Weaving/Woven
Year: Winter-Spring 2023
Course: Major Building Design
Instructor: Narineh Mirzaeian
Team: Ryotaro Okada
Weaving/Woven is a proposal for a natural and recycled composite fiber research facility where research, manufacturing, and testing processes are closely coupled with a public arm that incorporates exhibition, demonstration, and presentation around and throughout the private activities of the facility.
The project maintains a formal mass strategy that samples elevational character from the existing ready-mix concrete facility with its cement and gravel silos and the industrial shed structure. Towers encapsulate the silos which create rooms and vertical circulation while maintaining the drama of the found skyline profile. The wooden structure of the existing shed is preserved to articulate a core datum space through which private and public activities collide within the building while providing visual connections to the outside public realm.The massing proposal creates a trio of new overlapping volumes that sample the simple formal character of the existing shed with circulation paths that weave through the building, connecting these bars as they converge and diverge through the project. The private manufacturing and testing program is limited to a single floor and pragmatically arranged for the anticipated movement, use, and service of heavy equipment necessary for these activities. The demonstration, exhibition, and presentation spaces are organized around and through the existing shed, navigating the production activities to create a series of networked public and private interfaces throughout the project.