also examples would be good on square architecture...hehe

there is a great eric owen moss project with a floating cube.

Your cube could be awesome!

Are you interested in the real structural challenges that come with creating your floating cube?

cooldude1988 : I feel sooo pressured to go "creative" and do some crazy thing and "break out of the box"

Well...
Are you crazy?
Are you confident in your ability to do awesome work?

It's really hard to do crazy and awesome at the same time. Many people do one or the other. If crazy is your end goal, it's always easiest to be awesome first and crazy later if you can muster it.

If you have a cube as your basic parti, you can add or subtract portions to make your condo a more suitable and exciting living area. If you are really focused on the idea of a cube, you could work on developing an interesting texture (as in phenomenology) or pattern that could make this project stand out as a valuable addition to your portfolio.

correct me if im wrong, but the from my humble position phenomenon of experience knows no form. for example, while technically alot of zumthor and holls forms are "boxy" it is not the box that leads to experience, with holl it is the mixture of light and aperture which makes it experiential...it happens to be "boxy". with zumthor, in the baths, its the chamber experience and procession from one climate to the next which makes it experiential, not the box. Meaning a floating box might not be the answer. on the flip side, a more expressive formal project can also be very experiential, having been to fuksas' milan expo i can say that it was an amazing interstitial space. So i think you should look at the light construction show, which was held at moma, and read terreance riley's catalog essay about the show. and stop the blobs vs boxes critique bc i think it holds no water.
lightconstruction

and this book
[=http://www.amazon.com/Light-Construction-Reader-Source-Architecture/dp/1580931057]reader[/url]

both these shows and texts explore the ideas of experience and space and light etc...every one from greg lynn to herzog. I think its important to realize, that expressive form can be experiential and inexpressive form can be well, un experiential. just like form can be gratuitous and a box can be grandiose. hope this helps

also, check out mack scogin merrill elam's project

It was once considered good practice -- aesthetic "diplomacy" -- to allow a building like the Libeskind to take center stage, and to build "background" buildings in its vicinity. Has this sort of generosity -- deferential good manners -- gone out of style ?

My advice - grow some bollocks. Design your building, do it well and face the consequences.

As much as I think diabase is being a bit too concise, I still agree.. You'll learn more from the consequences good or bad. Don't pressure yourself into doing 'star-chitect' work.

design it.
do it well.
don't be afraid to throw out that good idea and start over.
learn from the outcome.

cooldude, you're just fishing for sympathy.
this is what a cool floating box is like.
but maybe this is soo too cool even for you.

honestly, I thought this was a thread about junya ishigami.

the problem is... you are from toronto sounds like...

the floating box has been done already

It may well be worth considering the implications having such a standout form will have on the residents of the building, although the phenomenological experience may be rewarding i am unsure that many people would like to live in somewhere passers by stop to look at and consider.

Just my 2 cents though.

Can someone define condo for me please also,

Good luck CoolDude!

^Good point NWA. Valid point.

Incidentally, from the wiki:

"A condominium, or condo, is the form of housing tenure and other real property where a specified part of a piece of real estate (usually of an apartment house) is individually owned while use of and access to common facilities in the piece such as hallways, heating system, elevators, exterior areas is executed under legal rights associated with the individual ownership and controlled by the association of owners that jointly represent ownership of the whole piece."

I'm hoping the student's floating box will be a little quieter than that of the Sharp Center. Again, the site is adjacent to that of a Libeskind explosion. Would he (or we) really want to start another Disneyland architectural slugfest. . .?

It'd be pretty awesome if it managed to be a subtle floating box. Say, if it only floated maybe 1 or 2 feet off the ground, almost imperceptibly and without visible support, and then used the barely floating idea as a parti (I'm thinking of that picture liberty bell [I think] posted on one of the detail threads, where the drywall has a 1/2" gap at the floor).

