Shane Duggan: Architectural Design 1
For our first project, we were given a female musician as a client and told to interpret their music in ways that would eventually become an architectural design. My artist was Doro Pesch, a German metal queen who has been making metal music for almost forty years. In this project, I wanted to explore who she was, the universal themes of her music, and how to incorporate all of these ideas into a successful design.
Music Investigation
Starting the investigation into Doro Pesch's music required first listening to what she has made over the years. I then did some research into what her career has been like and why she writes music the way that she does. In interviews, she has explained that she had a rough childhood and early career, and that she has continued to make music in order to create the energy that she would have wanted during those hard times. I tried to represent the knowledge of Pesch overcoming her struggles as well as what I heard in her music by creating elements that are always building up to a highpoint, representing her triumph over struggles as well as the high-pitched sound created by electric guitars used in her sound. The idea of this whole model was to represent the rise in her sound as well as her success.
Model
Model Drawings
Word Diagrams and Parti
We then had to come up with three architectural words based off what heard in the music. The three words that I came up with were cluster, additive, and regular. Cluster represents the organization of her music, as each verse and guitar solo is centered around a high point in the music. Additive represents how every song that Pesch creates builds on itself. Her music usually starts out with some instrumental lead in that is always expanded as the music continues. Regular relates to how her music is meant to be enjoyed by the common person. It is not overly complex, but her music has enough substance that it can be enjoyed by anyone. I used a triangle and T-square to create paraline drawings representing each of these words, and tried to use colors that matched with the emotions I felt while listening to her.
Using the architectural words above, I then created a parti that incorporates some of the elements from each word and drawing. I knew that I wanted an experience that would shift the deeper you walked into the building, along with outdoor elements that would block sunlight and allow for different lighting to be used outside. This is when the idea of canopies as a major piece of this design came up, and would be a constant theme throughout future concepts.
Music Pavillion
After creating a creating a parti, we were then tasked with coming up with three different concept designs based around the parti. Using trace paper, I went about creating these three designs by putting as many ideas as I could come up with on paper, mixing and mashing ideas that I did and didn't like. At the same time, I was also trying to stick to what I felt listening to Doro's music and the words that I had used to describe what I heard.
Concept 01: This concept was closest to my original idea that I had for my final design. It combined the simple, regular elements that I felt was reflected in Pesch's music, along with the additive elements that I felt needed to be in the design. However, I did not end moving forward with this concept as I didn't like the way it looked and it didn't fully reflect what I heard in her music.
Concept 02: In this concept, I was trying to take the flowing extrusion from the first concept and incorporate it more throughout the entire concept. I wanted to communicate the border between her rock anthems and power ballads, but in the end, I felt the design looked too smooth and did not reflect the jaggedness of her music.
Concept 03: This concept was the one that I stuck to for my final design. I wanted to incorporate the regularity of her music through additive, triangular canopies on one side of the main building and a curved building on the other side. These two sides of the main building show the two sides to Pesch's music. The curved tetrahedral as the center piece of this concept was meant to show the mixing of these two sides. while maintaining the jagged elements heard in metal music.
Concept 01: This concept was closest to my original idea that I had for my final design. It combined the simple, regular elements that I felt was reflected in Pesch's music, along with the additive elements that I felt needed to be in the design. However, I did not end moving forward with this concept as I didn't like the way it looked and it didn't fully reflect what I heard in her music.
Concept 02: In this concept, I was trying to take the flowing extrusion from the first concept and incorporate it more throughout the entire concept. I wanted to communicate the border between her rock anthems and power ballads, but in the end, I felt the design looked too smooth and did not reflect the jaggedness of her music.
Concept 03: This concept was the one that I stuck to for my final design. I wanted to incorporate the regularity of her music through additive, triangular canopies on one side of the main building and a curved building on the other side. These two sides of the main building show the two sides to Pesch's music. The curved tetrahedral as the center piece of this concept was meant to show the mixing of these two sides. while maintaining the jagged elements heard in metal music.
Concept 01:
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Concept 02:
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Concept 03:
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The final pavilion design that I went with was based on my third concept. I wanted to work with the idea of lighting to communicate emotion from Pesch's music and is why I used canopies throughout the design. The entrance into the building would be the tip of the tetrahedral, where you walk into video experience of Pech's music. Here, you would watch her music videos and other videos that communicate who she is as an artist and what her music is like. As you walk through the pavilion, you experience the different sounds of her music, and the lighting gets gradually brighter until eventually you land in the main live performance gallery. This change in lighting is meant to represent the triumph of Pesch, and having a place where anybody, including Pesch herself, could perform was meant to exude that positive and uplifting energy that she loves.