Rome Design Studio Project 2 – Final Project

It’s over! I’m actually very happy with my project. I won’t bore you with the long drawn own explanation of what my project became in the final hours (and believe me, I was down to the final hour!) I just hope that you can take in the pretty pictures and get some pleasure from them.

I do want you to read this quote of Philleppi Starck though. It’s from an interview with the technology website, endgadget.com and really influenced the way I approached my project when I was trying to understand the Zeitgeist for our decade.

"Modernity goes to the minimum, to dematerialization. All intelligent products are more power and less volume and less design. And yet, in a complete reversal of modernity... Everything that has mechanical parts is older. These old, mechanical things may be well done but one day they will break.

Do we love these objects, the box, or do we love what will be inside the box?
When you get a new computer you are not in aw of the computer itself, but what you will do with the computer. That is why I want to clearly separate the 'box' from the end result. I don't give a shit about the object, the box, the space, the building; I care about what will be done with these things by the people that will be interacting with them, the human experience.”

On my building facade textures contrast: stone to stucco, stucco to mosaic, mosaic to concrete. Stark walls of concrete and marble faces contrasted against the bright, gleaming walls of mosaic.

Mosaic will create my imagery and orientations. Intricate patterns will form out of the grid of the ceramic tiles. The gleam of the sun across their brightly polished surface will create an added layer of texture, swirling, shifting, ever changing.

Ramps and stairs lead to a series of simple, austere spaces. Concrete floors and ceilings, steel cable railings, and a sleek exposed lighting system create neutral functional spaces; the objects placed in the museum are the program, for, as is the case on the internet, the medium is nothing without the subject.

The pure orthogonal geometry of the circulation zone, the internet, is violated by the expression of the folded front facade on one side and the resultant galleries, the medium, within.

If you want to see the full panels with plans, sections and elevations you can check them out in the images below or follow the links to be redirected to Google Docs

http://docs.google.com/fileview?id=0By7LHV7FlKQcYzNmZWFhMjAtYTgyMS00Y2E2LTljNjYtMmMzNTI3ODQwOTQy&hl=en

http://docs.google.com/fileview?id=0By7LHV7FlKQcNWQxZTZmNWItZmY3Mi00YWM0LTgxNTktMDlhMmVjMjkxOTUw&hl=en

http://docs.google.com/fileview?id=0By7LHV7FlKQcNjIyNWEwMTktZWIxNi00ODFlLTlhYWEtNDJmZWE1NGQxNjQ3&hl=en