Week 1 Task

As an example of an important unbuilt architecture project, I have chosen the "Pushpull House" designed by "mw|works", a Seattle based design studio that specialises in architectural and interior design services for residential and commercial clients. The design studio believes in creating unique and "enduring livable architecture" with great attention to detail. In designing their projects, the studio acknowledges global concerns such as limited natural resources, environmental pollution and health. Promotion of this environmentally friendly attitude is explicated in the designs of this studio through the implementation of such components as greenroofs, recycled materials and passive solar design.

A residential project, the "Pushpull House" takes advantage of natural light without comprising the privacy of its inhabitants. A very precise, clean and crisp design formulated by the use of rough materials with the intent of creating "an adventerous yet highly livable home on a limited budget".

I have chosen this project because I believe in the morals behind the studio in relation to design and nature. Taking an environmentally approach towards design is not only admirable but an inevitable attitude all future architects or designers will need to adopt. As aforementioned, the pushpull house is a residential project which I believe would be the most suitable type of building to base our assignment on because it is a common type of building each of the group members would be most familiar with as opposed to an industrial or commercial building. In other words, given the timeframe of 12 weeks to complete this assignment, as a group, focusing on a small residential project may be easier to coordinate and greater attention to the building model can be applied. One of possible problems I foresee with this assignment is choosing a very large building where more focus is placed on creating the form of the building thus possibly compromising the attention to detail. Of course having a large building model with many rooms and forms would look great and appear to be the result of hard work but the impact of having greater textures and detailing could be lost. Therefore, I believe having a smaller building such as the pushpull house will allow for a greater balance and focus on both form and detail so that both complement each other resulting in a stronger model.

At the moment, the plans and elevation drawings are very small to read. Fortunately, the studio has a website on which we can contact them. If we do choose this building for our assignment, we could contact them and ask for more architectural and conceptual drawings. Hope to see you all tomorrow!

Quote: "A building that functions well, delights the mind, and pleases the eye will remain farther from the wrecking ball." mw | works.

Quotes from http://www.mwworks.net/index.html Accessed: March 18, 2008
Images from http://honorawards.aiaseattle.org/node/65/image_gallery?page=2 Accessed: March 17, 2008