Yeah, I wouldn't describe your project as a floating box. I don't expect that you would make your building reference the sharp center in any way except that... If you call it a floating box, and it is in downtown Toronto, the concept sounds similar... How many floating boxes does a city need?? Or how many signature exclamation buildings for that matter??

Yeah, I think it would be most powerful if it didn't try to compete with the loudness of the ROM but instead is quietly powerful and minimalist... something like a donald judd sculpture or like a richard serra... be 10 times more powerful than the ROM but through *simplicity*... It can be amazingly quiet and yet more powerful than the ROM... ironic

That Libeskind building is overwhelming... You walk in the space and look up and you want to barf... Literally you get dizzy and it makes your head spin... I really don't understand what they were thinking... Why would you want to walk into a museum and get disoriented and dizzy as your initial experience?

Maybe your building should be a quiet respite from that... a minimalist cube... ando-esque... maybe it couldturn inward, turn its back on that crazy shit... or maybe it could have a courtyard... not fully internal, but maybe that opens out to the street... have a minimalist water feature, calming to emphasize the contrast against that business across the way... powerful through elemental minimalism... if it floats, the proportions should be such that it is barely off the ground imho... the building doesn't want to be wacked out crazy and make people barf like the ROM... :P

The Caixa Forum by Herzog and de Meuron:

Section:

An existing building was hollowed out to create a "floating" effect.

Translucent stone cladding is cool... Maybe hollow out voids in places with organics elements like green?

Post pics of your progress if you'd like a critique

I concurr, would love to see images.

Decide on your idea and follow through. A "floating box" is not really that descriptive, really.

It is all in the execution. A billion people have 'good' ideas but only a handful can execute well. Then there are those that focus more on experience and space and then there are those that design intuitively.

Figure out your thesis statement (your project should be able to stand on one sentence, if asked to), then begin breaking it down into experiential qualities that are applicable to your program.


As others have noted, "experience" and "phenomenon" are not limited to form or materials - it is all about the execution of the idea.


Spend your time on that and it'll work itself out.

<img src="http://www.impactlab.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/09/1-crazy-house-526.jpg" width="41" height="41" border="0" alt="text describing the image" />

well, that didnt work very well.

I have spent a while thinking about this project and i think that perhaps you are coming at it from the wrong angle. I am all for a phenomenological approach but i feel defining a form so early on could be doing yourself an injustice.

I think it would be worthwhile noting your intentions in terms of atmospheric/social/material(etc) qualities and seeing what forms arrive as you explore these ideas.

The opening chapters of intertwining and anchoring describe what I mean a lot more adeptly. They are also worth a read for anyone interested in the 'phenomenological'.

If you get a chance to read these over it would be great to hear how it affects your approach in this thread.

Again, good luck.

Another point, the interesting issue with your brief is not the form it may take or anything to do with physical appearence, but the entire nature of condominium living.

There is an opportunity here to really investigate how humans function in such an environment. your project gives you the chance to redefine this lifestyle and realign it to something you see as appropriate today. Go crazy with it.

check out Coop Himmelblau's school in Los Angeles

Thanks everyone for your responses. It will definitely help me out as i fix my design up (i got reading week!)

The site is on Bloor Street - really high end street, across from the ROM on the north side. It's where museum house condo is.

http://maps.google.ca/maps?hl=en&source=hp&q=204%20bloor%20stret&rlz=1R2GGLR_enCA337&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wl

if you go in street view, this is the site. I'm gonna be proposing a twenty-something tower on the Museum House condo site.

I'd like to show work, but like since this is the world wide web, i'm a bit hesistant. but its a narrow site, facade can only really do some cool stuff on north and south (access lane with future condo and building flank the east and west sides.) The site is restrictive, but i will definitely consider your ideas and help.

Maison a Bordeaux by Koolhaas

That's the rather extraordinary residence for a wheel-chair-bound client ? It includes a fantastic elevator platform, as I recall. . .