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For our first Charette my group chose to use a piece of the ramp up to the Hatcher Graduate Library (the ramp to the right of the building). The ramp has a metal handrail that rests on a cement lip next to a short cement wall. There is a metal gate/fence that rests upon the cement wall. On the opposite side of the cement wall the space opens up to plant bed with greenery ornamenting the frontal side of the building. This section can tell us that there is a certain path to the entrance point of the building and that the designer wanted its patrons to be out of view or focus to bystanders, thus the cement wall, gate and plant bed yearning for attention.
In our section cut the ramp and side of the building that extends is missing, so the cut could be taken out of context easily due to it being only six feet wide. The section cut does however show the viewer that the side of the ramp has many verticals of varying height and the tallest point is sort of in the middle. If this cut were to take place you would be able to see the inside of the materials in the cut (the rail, fence, cement wall, and the plant).
If this were a plan you would not be able to tell height but you would have a few perpendicular lines outlining the cement wall and hand rail. If this were a plan it would make more sense to include the whole ramp so the viewer could get an idea of function and space of the area. This exercise would have been different then in the sense that we would have taped the outlines of everything that is taking up physical space and took a picture from above.
For our Charette, we chose the area outside of the graduate library where a wheelchair-access ramp begins to ascend the front façade of the building. Our section began at the floor of the ramp, rising up and cutting through the first metal handrail that is used for pedestrians using the ramp, then continuing onto the elevated cement wall and cutting through another hand rail that is just for aesthetic purposes. The cut goes down from there and goes all the way until it intersects part of a plant in the small garden below. We chose this section in particular because the slice would result in showing the detail of the metal hand rails (both on top of the concrete wall and at the ramp), but also wanted to experiment with the slicing of the plant below.
ReplyDeleteOverall, this section tells us things about this specific cut in which we would not have noticed before we made the section. Detail was brought to our attention, in the practical handrail, but also in the aesthetic handrail. Taping down the middle of one of the poles forced us to imagine what that would look like cut in half and from the side, showing the intricate curvatures of the rail. It also revealed different elevations of the ramp, which some is practical in design and some simply aesthetic.
If we were taping for a plan, you could not see the details of the handrails; you would merely see from above that they are there. The change in elevation in the ramp would also be unclear from a plan-view, hiding the differences between what is aesthetic and what is practical.
After a few minutes debating where to make our section cut, we finally decided on this particular slice of the ramp leading to the Graduate Library. We chose to bring our knife down through a short cement wall, a metal handrail, a more decorative metal fence of sorts on top of the cement wall, and one of the hastas in the landscaping in front of the cement wall. We initially wanted to cut a section perpendicular to the one we chose, but were swayed to choose this section because it not only passed through more forms, but we thought it would be interesting to include the plant at the base of the cement wall on the outside of the ramp. I like that we included the plant because it comments on how buildings interact with their environment in a whimsical way.
ReplyDeleteThinking about what to tape, I wanted our section to be interesting so I tried to imagine what the objects would look like two-dimensionally. Seeing the tape on the ramp actually made me think about the inside of the cement in a three-dimensional way. Normally I approach the way I look at something in terms of how I would draw it, so the tape forced me to think beyond the planes, angles, and tones. The images show the viewers’ perspectives when looking at the ramp, including the distortions and colors, but what the section shows that just pictures cannot, is what the forms of the ramp, railing, and fence actually are and not how they appear.
A section can show more technical aspects of the structure including the actual height of the objects in the drawing. A plan depicts a birds eye view and a layout of the spaces created by the structure in a way that’s informational and accurate, but not something a viewer would ever be able to see. The plan of the building shows only what the building is and not how it appears from the viewers perspective. A section could resemble the perspective of the viewer in some ways while also giving information about the structure, but the plan isn’t an image that the viewer could experience.