The proposed design of the music chamber is one of lightness and sparkle, where people can enter and have a feeling of awakeness, clarity, and acuity. The atmosphere of this room is achieved from the interplay of materiality and harnessing daylight. A finned roof structure made of a bright surface (such as glazed tile or white plaster) reflects sunlight into the interior through glass skylights. This bouncing of direct sunlight off of bright surfaces takes the edge and harshness off, transforming it into a bright whiteness whose origin cannot be traced to a singular point. The interior space will be covered in light-colored glass tile, which further serves to bounce light around the space and echo or amplify musical sound. The southern facade is covered in a frosted glass panel, which also diffuses direct sunlight into a planar source of brightness. In contrast to the chapel design, which is dim and dazzling, this atmosphere is bright and sparkling, without being harsh or overbearing.
Stereographic Overlay on plan, shows that the southern facade recieves sunlight at all times of year, and most times of day.
Plan Showing how light enters the space, and the luminance of the interior. A frosted glass screen on the southern facade diffuses direct and ambient sunlight into the space, and clerestory lighting also provides indirect day lighting.
Section shows how different altitude angles of sunlight are filtered throughout the day, bouncing off of reflective roof structures and entering the interior as diffused light. The frosted glass screen on the southern facade also provides indirect ambient light.
The design I am proposing for the chapel takes advantage of the southern wall facade, the only facade that is exposed to daylight, to create an interesting, quiet, and contemplative interior environment. A chapel’s atmosphere is one of solitude and introspection, a sort of dazzling darkness that celebrates the subtelty that light can create. This chapel’s materiality is extremely important in controlling the luminance of the room. The walls and floor would be concrete, for a smooth and dim space for light to filter off of. Dark wooden pews create a certain warmth that makes people feel safe, as if the room were their own home. A dematerializing approach to light filtration serves to offset the feelings of claustrophobia of being in a small concrete box. Light in the chapel enters in indirect ways, save for at noon in June when the sun streams through a skylight in a slender white slit falling to the floor at the foot of the pews. The southern facade is broken horizontally with glass shelves, each filled with different colors of shattered glass. The glass absorbs the sunlight from outside and diffuses it throughout the interior, in dappling color. A similar program is happening on the roof, where reflected light streams through more shattered glass upon a larger skylight. The chapel’s interior is dim and quiet, similar to the feeling of Zumthor’s baths, and the light has a similar dazzling quality to the Hagia Sophia. The location of the sunlight’s origin cannot be exactly placed, serving to create a sort of other-worldly setting in which people can think deeply and spiritually.
Stereographic Overlay on Chapel Plan, shows that the exposed South Side recieves daylight at all times of year and most times of day. Because of this, shading structures are necessary to create an appropriate internal environment.
This drawing shows the quality of light that enters the Chapel, from the linear noon slit in the ceiling to the diffuse lighting from the southern wall program.
This drawing explains how light enters the chapel in section, as well as the various degrees and altitudes of sunlight throughout the day for different times of year.
There has been a lot of discussion surrounding the fact that humans, in the 21st century, have become disengaged and almost numb to their surroundings or the environment. Technology overstimulates us with films and advertising and moving pictures too fast for us to react, and cottles us in flourescently lit buildings kept at a steady 72 degrees Fahrenheit. The fundamental beauty of our sensory experience is in a lot of ways redirected and overwhelmed in the realm of the artificial.
The intervention for the bus stop that I am proposing on the site is oriented with three main walls, with an opening to the South facing side. The South wall is a sliding glass plane that can remain open during the summertime, but be closed to block cold winds in the winter. People occupy this space either by participating in the stationary bikes, or sitting on the wrap-around wooden bench.
The Northern side wall functions as a retaining wall, following with my site proposal that the downward sloping earth be remolded and scooped up behind the bus stop as a sort of tidal wave. It would encompass and spill over onto the roof, but the East and West walls would be left above ground.
