PUBLIC PARK
Blurry Edge | FALL 2020
The city has become a “context” for deciphering the visual and digital information we are constantly inundated with. We are living in an interesting time when some of the main words uttered by the president of the USA are “fake news” reflecting the difficulty to digest the relationship between information and the physical environment.
In this project, I will be designing the interior spaces for the Lowline as an Interior Public Space. How do we meet, today at the beginning of the XXI Century? Digitally? Physically? Probably in a hybrid condition of digital technology and physical interactions.
CONCEPT
Nowadays, with the increasing layers of edges, including physical, virtual, and medical, are adding pressure to people in a space. Visual Edge will be a tool to blur the layers of edges in an interior space. In this park, people can experience a temporary atmosphere of the ambiguity of edges, which eventually achieve the goal of relaxing people from urban life. By creating curved surfaces and partitions, space will have a visual illusion of softness and quality of imagination.
Precedent Studies: Peter Kogler
To achieve the illusionary effect, Peter Kogler set up his own rule spatially and put it on each surface of the room. Every corner of the room is covered so that people can have a comprehensive experience of being in this twisted space. When we look at the space, the visual language is strong enough that our brain can not separate the two spaces that Peter Kogler tries to combine, which is the key to creating such an illusion.
willkommen im labyrinth marta herford, Peter Kogler
Precedent Studies: SANN
The plan is derived from a grid of various rectilinear shapes reflecting programmatic adjacencies, with room-to-room connections achieved using curving glass surfaces. Glass is wrapping the spaces forming continuous elevations, uninterrupted by corners. The visitor flows with the form through a series of interconnected bubbles.
Glass Pavilion at the Toledo Museum of Art, SANNA
Concept Development
By using curves and directional lines, the physical edge of the space is diminished, and the visual edge takes charge of the space. Both approaches create visual illusions that emphasize the visual edge rather than the physical edge.
Two-Dimensional
Three-Dimensional
Delancy Underground / Lowline
The entrance of the park looks like a bump on the street, being a camouflage of this secret wonderland. The entrance itself can also be a resting area.
Entrance
In this underground public park, various programs are distinguished by not being separated through certain partition but mostly different materials and different levels. There are certain spaces at the corner are more concealed because they need some levels of privacy such as restroom and storage rooms.
Stair | Ramp
Pavillion | Seating
The pavilion and the seating area are placed next to each other without partition. The seating area uses a curved wall as a system of sitting and displaying, while the pavilion uses darker wood platforms that change the levels of the area. They make a seamless boundary between two functionalities.
In this playground, even though two different types of activities happen at the same time, one tends to have more movement and one is quieter, the spaces are placed next to each other and there is no partition between them. The methodology of it is using different materials. The one for sports has concrete flooring and a flat ceiling, while the one for sitting has grass flooring and a curved dropped ceiling. The division between materials creates a very different mood and people would automatically choose the one that they want to engage.
