The project is an existing one, to be built in 2010. This effort represents an alternative of what has been proposed. The need for an alternative Art, Architecture and Design museum in Houston is imminent. The site is in a desolate area downtown Houston towards Highway 45. The importance of this studio was to experiment a different sensibility.
The form exploration will be concerned with yielding systemic hybridity in architecture by exploring two approaches that were previously thought to be both philosophically and methodological at odds with one another and experimenting with a “new way,” performance and sensation. The thesis of how you can develop new tectonic and material systems using analog experimentation first and combining them later in the process with digital interpretations.
The projects should address the way materials are not just about construction choices but also a means of creating diverse sensations in a space, focusing on the effects produced by the materials’ textures and surfaces. Through playful manipulation of such elements, beauty, ornament, and pattern have thus found their way back into contemporary design.
These explorations avoid a neo-utilitarian tone in favor of aesthetic and psychological investigations. They could be productions that aspire to elicit a heightened awareness of our material environment.
Critic: Gabriel Esquivel
Texas A&M University. Autumn of 2009
First Year Graduate Studio
