Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Project 1 - Research: Siza


Notes: Main Ideas/Concepts

  • A framework of tensions, both precise and emotive, attention and discomfort
  • Conceals and reveals - allows one to see, more relevant than interpretive
  • Elements removed with care: acute angles, curved shapes
  • Minimalism
  • Incisions and superimpositions
  • "Architects don't invent anything, they transform reality"
  • One has to discover the entrance as an elision between parallel walls rather than a direct opening
  • Striving to complement the natural geological structure
  • Continuity of the enclosed wall
  • Siza: a situationist, old landscapist
  • Pre-existing and desire for transformation
  • Process of fragmentation
  • Abstract configuration
  • U-shape: both attitude to form and shape, "flowing spaces"
  • Rooms are never never completely enclosed, one corner or side let open to mediate with adjacent, equally permeable compartment
  • Dynamic and static space
  • Suburban surroundings
  • Challenged precedents and conventions
  • Environment recede gradually, narrow path along garage stairs, courtyard framed by overgrown walls

Source: Alvaro Siza (1954-1988), A+U (1989/June) pg. 174-196


  • Modern absorbs elements of post-modernism
  • Bay window: centralised element
  • urban, secondary street, single-house surroundings
  • Irregularity: not approved on street fascade
  • "Away from the street" - internalised space
  • Heights = functions
  • Distorted proportion - exaggerated by bay windows
  • Compressed garage, extended wall fence
  • Steps: slows down movement (turning paths)
  • Dominate central axis (axial dominance)
  • Inverted angled courtyard
  • Public vs. private by simple geometry
  • No repetition, bringing together discrete features
  • Multiple personality, e.g. twisted column


Source: ARCH1201 Lecture, Catherine Lassen (7th March 2011)

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