Finding the Euphony...

Project Type: Thesis Project

Title: A Call to Respond: Music Complex

Student: Sameer Aftab - (5th year)

College: National College of Arts, Lahore.

“The idea is to create a world for the audience to enter where architecture magnifies the expressive dimensions of music and sound.”

-ELIZABETH MARTIN

Project Introduction

The role of architecture undergoes considerable change because people themselves interpret, appropriate, design and reuse a space within their own frames of logic. Truly open source architecture does not exist. No definite meaning can be generated as all individuals make their own reading of architectural experiences.

Design Development Process

Elevations and 3d Views 

Final Master plan 

Architectural Drawings

Architecture and the Fold

Project Type: Studio Exercise

Title: Azad Kashmir Legislative Assembly  - (6 weeks Exercise)

Student: Fawad Nadir Osman - (3rd year)

College: National College of Arts, Lahore.

To fully integrate the democratic principles into the architecture of the building it was necessary to develop a process which would have democracy in its core. An attempt was made to identify all the dissimilar elements and systems and by reconstructing a continuous architectural language through which those elements were to be combined while still maintaining their integrity within a continuous field of other free elements. 

Area and on-site Circulation mapping

Volume and nodes mapping

 The eventual form had to be 'viscous' a form that could only be made possible with internal motivations with existing factors, as they develop internal stability in direct proportion to the external pressures exerted upon them.

Form generation w.r.t to initial data input (Rhinoceros 3D-Grasshopper plug-in )  

On a more surface level, the parliament building was to provide transparency to the public as they are equal stakeholders and should not be left out. To provide open spaces to the public so they use their right to protest, gather or celebrate right in front of the assembly.

Structural layer overlapping 

Aerial View

Interior: Assembly Hall

Final Form

Final Form

The concept is driven from the notion that two ideologies might have different views on how the country should be run but at the end of the day they would be running for the same thing. This concept is embedded in the building where all the disparate elements working on the site (utility, circulation) are blended in to form one continuous form creating uniformity and celebrating difference at the same time.

I make Modelz!!

Project Type: Live Project--Model Making
Title: Children's Complex Hospital, Multan

Student: Roushan Mir - (4th year)

College: National College of Arts, Lahore.

Client: CNW, Multan

Building type: Children's Hospital

Approx size: 6' x 4' x 2'

Time: Approximately 8 working months

Technique: All CNC laser cut acrylic pannel layers joined manually.

MATERIAL USED: 

Structure: 

-     95% of the structure including all the walls, roof, stairs etc are made up of 3 layers of 2mm                                                       acrylic sheet joined back to back, with layers of blue sheets (multani tiles) in between. 

-     6mm mdf lasani sheet (6' x 4'-10") used for the base

-     outer protective glass walls with acrylic top (not shown in the pictures)

-     all the domes carved out of white clay manually

Details: 

-     All the shades and parapet details are made out of bleach-board, a lot of other materials have also been used in minute details such as bar b que sticks, cotton tiken, tranceparencies, a4 papers etc.

Paint:

-     Glass crystalline paint on acrylic sheets, spray paints, poster paints and matt enamel paint for base.

Lights:

-     3 energy saver bulbs (18 watts each) placed inside

Bonding Material:

-     Major use of Chloroform and elfy, details in UHU, base pasting with samad bond and German glue.

Architecture and the Human Spirit

Project Type: Competition Project by IAP

Title: Children's Resource Center 

Student: Fawad Nadir Osman - (3th year)

College: National College of Arts, Lahore.

Site Data and Analysis

Concept Development

Interior View

Interior View 2

Interior View 3

Interior View 4

Geometrical Proportioning in Architecture

Project Type: Live Project

Title: Haji Riaz Hussain's Mausoleum, Chinyot.

Student: Syed Mohammed Mehdi - (4th year)

College: National College of Arts, Lahore.

By means of the BALANCE, He has distributed PROPORTIONATELY over the earth, the foods that the earth produces. (Al-Quran 41:10)

 Spiritual mathematics, decorative arts, geometric spaces, precise mathematical proportions, clearly defined lines and volumes relating to extract mathematical laws…This is of course not unique to Islam but exist in all sacred architecture which is always based on a cosmology derived from the roots of the tradition in question and a sacred geometry. But it is especially emphasized in Islam where all definitions of architectural space become much more mathematically precise and clearly defined.

