Thesis Discussion - You have to make the most with the fewest elements.

The following was transcribed from a discussion between Brie Smith and thesis adviser Josemaria de Churtichaga on September 18, 2014.



BNS: How are you?

JdC: Fine.

BNS: Good.

JdC: Yes. What is this? This is the same scale, I think?

BNS: No, these are just zooming in. And these I was looking at different textures and what was visible.

JdC: Okay.

BNS: These are five years apart, so 2008 on the top and 2013 on the bottom. If you look there is much more planting, much more pieceyness in terms of development. Here is the primary downtown core and Woe Shima, the market. Most of the housing density is in that location. You get into farmland then as you move south. The challenge is that traditionally farmland is divided up amongst the paternal lines, so as the generations continue the plots almost get too small to be viable.

JdC: Okay.

BNS: So now there's a reclamation trying to reunite adjacent plots so that you have more farming land. If families can coordinate rather than piecing out the land, they’ll have enough space to grow, build houses, and live, and can still maximize this planting and vegetation. Their crop viability stays more intact.  That’s my place.

JdC: How big is it?

BNS: It’s probably about… [points to the studio space] A little bit wider, but it's about the length of this bay.

JdC: The building?

BNS: Yes, the length of this building and about half again as wide.

JdC: Okay. That’s twenty meters, so it’s not extremely big.

BNS: I have a site plan started that looks at the village. I also have survey lists I need to get into GIS. I have data that I've compiled which goes with this plan and starts to identify zones and trending for houses and family plots.

I sent you the abstract. I’ve reworded it to try and actually identify this thesis product. It will be the design of a house, specifically for Noah’s multi-generational family--they represent a typical family dynamic within this community and a lot of coastal Ghana--so designing a strategy for them that can also be representative and provide learning opportunities for others. I’ll re-look at traditional construction methods and interpret those, incorporating modern techniques to make it more viable and affordable.

JdC: Yeah, okay that's a real start. Do you have any sketches? Because this is about starting. Sketching.

BNS: Yes. Here is programming trying to identify uses.

JdC: Cooking. Bathing. Growing. What is growing?

BNS: Drying or growing. Often fisherman will dry the fish and need an open space. If the home is adjacent to the fields, this is a place to bring in those crops or for packaging and getting crops to market—loading them on a truck and sending them away. The prepping and cooking then is often central. : If people are cooking they're cooking outside on the stoop because cooking over coal. It’s very hot; they need ventilation. Alternatively they're in huts or structures that are removed from the house. It takes time to pound cassava, and to prepare meals. Cooking is the core of the day.

JdC: The meal is the very the core of the house?

BNS: It’s a staple. They have a saying that food needs to be heavy so you can throw down; it needs to be sticky so that it stays with you while you work, while you're fishing or farming. Food needs to satisfy since it's such a labor intensive community.

JdC: Yeah.

BNS: So although preparing for breakfast lunch and dinner takes quite a bit time and energy, the activity is separated from the house because it’s hot, there are coals, and they need ventilation. I’m trying to reclaim that space as something central, while still having the programmatic needs in terms of ventilation and quick access to the exterior. Is there a way to use this more as a knuckle for the house without being enclosed? And then washing and bathing. Sleeping and dressing.

JdC: What is this?

BNS: I was diagrammatically looking at this relative to addition—adding new pieces as you go, which is traditionally how things have been developing --or this integration. You can future plan the phasing and potentially, then, maximize land use by building smartly, keeping buildings adjacent or planning for expansions. Thinking about the base core for house--just a couple, maybe with one or two children—would be some sort of kitchen or cooking facility, a bathing facility, and in-between those you'd have shared water collection which you’d need for both. Here, a big gathering space or a patio, and a bedroom which are protected from the elements.

JdC: So this is open. It’s outside?

BNS: It can be. It doesn't need to be. : Traditionally most of the plots are fenced. Once you're invited into the fence you're invited into the home, and so the perimeter of the property gets you into semi-private space.

JdC: Can you build up to the perimeter? Can you build within the edge of the perimeter?

