vault
REPOSITORY FOR COSMIC CURIOSITIES, DALLAS, TX
FOURTH YEAR STUDIO, INTEGRATED—TEXAS A&M UNIVERSITY
FALL 2018
INSTRUCTOR: KOICHIRO AITANI
COLLAB : AUSTIN MADRIGALE
FOURTH YEAR STUDIO, INTEGRATED—TEXAS A&M UNIVERSITY
FALL 2018
INSTRUCTOR: KOICHIRO AITANI
COLLAB : AUSTIN MADRIGALE
Vault is a proposed multi-use facility for Downtown Dallas across from Klyde Warren Park. Vault is composed of one Vessel and two towers. The Vessel serves as an appendage to the adjacent Perot Museum of Natural Science in response to plans of future expansion from the museum to the site via pedestrian sky bridge. The two towers are reserved for leasing space in response to the highly valued real estate value of the site with intentions of producing revenue for the complex. Our appendage proposal is a space for space, a repository for cosmic curiosities, or more simply, space junk. The program selection informed formal iterations and surface articulation for the final design expression.
The Vessel was lifted with the intention of clearing the space below to extend the public an pedestrian condition of Klyde Warren Park into the plaza of Vault. By reinserting the Vessel into the towers, the tower program reconfigures itself into public/retail/exhibition space at points of insertion. This insertion thus divides the tower into lower public space and upper private space.
The wide range of program and types of objects within Vault lends itself to becoming a microcosm in and of itself. The interest of the microcosm prompted an investigation of the Cabinet of Curiosities. From this investigation was extracted the notion of the display and the variety of scales in which architecture operates as a display through intentional (and unintentional) voyeuristic expressions of materials, tectonics, structure, objects, people, program, and circulation.
For the purpose of this investigation, the exhibitionist towers are composed primarily of glass (to display the activity within to outside observers) and exaggerated steel columns and beams (to display the structural condition of the architecture). The Vessel takes on a responsibility of architectural display through the continuity of the planetarium object throughout the floors and the exhibition of the space junk from a multitude of viewpoints, including to the plaza below as a result of its glass underbelly. Display of occupants occurs primarily through strategies of circulation. Voyeuristic circulation within Vault relies on the large main ramp within the Vessel, the open atrium within the towers, and the transition tubes between tower and Vessel. Through strategies of architectural expression, Vault becomes a probe for voyeurism in Downtown Dallas.
The Vessel was lifted with the intention of clearing the space below to extend the public an pedestrian condition of Klyde Warren Park into the plaza of Vault. By reinserting the Vessel into the towers, the tower program reconfigures itself into public/retail/exhibition space at points of insertion. This insertion thus divides the tower into lower public space and upper private space.
The wide range of program and types of objects within Vault lends itself to becoming a microcosm in and of itself. The interest of the microcosm prompted an investigation of the Cabinet of Curiosities. From this investigation was extracted the notion of the display and the variety of scales in which architecture operates as a display through intentional (and unintentional) voyeuristic expressions of materials, tectonics, structure, objects, people, program, and circulation.
For the purpose of this investigation, the exhibitionist towers are composed primarily of glass (to display the activity within to outside observers) and exaggerated steel columns and beams (to display the structural condition of the architecture). The Vessel takes on a responsibility of architectural display through the continuity of the planetarium object throughout the floors and the exhibition of the space junk from a multitude of viewpoints, including to the plaza below as a result of its glass underbelly. Display of occupants occurs primarily through strategies of circulation. Voyeuristic circulation within Vault relies on the large main ramp within the Vessel, the open atrium within the towers, and the transition tubes between tower and Vessel. Through strategies of architectural expression, Vault becomes a probe for voyeurism in Downtown Dallas.