cupola – frame

wrap-around-the-octagon

2017⋅12⋅042017⋅12⋅04 NS ColemanLeave a comment

I find the late Victorian octagon houses fascinating on many levels (this one, this one, this one). A few weeks back, while scouring a site devoted solely to documenting these gems, I stumbled upon one that had been wrapped in a square two-story porch. This project is a derivative of that, with a tower-like octagonal form completely subsumed behind the square porch, only peeking out in a cupola at the roofline, taking a cue here or there from good ol’ Aldo Rossi. A study below takes the tower metaphor further, extending the octagon below the porches, which take on a more expressive tectonic with braced timber supports below.

dogtrot variations

2017⋅10⋅032017⋅10⋅03 NS ColemanLeave a comment

Two rooms with a passage down the middle – the typological dogtrot house. Here, I’ve begun to play with the articulation of the central ‘trot’, articulating it with an English hammerbeam truss above. Below, a slightly more refined study, with two different plan interpretations of the elevation at the top, as well as two different studies for the cupola at the central passage.

square church, once more

2017⋅01⋅05 NS ColemanLeave a comment

Continuing the formal explorations of the German hallenkirche typology of a few weeks ago, today I’ll share some more detailed takes: from a traditional half plan and section to oblique wormseye axonometrics and a section of the Brunelleschi-esque cupola with half a traditional oblique axon on one side and a womseye axon on the other. These interrogations of representation are not just fun to draw, but actually aid in figuring out exactly how the timber roof is made up, and how that roof relates to the overall modular system.