The East and West walls would be designed as louvers with solar panels on them, that can be adjusted to allow for ventilation or closed during the winter to prevent heat loss. The solar panels would help to power overhead lighting at nighttime during both seasons.
The stationary bikes serve multiple purposes. The power generated by them during the summer months would be used to power an interior fan, and the excess unused power could be stored to help power the lighting at night. The power generated during the winter would go into heating the wooden benches on the East. Not only do the people on the wooden bench benefit from the energy expendature in the winter, but the people on the bikes are in effect keeping themselves warm as well.
The scooping tidal wave earth into a green roof on the North-South axis provides for a great thermal mass, which keeps the interior of the bus stop relatively cool in the summertime and warmer in the winter. It also blocks the awful Northeastern wind in the winter.
The green roof and overhang also interacts with the solar patterns during various seasons.The combination of the roof structure and vegetation on top of it would function to keep the entire interior in shade during the hottest parts of the day during the summer, and in the winter, the lower sunpath is allowed to enter through the southern side (the sliding glass plane would probably be closed, but light can still enter and warm the space like a greenhouse).
The materials of the bus stop would be wooden benches (which have low conductivity, preventing heat loss in the winter and not giving off excess heat in the summer). A stone floor would absorb the light allowed to enter the bus stop during the winter months and retain that heat through the night. In the summer, the interior of the bus stop would remain in shadow, so the stone floor would remain cool and absorb the excess heat from its surroundings.
stereographic projection onto site, which shows how the buildings and obstacles obstruct the summer sun. During the summer, this site receives sunlight during most times of day.
the orange color overlayed on the summer sun stereographic projection shows how winter sunlight on the site differs from summer sunlight. During the winter, Ruffin hall and Culbreth cast shadows on the site other than during a gap around midday.
This orthographic projection shows that during thes summer months, the site recieves optimal sunlight for most of the day. During the winter, the buildings and trees block sunlight save for a small window of time between noon and 3pm. Luckily for the winter months, the trees that are directly behind Campbell hall aren’t as bad of a problem because their leaves have all fallen.
This wind rose diagram shows the site during the summer. In Charlottesville during summer months, the most constant and strong winds are the warm winds from the southwest, which become funneled and accelerated around buildings and towards the site. Cooler winds from the Northeast are also funneled through buildings towards the back of the site.
During winter months, wind is a lot bigger of a problem for this site. The Northwestern winds are blocked by the parking garage, but the Southern winds and Northeastern winds are magnified by the curve of Culbreth theater and accelerated by the Venturi effect through the gaps in buildings. Sheilding from the wind in winter months is a major design necessity for this specific site.
This chart shows Charlottesville during July and August, the hot summer months. The design strategies employed here are high thermal mass, sun shading, natural and fan ventilation, and redirecting internal heat gain. Ventilation and sun shading are especially influential on how comfortable the space is in the summer.
In the winter months, different strategies have to be employed in order to make the space comfortable. This chart shows January and February from the hours of 7am to midnight. Harnessing solar heat, retaining it, and blocking wind are the most crucial aspects of designing for the winter.
I went on a super long run on the Rivanna trail, the part that runs parallel to the highway. It is a wholly different experience every single time that I visit, sometimes it looks like Narnia with overgrown vine tunnels and green light dappling. Today, it looked like a storybook I would have read in my childhood after thanksgiving dinner. Trees made gray stripes and the sun was hazy behind a whiteness of thin clouds. Yellow feathered leaves hung on branches and trembled, the ground was still wet and everything smelled clean. Leaves littered the trail, hid the rocks and roots. Leaves make every single color of the rainbow, except for blue–which the sky makes up for. It’s crazy how such a removed-feeling sanction can be in such close proximity to such a horror as 64, but the highway becomes a white noise among the trees. Headlights poke through branches and engines hum, but it isn’t intrusive. (We can still get away from civilization, we don’t have to go far)