Franco Chen
301
Fall 2014

Located on a landscape that features a steep hill and surrounded by a scenery of coastal oak, Between Sites is a project that encourages movement on, as well as off, the dirt paths.

The project uses a simple formal driver of booleaned spheres, bounded with rectangular extrusions to highlight the subtraction from the overall shape. In total, there are 8 pieces, a result of the three slices in each of the cardinal planar directions on a cube. These derived objects are immediately familiar, and unfamiliar at the same time. Smooth spheres are clashed immediately with hard, orthogonal edges that only serve to contrast the oddities.

Placement of these objects is the primary driver for the project. The site is a small crop out of the overall reserve, meaning that the entrance to the reserve lies a few miles north of the site, while the actual trail head to the site lies about a mile south. Using two of the eight pieces, a “Welcome!” monument is placed at the entrance to the reserve, and a portable bathroom at the trail head is replaced with a permanent one. Between and beyond the two off-site pieces, architecture had officially taken a presence. On the site, two parallel lines were drawn for the specimen collection that allow and encourage visitors to the site to go off the given path and indulge in the site.

Program is provided for in the form of a two level building, with none of the interior features or interior walls interfering with the spherical bulges. Volume is broken down into planes as well by stripping off faces of the object and in turn, the object is doubled as a volume and a shell. The shell’s facade is clad with masonry veneer that runs vertical, toying with the common tectonic understanding of masonry. Masonry veneer meets poured concrete as a plinth, elevating each one of these shells above the ground, for all visitors to see and intrigue upon.