GDC 2001: Current Architecture and Potential Approaches to Level Design
Aronoff Center for Design
and Art, Cincinnati - Peter Eisenman
Description
The Aronoff Center for Design and the Arts
was completed in 1996 and is located on the campus of the University of
Cincinnati, Ohio. The new building is a 128,000 square feet renovation and
addition to an existing red brick complex. The new building houses a
library, theater, and studio spaces. The exterior is stucco cladding in a
variety of pastel colors, offset against the surrounding campus and
landscape.
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The exterior is stucco cladding in a variety of pastel colors, offset against the surrounding campus and landscape. |
Background
Peter Eisenman is an architect practicing in
New York. His designs have always had a strongly theoretical background
addressing the breadth of recent American intellectual theories from
structuralism through to current day philosophical concerns.
He was initially known for a series of houses in the late Seventies that were created through a very clearly documented transformation process. Subsequently, his work increased in size and drew on sampling different data types from their immediate location, almost like large-scale earthworks. Most recently folding has been the theme, combining the investigations from the earlier work with a more complex, looser geometry, and exploring warping meshes.
The early work predates computer use in architecture in terms of transformation, translation and scaling. Eisenman's office was an early adopter of Form-Z on the Macintosh, and a lot of the routines he uses are standard to the software. Today, although a lot of the projects are studied in physical model form, his office takes full advantage of digital creation techniques.
Process
The design center samples the landscape and
building outlines that adjoin the complex to establish a play between a
waveform generated by site contours, and a chevron profile from the
existing structures. An algorithmic curve of rectangular volumes is
overlaid on this to form the studio classroom block. This sets up a
stepped form that is translated to create the circulation for the new
building. The space between the existing buildings contains the communal
areas. The stucco colors on the exterior of the building reinforce the
geometry of the different volumes.
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The new building houses a library, theater, and studio spaces. |
Potential
Application
Eisenman's clear description of process provides an
approach that may or not be tied to a narrative theme. The approach allows
you to generate successive levels of detail from a relatively simple
framework. You can begin with a simple form and develop structure and
detail related to it. Data types other than landscape and building
profiles can be sampled for use as generative sources.
Rather than simulating materials or construction process, much the way games do, building materials are used to mark their process of generation. Where facades and ceilings receive equal attention to articulation and detail, the sloping walls and surfaces are often disorienting. The sense of dislocation is intended to heighten the actual experience of the space. This could be used to great advantage in a level where you weren't necessarily limited to remaining on the ground, but could walk up walls or even across the ceiling.