, and correspond with the vortexes of the roof
topopgrphy, and the geothermal heating, and heat ventilation.
cs
43
The stairs are designed to take advantage of both the camera
topography and the camera. The idea for the stairs is one of captured images
reproduced in different, perhaps impossible locations. Cameras spaced in the
wall along the stairs would capture people as they move up the stairs and then
project an image of them ascending the same stairs on the wall in front of them.
This would do several things: Make them conscious of the way they look and
move, present them as ascending stairs where there are none towards and
impossible space, and perhaps fool people into thinking there are stairs where
there are not. Also, it creates a 1:1 relationship between a person being filmed
and seen. By allowing the person to see their filmed image in real time, they will
not be skeptical about whre the images are going and who is watching.
Further, the stairs would at first be cut into the side of the topography, then
become suspended stairs and they rise higher. This might create a change
of experience mid-flight, as well as use the binary opposites, and movement
between object and ether. Small, voyeuristic, spaces could can also be installed
in the wall by the stairs, allowing an individual to watch as well as the cameras.
cs
45
2 systems
The need for developing two systems evolved from blending several
sources. One source was the Diller + Scofidio Eyebeam museum in New York
City. One of the driving design principles was the division of production and
exhibition spaces, and of residents and visitors. The division was accomplished
through the architecture of the ribbon circulation, and the programmatic
juxaposition. Another source was the second material study with the camera and
dividing surfaces, examining how the camera influenced the plane based on the
interactions between camera, people and glass. A third consideration was my
own thoughts on the subject, particularly considering the binaries of the project
and the flow of information.
Looking at the site again, I noticed that all of the boudaries are motion
boundaries. The 16th Street axis carries people on foot, while the coal train
line and light rail line carry machines and industrial material. I simplified this
context into a flow of people and a flow of information, travelling in perpendicular
directions. I replicated the boundary lines across the site to make a diagram, and
then began to build small models into the diagram, then photographed them and
added layers to the graphics again. The process helped to develop a general
pattern of circulation as it related to program elements, circulation and the
topography, and programmatic juxtapositions.
2s
49
2s
51
diagram + draw
This series of diagrams and drawings helped to clarify issues and
generate ideas. The first diagram, based upon readings of Blue Monday,
Delirious New York, and my own interpretations, examines how and why cities
are caught between object and ether. The second diagram examines how and
why Denver became one of the most watched cities in the world. The drawing
proposed the idea of the trains and light rail being used to caputure and convey
images and they move through the city.
Urbanism
War
[changes]
[creates new]
Technology
[proliferate
during]
Objects
[for and by]
Urbanism
d+d
= [Culture + Technology]
Culture
[
Delirious New York , Coney Island,
Blue Monday by Sumrell and Varnelis
Products
ew]
[consumed by]
Culture
[Culture + Technology] =
Urbanism
Infrastructure
[of ]
double life of
objects and images
Images
binary opposition
Products
[consumed by]
and, by Rem Koolhaas
[creates]
Technology
Infrastructure
55
R
private owner’s employed Private Surveillance + [the recent disclosure of ]
[then]
Surveillance
[spending on]
Security
[received government money for]
d+d
Dem
f]
Reaction
Surveillance/Intelligence Centers = [City with one of the most advanced]
Surveillance Networks
emocratic National Convention
Action
[selected for]
Denver
57
d+d
59
design development
This thesis explores the modern issues of transparency, surveillance and
synthetic reality in the context of Lower Downtown, Denver. Since the expansion
of surveillance networks for the Democratic National Convention, Denver is
considered to be one of the most heavily surveiled cities in America. The drive of
the project is characterized by the desire: to take advantage of the opportunities
afforded by the site and the city caught between objectivity and ethereality; to
take advantage of the opportunity embedded in a culture obsessed with the
media image and synthetic realities; to understand how urbanism and culture
respond to advancements in technology; and to understand how architecture
can be used as a laboratory for culture and urbanism, similar to Coney Island
and the Panopticon. The Panoptic Insanitarium uses technology to bridge the
material and immaterial, object and ether. It takes advantage of extreme urban
surveillance to provide to the public the consumable commodity of leading
a double life of objectivity and ethereality. It also functions as a depository of
information about the physical city, recorded through ethereal means.
dd
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
3.
Surveillance Labs
Research Labs
Installation
Theater
Lobby/Entry/Atrium
Film Editing
2.
2.
b-b
6.
6.
6.
1.
2.
4.
3.
1.
1.
2.
5.
3.
a-a
2.
N
0.0 1/16” = 1’
63
a
65
dd
67