BNS: You can build right up to it. There is no zoning that way in terms offsets or fire spread. You can be right adjacent to those lines.

There's a simplification relative to a rectangular floor plan, but then how do you tweak or modify in a way that once repeated or joined its interesting? I’ve been thinking about two solid walls, a semi-permeable wall and some sort of operable wall which can open up. You increase your ventilation. You have a structural anchor.

JdC: I’m not sure about how things work there. So these schemes are making you work with... This is a grid? More or less integrated. That can potentially grow. This [pointing to a sketch] is more about this scheme, but this is another way of thinking. He learns, I think, more historically to the rules back then.

BNS: Yes.

JdC: It was those places that begin to grow. But all of those places make a very interesting use of the void. The void is as important as the center. Even, a patio house. What happens if a house goes like that, and then it begins to grow? Then things, here, and there's a patio here, and then maybe you can have more additions. So I think there is a topology, a way of occupying, for example. I would say the exterior is as important as the interior. The volume the exterior makes is extremely important--in using the edge, and protecting in fencing, and preventing or qualifying. Also qualifying those as spaces, as part of the house. Treat those spaces as open rooms, rooms that should be experienced socially. So I wonder if this scheme is maybe too close. I don't know. I would try to research this additive strategy. Yes, because you're going to isolated forms. Round? Or square or rectangular. You do whatever. Then you could overlap them. Loose, for example. Today I make a house like that. And then tomorrow comes another unit, and then like that, and then like that, and then like that, and then trying to make a small patio. I'm working with circles, I’m not sure why. Okay this could be done, even with rectangles. They could be connected. They touch each other. Then these begin to interlock like that.

Try to research how those rules play. You aren't proposing a single house. You are proposing a system; a system that is related with a history of work. So research how the Ghana house is, and how they’re in a space. The value of the outer space. Not only now but also in terms of the very, very primitive shelters. How did they use this? Actually within the system it's still similar, it’s still really additive.

But those are buildings from when?

BNS: This is a combination, so these se are permanent; some of these are made of vernacular materials.

JdC: Yeah, but for example, if they occupy the line they cannot open windows in this way, no?

BNS: They can. They just sort of force...even when people build up to a line build up to a line if you're there first you own the line.

JdC: But can you open a window to a building? What happens if you want to build here?

BNS: Ah, there's a foot path, so at least you'd have a 2 foot to 3 foot walkway.

JdC: Is ventilation vital in this climate?

BNS: Yes, it's hot as all get out! It’s hot and humid.

JdC: And humid, so what is the best layout in terms of ventilation? How does ventilation work? How can you accelerate ventilation? The Venturi Effect.

So when you produce little corridors and fences... for example this layout will help if you put the house… let’s say you have a land, and you have prevailing winds like this, no? If you make a house that makes something like that, it accelerates the wind. Or even corridors or the ways of... you have to think in those terms which is the best way to deal with the elements that you have there.so I imagine I would ask anybody what is happening there, so you need a very fixable system and they can make it grow, so parents, or family, or then the kid gets more or less independent, but he is maybe close to him typical image you see those pixels, so you have to imagine how to... I think it helps to give them that, but also to help to make a system which is resilient in terms of technicality, or materials you are going to use and how those same elements can be done in several ways. In the end you should able to make an atlas of situations. Because with this strategy they can attack any plot. No matter the size.

BNS: What they can't do with this strategy is plant. They lose the land.

JdC: So how are you going to solve that?

BNS: Well, maybe my strategy needs to zoom out--when thinking about land it’s looking at several plots adjacent. Maybe there's shifting scale within the system.

JdC: So you're going to have to include more land to your tally, no?

BNS: Yes, but it's still the same problem.

JdC: It’s still the same problem. You are more or less in parallel with that. You have to think through sketching. I would say schemes that have the potential not to be a specific solution for a specific site, but the very generic solutions for visionary thinking. Because if not, Brie, the risk is until now—the best scheme is this. It’s so flexible.

