Responsive Architecture
Based on “Design Methodology”, I developed THE FLEX through exploration of space manipulation, to enable varied usage of space. The selected site was in downtown Calgary, surrounded by a hotel, offices, LRT stations, retail stores and an entertainment venue.
By identifying the populations’ need specifically in that location, I aimed to design a flexible structure that blurred the boundary between architectural space and urban space. Facilitated by pushing and pulling with hydraulic actuators, the space in different areas of THE FLEX was modified by dividing space, removing, folding and moving walls and floors at different times to facilitate different uses.
The result was a flexible design that met the needs of the population surrounding the site by including offices, a movie theatre, indoor green spaces, a restaurant and a bar.
One of my first explorations for vertically moving walls, and rolling a room/wall in and outside of the building in order to create more space and different usage of space.
A simple example among many of this flexibility of space by pushing, pulling, and rolling walls, and of course, the use of elevator technology for moving parts of a building up and down.
To start, created simply some boxes and put them on top of each other, some in the X axis and some in the Y axis. Manipulated the boxes by moving them up and down into the empty areas and tried to make a variety of space possibilities.
Created many sections in three axes, X, Y and Z, from the massing that was created.
Copied each section three times in the bottom of the original Section cut, and started to manipulate and redesign the space in three different possibilities.
By using different colors and arrows, tried to show the movements of the walls and floors, and the various directions that they can be moved.