Syracuse University, School of Architecture
Florence, Italy, Fall 2017
Instructor: Kyle James Miller
Collaborators: John Mikesh and Clarissa Lee
Three Reminders is an investigation of the ability for the characteristics and features of plans of Italian architecture to inform the development of mass and articulation of surface, effectively testing Corbusier’s claim that “the plan is the generator.”
1. Plan: “The plan is the generator. Without a plan, you have a lack of order and willfulness. The plan holds in itself the essence of sensation.”
2. Surface: “A mass is enveloped in its surface, a surface which is divided up according to the directing and generating lines of the mass; and this gives the mass its individuality.”
3. Mass: “Our eyes are constructed to enable us to see forms in light. Primary forms are beautiful forms because they can be clearly appreciated.”
This project creates spaces by varying the legibility of the primitive shapes and the sequential scaling of volumes. Drawing from the facade, the scalar shift is exaggerated in the interior volumes. On the ground floor, the primitive volumes are aggressively aggregated, while on the first and second floor fewer primitive volumes are aggregated, creating more distinct and legible volumes as one transition vertically in the project. Further visual articulation in the spaces is derived from the projection of the composite plan.
massing
