Kathleen O’Connorkoco1234@vt.edu

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WATER TEMPLE

TRAIN STATION

SCHOOL FOR THE HIGH WIRE

MUSEUM OF WILDFIRE

TABLE OF CONTENTS

WATERSHED OBSERVATORY

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FOLLY + CAPSULE

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WATER PLAZA

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WATER ROOMStudio Project, Fall 2010

Third Year

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SITE PLAN & ORDERING SYSTEM

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The Project:The Watershed Observatory accommodates at most 3 researchers at a time and includes public spaces, exhibition spaces, and rooms for the contemplation of water.

15,000 square feet.

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SITE PLAN & ORDERING SYSTEM

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Let go the desire to control water. Be human. Be nature. Enjoy it.

The upstream dam, the asphalt lot, the retaining wall and the ramp make the site a construction of man. While still natural, it is not wild; it was intentionally altered and fundamentally changed.

This intervention strives to “fashion” a topography, meaning to lay a superficial groundscape. Like fabric over a body, it will form a surface layer, but leave the existing ground for the water to carve. This new ground would make the land more attractive, enticing, and easier to enjoy. It is not a fundamental change, but rather a new garment for the site.

Man’s impact here is frivolous.

The river on the other hand continues to erode and distribute sediment below the site. For a short period of time, the water recedes and the ground below becomes a great hypostyle hall with a floor of muddy silt. Water is consistent in its behavior, but the landscape below the modular topography will change year after year. Man, on the other hand, changes with experience and is unlikely to create the same thing twice given two separate opportunities. Humanity has trends; styles. Mankind is more different decade to decade than water has been since the dawn of time. This building, like every other, will go on to represent the trends of its time, like a grave-stone for contemporary architecture.

In this way, the site is separated between water’s intervention and man’s intervention.

The nature of these two things are juxtaposed. Fashioning the ground

If you’re going to create a landscape, why not mimic the dam? Why not carve the land and exhibit man’s potential?

Consider:Bruce Trigger’s theory of conspicuous consumption believes that monumental architecture is a product of fledg-ling power vying for respect. The dam, built during the war, could be considered a triumph of order at a time of confusion. It was motivated by a need for power and caused a huge amount of destruction. Evidence of loss is

even marked on the site; this land does not appreciate the invasion of organization.

Since then, the landscape has modified to accommodate for that intervention and is slowly returning to a state of wild natural order beyond man’s comprehension. This intervention accommodates man by making something

comfortable… and allows water to persist.

modules for the formations. 1/32” = 1’

The site floods with water twice a year, saturating the earth and challenging construction.

It is a membrane; a surface inviting water to pass through but prohibiting access to anything larger or more solid.

I stretched fabric over site models, examined the points of tension, and trained myself to see the earth as a woven facade to a private residence for water rather than a solid mass of dirt. I approached the site the way I imagined the researchers would approach their studies – looking aggressively for an entrance into the mysteries below grade.

The ground houses the river...

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Approach: Two buildings. Building 1: Visitor’s Center and Lab

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Huge concrete beams formally manifest the “threads” of the earth’s membrane. They give the “surface” concept a thickness and create spaces for the building to occupy. The roofs and walls weave into a concrete loom. Forms are triangular, flows; cyclical… a canvas for needlework.

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NORTHEAST SECTION

WEST SECTION

NORTHEAST SECTION

WEST SECTION

RESEARCH FACILITY

WEST ELEVATION

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The massive structural beams also serve as staircases and corridors within the building. The beam is an entrance to the building.

The ground is breached.

Visitor’s center site plan (above) and section (below).

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Building 2: Plaza and Galleries

The plaza sits below the visitor’s center in an area of the site that floods in the summer. For half the year, the rooms are pools; a space for recreation. The other half, they are galleries. The concrete walls retain the memory of every new flood.

WATER PLAZA

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Plaza plan (above), plaza model (below). Plaza perspective (above) and water stained concrete.

SCALES AND EXPERIENCES

WATER PLAZA

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SCALES AND EXPERIENCES

Building form from the form of inhabitants...

Spaces informed by the scale of the body create a richer architecture because they acknowledge the purpose of a designed place. The plaza’s dimensions explore the scale of the human body, but add a twist: these dimensions are based on the body when submerged.

SCALES AND EXPERIENCES

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WATER TEMPLE Studio Project, Fall 2010

Third Year

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The Project:The water temple is a room for the contemplation of water.

Maximum of 20’ wide. Site situated on the edge of a river.

Painting: watercolor and salt.

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Concept sketch and model render: the water “container.”

