STUDIO LOTTERY ARCH605B_Spring 2015_University of Southern California, School of Architecture

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1 STUDIO LOTTERY ARCH605B_Spring 2015_University of Southern California, School of Architecture Student Name: Studio Preference: Studio Options: A. Lorcan O Herlihy_Confluent Ecologies: New Urban Ground B. Patrick Tighe_Between Surface and Volume: New Museum/Los Angeles C. Aaron Neubert_Hybrid Environments: monsters, aliens, & urban anomalies

2 Confluent Ecologies: New Urban Ground Lorcan O Herlihy Arch605b Fall 2015 University of Southern California, School of Architecture Arch 605b Topic Overview The majority of the world s waterfront metropolises face an uncertain future on a warming planet. Currently, 634 million people live in coastal areas within a 30-foot elevation change of sea level. Two thirds of the world's cities with over five million people are located in these low-lying coastal areas. It is expected that future sea level rise will lead to potentially catastrophic difficulties for shore-based populations and marine ecosystems alike in the following decades. Recent projections anticipate sea level will rise to meet an upper limit of over 39 inches during the 21st century. This change is expected have a $35 trillion economic impact internationally, including $16.2 trillion in the United States and China alone. A sea level rise of just inches in the Bay of Bengal would put 11 percent of the Bangladesh's coastal land underwater, creating 7-10 million climate refugees. The Netherlands anticipates a rise in the North Sea up to 4.25 feet by 2100 and plan for a foot rise by The UN's environmental panel has warned that, at current rates, sea level would be high enough to make islands such as the Maldives uninhabitable by Similar projections are true globally, including the densely populated, lowlying coastal metropolitan regions of Asia and the United States such as Guangzhou, Shanghai, Tokyo, New Orleans, and Manhattan. With the realization that human-induced (anthropogenic) warming is one of the largest contributors to sea level rise, and through observation of the exponential rate at which both have been observed to be increasing in the latter half of the 20th century, vastly surpassing all reasonable estimations, we are confronted with the urgent need to develop new theories for how to reinterpret current modes of development and use associated with this potential new urban ground that resides along the convergence of land and sea. How can we make one of the largest contributors to the current cause of the problem generate a solution? Arch 605b Studio Objective The Arch 605b studio seeks to develop elastic strategies that take its formative clues from the confluence of field (ocean) and convergent (urban waterfront) conditions to investigate the relationship between architecture and ecology, urbanism and emerging technology. Located at the site of this confluence, the objective of this studio assignment is to identify the critical role of design as an agent in engaging and fostering interaction in relation to the behavioral, environmental and social connectivity of urban ecologies. They are no longer passive, utilitarian, and singular in nature; the waterfront becomes the setting for multiple conflicts. While acknowledging complexity inherent within the continued evolution of contemporary models of urban taxonomy, students are expected to analyze how along these expanding edge conditions, political and economic concerns relative to land use and public / private development merge with environmental debates over habitat, ecology, and the effective allocation of natural resources. The evolving demands of shipping, commercial and industrial production, transportation and recreation have all left their lasting impact on the shoreline. With adaptive, elastic infrastructures responsive to the multitude of possibilities inherent in such regions of confluence, this project endeavors to represent a new typology intended to dramatically alter our relationship to, and how we occupy these edge conditions. Can we preserve its character while introducing innovative models of hybridity to uncover its great economic, cultural, environmental, political and societal potential? Throughout the semester, students will explore how formal strategies can be adapted via programmatic analysis to accommodate organizational, ecological, environmental and technological advances. How can programmatic complexity be utilized to promote social interaction, economic development, mitigate environmental and ecological factors while connecting the waterfront back to the city? As agents of change, the studio will investigate this ever-fluctuating edge condition to create hybrid arc-ology s, which deploy adaptive organizational systems that engage and reinterpret the existing urban context while responding to contemporary environmental forces and this new urban ground.