BNS: Which gives them exactly what they need, but it does compromise. There are some things that it doesn’t offer.

JdC: Which are?

BNS: Access to crops. Constructing this whole building. Sometimes this building needs to be broken up [into phases] because permanent construction of the whole thing at once is too expensive to build at one time.

JdC: Ah, for example, this unit. Is this a whole space or is it divided?

BNS: Ah, that's probably four-bedrooms. Four rooms divided.

JdC: So divided. You have to analyze these sizes, and work out the spaces—the sizes of spaces they manage—because by doing that you can divide the problem into different units that could be adjacent… could be overlapped… could be more or less like that… could be tangent. Whatever. For example imagine [sketches illustration], and here there is cross ventilation everywhere. So now the wind can go through, and even maybe the bedrooms are here so there's always a courtyard. For example this happens in Japanese architecture. This is covered. This is shadow. So wind can go through. You have to study a system that is relevant for the place, and also very, very flexible.

I think you need this flexibility. I don't see very integrative plans here. As you said (I can imagine) they don't have much. They have to stop today, and tomorrow we do this. But first let’s do the walls, and next year let’s make the roof. And for the moment we use it as a place to keep tools, but tomorrow it will be bedroom for my third son, or whatever. So these things need a very resilient strategy.

BNS: And I think that's what starting to think with this subdivision. Are they modules which can then be assembled in different ways?

JdC: By doing this, imagine this is a wall and this is a wall. The cross ventilation is so difficult, which I think is essential within the house--to have cross ventilation. Cross ventilation is not this. It’s not this. It could be this sometimes, no? But it should be this. It should be between more or less this. Why? Because what happens is that sun is heating this, produces convection, and you need to increase that. So these kinds of strategies are essential in this humid sticky place. Go to the typical situations. Go to South America and check their vernacular architecture that is trying to solve this, because this weather is more or less common in many places. So try to learn from other places. And see how they work. Even in Asia. So what happens? They would be completely different because of the cultural elements, but sometimes you can extract something from that.

But I would say design for ventilation. Light. Construction. You don't need a very thick construction. Because it’s hot and humid. You don't need to insulate. You need to ventilate. Yes? So light construction, ventilation, a lot of shadow. And could you live in current with the outside? Be in shadow with some breeze passing through? That’s all. It’s like being under a palm, or under a tree. So that means very, very, very simple elements. A wall. A post. A roof. And what are the combinations within that?

BNS: So this is an attempt more like the tree—looking at a shared wall, but its storage, its shelving, it offers some function. A gutter sloping. And the roofs are slant up, so you've got rain collection and ventilation. In plan this can start to break up and open up in the center, so that it’s not a rigid cross that breaks the plan, but offers a unity in the middle. Then the edges can blur.

JdC: Yeah, but for example you have this. And then you want to grow this. How do you do that? It's like a flower--very integrated that it cannot be joined to another one, no? How can you join this model with another one? It’s not easy. This is why I told you the other day about this house by Kahn. It is a very, very, very, very simple house, but I love this system because I think of its potential. It's a patio house but it's more than that. It’s a very simple scheme.

You need to do these kinds of schemes to see what is going. Kahn uses squares. And with a square this is an open space with four pillars. This is a square with four walls. This is another square. And he begins. By adding just squares he's able to do whatever he wants. Because by adding those four pillars he can produce four bedrooms, whatever. It was very, very simple..... This was the beginning, but he made a very nice proposal for housing. Kahn was essential for that. He was proposing typologies–a way to occupy the space.

I think you need to make still very schematic drawings. Of course this is nice, because then you're thinking that things could be shared. Could be usable. Could be movable. How to collect water. They collect water, no? So that means you need sloped roof.

BNS: Or is it some sloped roofs? Some combination offers sloped roofs, like between the kitchen and bath house, for instance. But above a bedroom, is that planned for the weight of a vegetated surface and then transfer the crop up? With the density you can't have too much height or you start to shade the crops. So low to the ground at least in this area makes sense.

JdC: Good. Kahn. Houses. Square. I say square.