The origin of Islamic art and architecture must be sought in the inner realities (haqaiq) of the Quran which are also the principal realities of the cosmos and the spiritual reality of the Prophetic Substance from which flows the ‘Muhammadan grace’ (al-barakat al-Muhammadiyyah). The Quran provides the doctrine of unity while the prophet provides the manifestation of this Unity in multiplicity and the witness to this unity in His creation. All fields of knowledge (literature, medicine, numerology, astronomy, semiotics, cosmology, mathematics, logic, Rijal, music, poetry, pottery, calligraphy, book illuminations) do impact on all forms of art and architecture of the society… now as an architect its our duty for the betterment of our society that our architecture should have the ability to derive the people to the origin of the spirituality of Islam.

          The Intangible realities that are hidden and proved by Quran, like Spirits, Souls, Angles, God is himself hidden, hidden worlds i.e. alam ul Ghaib, malakut, jbarut, Arsh, alam e haba, alam ul missal, and their proportions, order and existence in the chaotic presence, which has the qualities of the names of God of Jallal(majesty) and jamal(beauty) to achieve kamal(perfection) as basic principle, in any Art Form.

Tauheed (i.e. Unity) = Jallal (i.e.Majesty) + Jamal (i.e.Beauty) = kamal (i.e.Perfect

ð  Unity = Regularity (Geometry) + Mystery (Arabesque) = Beauty/Perfection

Perspective View

As the configuration of the temple of the Kaaba as the secret of spiritual life, its geometry, form and proportions all play a crucial role in the rise of Islamic architecture and need to be treated in any full study of sacred architecture of Islam. If the Kaaba is not the work of art in the proper sense of the term-being no more than a simple cube of masonry, might b ‘proto-art’ whose spiritual dimension corresponds to myth or revelation depending on the point of view. This means that the inherent symbolism of Kaaba, in its shape and rites associated with it, contains in embryo everything expressed by the sacred art of Islam. Concerning the harmonics of the Kaaba so central to the auditory revelation of the Quran on the one hand and later sacred architecture of Islam on the other.

FLUID SPACE

Project Type: Studio Exercise

Title: Pakistan Academy of Letters - (6 weeks Exercise)

Student: Tayyab Faheem - (4th year)

College: National College of Arts, Lahore.

Mapping of various programs with respect to the volumes, circulation type patterns (Public, semi-public and private) and the flux of activities present withing the programs played an important role in the design development till the final form. 

Perspective view 1

Perspective view 2

Perspective view 3

Perspective view 4

Perspective view 5

Search for Code in Architecture

Project Type: Studio Exercise

Title: Museum of Intra-City Transport - (6 weeks Exercise)

Student: Ahsan Jahaangir - (4th year)

College: National College of Arts, Lahore.

Search for CODE IN ARCHITECTURE

Since the ancient times the struggle to find the code of architecture to achieve an abstract structure as the ideal form is evident.

Humans have always been fascinated by the codes, their presence dates back to the prehistoric time. Codes have always been referred as the logical reasons. They surly have existed but it’s the matter of time that has really effected them know as the paradigm shift. From the quadral division of Chahar Bagh in Mughal architecture to le Corbusier s straight lined modernism the

Code has existed in its own spirit.

Concept Visualization

Now working with the most advance technological developments we have the capability to explore thing in such a way that have not been done before. For the present times code no longer exists as the rule or the logical reason but rather as a process.

Processes leading to execution.

Design Development Process 1

Design Development Process 2

With more computational power we can easily say that it’s the spirit of our time that environments also exist virtually for more in depth analysis before their physical existence. All these virtually existing things have been achieved by the simple addition of 3^rd axis on an ordinary Cartesian plane leading it to 3D Cartesian Grid. From simple to complex all elements exist in these three axial planes. It’s nothing but just an understanding of referencing the elements with respect to each other or some origin. It’s all about its adaptive nature of subdivision that makes it more accessible of manipulation and that’s why it’s the primary element in all modeling softwares. Hence there is no such thing as curved line it’s just the combination of lines and further they are the combination of points. I have done all this for the clear understanding of the 3D planes, so that it would be help me later when I will talk about the Pressures & Forces etc. Even when these physical forces work with the planes, they are really not planes but rather sets of identifiable points.

Design Development Process 3

Design Development Process 4

It’s a holistic system where different elements work together in a process, and these sub-processes combines up to make a whole new process, hence a single entity cannot drive a process.

Final Form

Final Form

Final Form

Final Form

These elements can also be called as the parameters; these parameters primarily have two components, Constants & Variables. It’s a simultaneous process were each element is dependent on the other. These elements/parameters constitute the whole project resulting in a complex workable system. In result of these simultaneous processes we’ll have more dynamic & flexible spaces rather than rigid containers. One thing worth mentioning is that these Parameters also develop hierarchy depending upon their influence, Starting from the primary purpose i.e. Museum of intra-city transportation to other elements like Program, identification of spaces, environmental pressures(shown in schematic diagram) etc.

Hence code for me would be,

Simultaneous working of elements/ parameters for the execution.