Classicism and Modernism

The concept of the design is to create a sense of weightlessness through multiple experiences. 

 

At the very beginning of the design process, I did some research on the Architecture in Poland. I found in interesting that people in this modern world often overlook the beauty of Classicism and Classical Architecture seems to be abandoned. Therefore, I tried to find inspiration through studying castle buildings in Warsaw.

 

The first idea is to re-imagine castle buildings in a scale of a playground facility that react with trees in the site. However, it turned out to be too gigantic and too aggressive without showing a really strong concept. Therefore, I made and gave up my first iteration.

Yet, I continued my study in castles and went further to Classicism. I learnt the beauty of it, which are the different rules and patterns, and I wonder if I can emphasize on these. Therefore, the second iteration, I scaled down the things I would like to extract from castles to the decorations. Furthermore, inspired by the great visual effect created in the grand castle building, I would like to include optical illusion in my design. Therefore, I came up with a second design with a structure that capture a scene in the Royal Castle in Warsaw and play with One-point perspective.

However, this is structurally and conceptually not working during my sketching process. Hence, I abandoned this direction.

 

Finally, I decided my final design in my third iteration. Through studying the history and architecture of Poland, I found out some revolutionary design in the Age of Reason. There were three main architects leading this and their designs were breath-taking due to the crazy geometry that seemed to ignore anything. So does the virtual world.

Therefore, I decided to have a design that is strongly linked to geometries in order to translate the idea of being in the outer space when they are inside the structure. Then, I continued my research on geometry and how does it related to human. I was inspired by the classic drawing by Leonardo da Vincci, the Golden ratio.

 

My final design therefore comes with multiple layers of systems that play with the two extreme geometries – circle and square, sphere and cube.

The first system defines the form or massing of the design. It is basically a sphere that is eaten away by a cube so that the main entrance is created. The orientation of the cube is decided by following the golden ratio and a constraint that it must make a 45-degree angle to the three x, y, z plane.

 

The second system is created based on the first one. By following the cut lines on plan created by the cube, the hollow tubes penetrate into the sphere in a X-shape. And by considering also the section, the hollow tube with X-shape in 3D is finally created and it becomes the skeleton of the design that can deal with circulation and tectonic.

 

The third system is created on plan with three spheres arranged according to the golden ratio eat overlapping with and eat away one another. Though this, the main platform is created.