Summer 2007: WilliamsonChong

Carol J. Burns has noted that “conceptions of site can be compared to certain attitudes about designing an addition to an existing work of architecture or construction. One strategy of addition is the extension, which hides the new work by reproducing the forms and materials of the existing structure. As a pure strategy, this is obviously impossible in thinking about architecture as an addition to the (already constructed) site because the physical requirements of architecture are not satisfied by the forms of materials in nature. The other obvious strategy for addition is to design the new without relation to the existing structure as analogous to the model of a cleared site, which brings imported content to a situation conceived as without meaning.” Such interaction between received and renovated provides the critical vehicle by which new identities and histories can be introduced to existing notions of site and, in particular, site-specificity.

Students were tasked with developing and modeling architecture that was cohesive with a speculative site. The models were further restricted by requiring a series of specific rooms. Some of which were: the long room, which needed to be three times longer than it was wide; the niche room, a difficult room to enter; and the pattern room, a residual space between two of the rooms. These restrictions helped highlight the different approaches to incorporating  architecture into a site even when different concepts share similar elements.

The studio was guided by WilliamsonChong, a Toronto based architecture studio known for its contextual specificity,  materials research, fabrication methods, building performance, and client-based collaboration.

Faculty

Rochelle Martin
Virginia North
Philip Plowright
Diaan Van der Westhuizen

Critical Practitioner

Williamsong chong