The advantage of scheme like that is infinite; it’s infinite. You can compare to one thing, the courtyard, and then you can destroy. Or you can add shadow, so maybe by working with pillars, with wood and whatever you can convert these things to be shelves. You can take it down and convert into an open space. Yes, just imagine, but you have to be very, very essential. Very, very elective. Like last semester, don't have many elements. You have to make the most with the fewest elements. And I think this house is beautiful from this sense. This is the layout. But you can start moving things and it still works. It can grow. It can be adapted. It can convert into a patio. It can be converted to a long room or workshop. It can be whatever you want. It’s a resilient architecture this time, and I need your resilient typologies. This is not a very resilient typology from my point of view because it rationalizes and then it's stuck. For example this is very good for a colder climate, where you need to expose very few surface to maintain the maximum volume with the minimum surface. This is for a very difficult climate. A hot climate you have to expose for a breeze. It’s not a perimeter problem, because you don't have to spend too much in closing.

Because of screens. They use the screens. They use whatever, so be very, very essential. Try to think in a new typology against this typology, but at a very schematic level. I think you can work with, I don’t know why I work with this... round shapes. In Canada there is lots of round architecture.

BNS: Once you get into clay. When you go farther north. With the sand on a sandbar along the coast...

JdC: Yeah, but okay you can work with rectangles. Rectangles are a medium. These are posts; these are plants of the beams. Of the tops. Which are the essential pieces? What piece they can buy? Three meters? Two and a half? Two?

BNS: Eight feet, maybe nine max.

JdC: Nine feet? So that's your element. What can I do with this? Those are the rules. Okay? So this is they wood they can obtain? This is the pin they are going to use? There are no rectangular shapes?

BNS: If they can get Agor beams, which are cut from a palm in the north. They can get them. Mangroves are just more readily available.

JdC: Yeah, but these are the things they use for building, no?

BNS: Yes. That’s the most traditional.

JdC: So, accept them! How big are they? So how can I, can I... for example if they use this what do they put here? This is a longer piece, no?

BNS: Yes, that's one. These are bound together for that ridge beam, or it's an Agor beam from the north.

JdC: Okay, so you have to very straightforward in those terms--these are my sizes. And see what spaces they need, because maybe they don't need more than 3x3 meters.

BNS: Sleeping rooms are pretty much just to sleep, and be protected from mosquitos.

JdC: So how big they are—2.5x2.5, 3x3?

BNS: They tend to be bigger when they build using local materials.

JdC: And how will they collect water with those roofs? Their roofs leak.

BNS: They don't. They don't collect with these. They’ll use asbestos or tin sheeting. Or concrete.

JdC: Ah concrete. Concrete roofs?

BNS: Yes, cement. But then they have to plan for that weight.

JdC: Maybe you can use a patio to collect water. So a couple houses in the Canary Islands, and especially locations with little water, collect on the surface. They don't collect on the roofs. They collect on cinder roofs, but it's not enough, so they use the surface and the patios to collect water.

BNS: And then they just pump it up?

JdC: Yeah, they pump it. They make tanks under their big houses.

BNS: Because here tanks are more common; they're still using high collection and then using gravity flow.

JdC: I would say, be schematic. But explore more schemes like that. I think here you are becoming too...too architectural... because this is a problem. Imagine in a storm. What happens with the water? This is a big problem; it is a complicated detail even with modern materials.

BNS: True.

JdC: I imagine in Ghana when it rains, it rains?

BNS: Yes. Everything's just....

JdC: So that's got to work. You have to let things to out, or make channels, bigger channels, so you can collect water. For example, if you make a scheme and with this scheme you make corridors, so you can do something like that. And here you could collect. And here you could be the shelves between the rooms. So you can collect things, and maybe have the tanks hanging here, and you could have some water in the upper parts. Maybe with those poles of 2 meters, and 2 meters and 2 meters and then something that touches here you can reach maybe 3.5, which is enough. So be very, very simple. Take three elements and try to build with them. Okay?

BNS: Yes. Thanks.