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The underground room, constructed of perforated met-

al, makes water seeping through the ground and carv-

ing the dirt a part of the material palette. Over time, the

earth and water squeezing through the grate will shape

the room; dirt will soften the corners and eventually the

ground will overtake the architecture all together.

People move along ramps that are shallow enough to

be steps, but their arrangement is an implied confine-

ment. The edges of the ramps and platforms drop away

into the pit below.

At the end of the ramp is a 20’ x 20’ room. Once a year,

when the water level of the river is at its peak, the river

will spill over the wall and cling to its angle, cascading

down through the grated floors, and into the pit below,

being absorbed and returning to the earth.

The architecture compares man to water; water goes rushing into every crevice of its container, man chooses how to inhabit. Contain – er suggestion

Structure of the “well,” which sinks into the ground below

the water room.

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Interior view of the water room.

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TRAIN STATION3-Day AIA Competition, Spring 2011

Third Year

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Section Looking East

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Winter Sun

Summer Sun

The sun enters through clerestory windows and skylights, illuminating a flat, white wall on the north side of the station. Ambient light bounces onto solid marble surfaces.

In the winter, the sun passes through the train, creating a shadow on the wall. People in the lobby can watch the shadows of travelers coming and going on the train.

... generations pass, as they have passed,a troop of shadows moving with the sun...

23Perspective section looking into indoor (winter) platform and first floor lobby.

... be comforted; the world is very old,and generations pass, as they have passed,a troop of shadows moving with the sun;thousands of times has the old tale been told;the world belongs to those who come the last,they will find hope and strength as we have done.

-Excerpt from Shadows by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

South Elevation

North Elevation (entrance)

Life should be lived on the edge of life. You have to exercise rebellion: to refuse to tape yourself to rules, to refuse your own success, to refuse to repeat yourself, to see every day, every year, every idea as a true challenge - and then you are going to live your life on a tightrope. -Philippe Petit, Man On Wire

SCHOOL FOR THE HIGH WIRE Second Year Competition, Spring 2010

Honorable MentionSecond Year

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The walker climbs the red, weathering steel tower. Up, up, over the spiny practice structures and the placid reflecting pool. Below, in the underground library, students of the wire study what the walker is about to undertake. Spectators from the nearby college campus wade through the long stalks of grass; this unkempt and wild place does not usually draw a crowd. Their legs are invisible in the earthy pool of green. The walker’s legs are a drum roll; rhythmically moving from rung to rung. One hand reaches the platform, then another. The walker climbs up and stands surrounded by the emptiness of the sky. The first step is to the platform’s edge. The next one is into the air.

The Project:The school for high wire walking includes an underground library, changing rooms, bathrooms, and practice wires at varying heights.

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THE FOLLY Studio Project, Fall 2009

Second Year

Fol•ly (n): Architecture without program.

The folly is situated in a clearing with a spiralling platform on one side and a curved wall on the other. Sound projects upward from the platform, amplified by the structure, and reverberates through the clearing, using the wall and surrounding trees to contain the noise.

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Cuts

Folly Waste

Reassembly

Blueprint for Folly Project

Audio Time Capsule: Form from the waste of a past projectcontaining a perspective of the presentpreserved for the future.

capsule

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MUSEUM OF WILDFIRE Third Year Competition, Fall 2010

Project with Aubrey Lynch, Third Year

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The Project:The Museum of Wildfire is located in the Western United States on a gentle slope that is the threshold between a forested mountain and developing suburb. The Museum serves as both the site of focused policy discussion and as a public space where exhibits and archived media explore the phenomena of wildland fire and the complexities of wildfire.

The museum includes exhibition space(s), a lookout tower, a library, offices and meeting rooms.

3120 sq. ft. total

Sketch of the museum (left) and the architecture of a chimney (right).

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inhabitable space

uninhabitable space

structure

threshold

lighting

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The creation of smoke is a transition of mass. Matter burns away into void and void becomes dense with darkness. The museum attempts the same inversion. Visitors inhabit the conventionally solid or structural parts of the building. The retaining wall is an entrance and slabs are hollowed into galleries. Spaces that would typically be occupied are dedicated instead to structural elements. Slumped glass and clear columns construct the void between floors.

During a fire, the architecture of the forest inverts.

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The design uses the process of fire to question architectural components: How can a threshold be variable? How can emptiness be structure?

How can a solid be inhabited?

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OFFICE

OFFICE

LIBRARY / MEETING SPACE

BR BR

ELEVATOR

Basement PlanTop: Roof PlanBottom: Gallery Floor Plan

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