3 Arch 605b Process The semester will kick off with an intensive, exploratory research component, including guest lecturers and studio discussions, intended to position students with sufficient knowledge from which they are able to address the critical issues described above. A series of assigned readings will also be introduced to familiarize students with historical precedents relating to issues of confluent ecological and urban systems, models of social connectivity and contemporary strategies being employed today. Students will be expected to continue the exploration through rigorous independent research agendas carried out using field studies and incorporating knowledge received from specialist consultancies. In addition, investigation via analog and digital drawing skills and building physical 3-dimensial models will be encouraged at all phases of work. These will be explored in 2D and 3D via scale shifts in forms of building taxonomy and production techniques with the aim of making the structure and materiality both organizational and projective. Immediately following the initial research component, students will be asked to select a project site from four international locations, each exemplifying specific aspects of the issues identified in the research phase. From there, the studio will develop a 15,000-20,000 square foot cultural resource / education facility focused on addressing the issues described above. Programs for consideration will include classroom and education facilities, exhibition space, administration offices, and an elastic, flexible program that you will propose specific to your individual project site and research conducted throughout the semester.

4 SPRING 2015 Comprehensive Design Studio Patrick Tighe ARCH 605B: Comprehensive Studio USC Semester: Spring 2015 New Museum 235 Bowery Street, NYC BETWEEN SURFACE AND VOLUME New Museum / Los Angeles The New Museum in New York City is devoted to contemporary art. Founded in 1977, the New Museum was conceived as a center for exhibitions, information, and documentation about living artists from around the world. From its beginnings as a one- room office on Hudson Street to the inauguration of its first freestanding, dedicated building, designed by SANAA, on the Bowery in 2007, the New Museum continues to be a hub of new art and new ideas and is a place of ongoing experimentation about what art and arts institutions can be in the twenty- first century. The 605B studio will rethink this model of this museum for an infill site located in downtown Los Angeles. The brief for the contemporary art museum is composed of exhibition spaces and integrated public event spaces. We will begin with a series of short exercises to rigorously explore relevant issues of the type of a museum and compile a research of precedents that might inform our work. Issues of embedding, figure and figuration, mass and interstice, solid and void as well as contemporary notions of poche incarnated by double skins and thick membranes are all within the family of formal problems that the studio will be dealing with. Issues pertaining to vertical movement and circulation between the different exhibition spaces as well as larger cultural and social implications of the projects are also of major importance. The notion of Surface has been at the forefront of Architectural discussion for years. Most of the attention of surface has been directed to the building envelope. The studio will investigate surface not only as a building enclosure but also as it relates to the site and the building as a whole. The relationship of surface to volume will be at the foreground. The studio will be dedicated to the making of an architecture as a formal whole consisting of Surface, Volume and Mass. USC / Spring 2015

5 Hybrid Environments: monsters, aliens, & urban anomalies Aaron Neubert_ARCH605B_Spring 2015_University of Southern California, School of Architecture Overview: Situated within a context where known commercial brands propagate accepted urban and architectural typologies, this studio will explore the potential impact that speculative and provisional anomalies may have on the creation of comprehensive hybrid environments. The mining of various source material extracted from within and outside the discipline shall serve as a point of departure into the conceptualization and development of immersive experiences targeted at the simultaneous values, beliefs, emotions, and desires of multiple existing market segments, or towards the identification of emerging segments. While your proposal may oscillate between the utopian and dystopian spectrums, fundamental issues to be considered will include, but not be limited to: siting/environmental response, tectonics/materiality/technology, aesthetic/performative, building/landscape, order/organization/programming, operation/occupation, circulation/navigation, social dynamics/exchange, local/global, and time/duration. Site: The San Pedro/Port of Los Angeles neighborhood will serve as the site for your investigations and proposals. As the initiative to transform the simultaneously local and international LA Waterfront progresses, the studio will grapple with the dialogue between the City looking towards development, investors concerned with profits, and the community s fears about the future of their neighborhood. Project/Program: A 40 Room Boutique Hotel will serve as the vehicle for your topic explorations. The complete program will be developed in response to individual project statements, however the minimum programmatic requirements shall address the following: Lobby 1000sf, Lobby Restroom 125sf, Luggage Storage 200sf, Administration Office 150sf, Bar/Café 1,250sf, House Keeping/Laundry 500sf, Gym 750sf, Game Room 750sf, General Storage 750sf, Additional Storage Per Floor 50sf/each, Mechanical/Electrical Room 500sf, Trash Room 500sf, Manager s Suite 750sf, Single King Bed Rooms (30) 250sf, Double Queen Bed Rooms (10) 275sf, Hallways/Stairs/Elevators, Roof Deck/Exterior/Pool Spaces TBD, Parking TBD, Public/Community Program 3,000sf.