advanced design portfolio_mary alvarez_usf sacd

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MARY ALVAREZ | USF SACD | 2011- 2012

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Page 1: Advanced Design Portfolio_Mary Alvarez_USF SACD

MA

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CONTENTS

Introductory Note 4

Thinking and Making 5 I. The Third Meaning 7 Advanced Design A 14 I. Excavated Encounters 16

Advanced Design B 39 I. Chicago Expo High Rise 41 II. Tampa Bay Skyscraper 51

Advanced Design C 67 I. A Village Within a City 69

Independent Study 111

Additional Projects 129 I. The Care of Making 131 II. Materials and Methods 133

Italy Study Abroad 137

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INTRODUCTORY NOTE

The work presented in this portfolio is the belief that design is a thoughtful process from the very first idea to the final product. I have not only grown my design skills during the last three semesters, but also my ability to think outside the box, and look beyond the facts, to find within every project the opportunities to ultimately grow my inner self. I thank to all who have been part of this self full filling experience.

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“As for the other meaning, the third, the one ‘too many,’ the supplement that my intellection cannot succeed in absorbing, at once persistent and fleeting, smooth and elusive, I propose to call it the obtuse meaning.”

Roland Barthes, The Third Meaning

Translating the modality of the russian film “The Return” into architectural conditions expressed in drawings.

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“THE THIRD MEANING”

thinking and making

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FILM DIAGRAM IIn this scene, the woman is waiting for her husband, sitting in the dark room; he is taking a shower in the room behind her. The light comes from that room, giving it a sense of hierarchy to the absence of what is present at the same time. The room is humble and it has a simple set up, giving a notion of dual energy with the mood of its occupants.

FILM DIAGRAM IIThe child has desperately come a long way for a moment of solitude. He is reflecting on the past that has brought him there, an uncertain future waits ahead, and he does not know whether it is like the sunset in his background. The path and the boy are but one continuous interlocking braid of emotions.

9 | 10 thinking and making

a. scene from the movie “the return.”b. diagram drawing , charcoal, 8x10 inches.c. diagram of modality for scene “a.” digital, 8x10 inches.d. scene from the movie “the return.”e. diagram drawing, charcoal, 8x10 inches.f. diagram of modality of scene “d,” digital, 8x10 inches.

a b

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HOUSE FOR LOST CHILDRENThis drawing is the outcome of a vision for a possible different ending for the Russian film “The Ending.” In the story, two children are the protagonist who fall lost in an inescapable land after his father comes from the past to reunite with them.The reunion and his desperate attempt to save his children back into his life is the same path that rips apart his children’s lives to start from new. In this drawing, I created an experiential notion of protection for the lost children through the content and form created by the modality of my site and my anterior film diagrams from specific images of the story.

a. diagram drawing, charcoal on textured paper, 11x11inches.b. right page. house for lost children , digital, 8x10 inches. 30x15

a

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ADVANCED DESIGN AN

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“When a museum and its contents come together as an integrated esthetic whole, something special happens. The art is enlarged and exalted, and the viewer’s rewards and responses are increased.“

Ada Louise Huxtable

EXCAVATED ENCOUNTERSspat ia l /programmat ic transformation of an existing structure into a museum of art that celebrates cubism.

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FOUND OBJECT ANALYSISTwo elements, in terms of experience, can be so different. When one experiences a piece of wood, our senses perceive it as a strong, unified element that is only capable of change by itself. On the contrary, Picasso’s works of art are a deconstruction of an object; when one experiences Picasso’s paintings, one’s senses exist to engage with every part of their deconstruction. When both of these objects are combined, they change each other’s conditions for a new experience. The attributes of the wood give Picasso’s painting strength and unity, and Picasso’s paintings give the wood the possibility for reconstruction. Each element gives the other one what it lacks of; there is no longer a separation, but a transition.

a. found object, wood piece.b. right page. found object idea analysis , digital, 8x10 inches.

a

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DE-CONSTRUCTING THE SITENatural rock formations “Hierve el Agua” located in Oazaca, Mexico became the site for the Museum of Picassos’ Cubism; images of the site are shown above. The same idea used in the found object analysis was used to deconstruct the site into a more unified element within itself. The main objective was to de-stabilize the site by changing its strong essence of solidness into one ideal abstracted from Cubist paintings. The drawing in the right page is a de-construction of the site from the notion of a cubist painting experienced visually in space. A watercolor technique was used to capture the modality of the site and its juxtaposition to the layered context surrounding it.

a. images of site.b. right page. deconstruction of site, watercolor on coldpressed, 14x24 inches.

a

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RE-CONSTRUCTING THE SITEThe parti drawing, shown in the right, is the beginning of the re-construction of the site. The spaces of the museum that begin to be carved within the site are the result of its de-construction process. The subjective character of the site reflects in its very surface; an unified relationship between its form and its architecture becomes the language and the idea behind the entire design process for the Museum of Picasso’s Cubism. To maintain Picasso’s paintings character within his museum, an image of one of his most famous works, “The Standing Woman,” was overlayed in an image of the site; this process led to speculation on the different spaces happening below ground. At this point, the spaces above and below are to become one with the context surrounding them.

a. process model. cardboard and chipboard.b. process drawing. ink on vellum digitally manipulated. 14x24 inches.c. right page. re-construction of site, watercolor on coldpressed, 14x24 inches.

ba

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PROCESSThe ideas behind the parti drawing are translated into an architecture language developed in process study models. The objective of the study models was to integrate even more each of the museum’s gallery to the voids created on the site’s re-construction process. The walls and the floor of each gallery were articulated using a composition of Picasso’s paintings. The tectonic forms and more articulated surfaces within the small scale gallery are projected within the artist; the notion of each space is projected within the art to be celebrated.

a. process model, cardboard and white museum board.b. right page. process model, cardboard and white museum board.

a

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PROGRAMProgrammatically, the galleries carved into the site are unified by the main circulation atrium. The body moving through space begins its journey at the upper level of the rock formation. The first moment of the entrance has a strong relationship with the outside, while you start experiencing the notion of the galleries below, you have an open view to the surrounding in front. As you start stepping down the circulation atrium, you have a reveal of each gallery but not its experience as a whole; mystery is an important notion that must be felt within this atrium as every piece of art carries a sense of mystery within itself. It is the purpose of its audience to explore the spaces just as it is to explore the paintings. The encountered galleries as you journey down have a particular relationship with the site. The levels below ground has two ways of experiencing the site; one is from an enclosed and completely separated volume inside the museum, and the other is by walking out side, the body in space is moving through the true nature of the site, with no man made materials altering it. Some of the walls of the galleries are the natural rock formations. There is communication between the natural walls of the site and the paintings that are displayed in the galleries, as they have a similar language.

a. right page. Schematic Section Drawing, charcoal diagrams digitally manipulated, 15x30 inches.

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a

a. sketchbook diagram, ink on watercolor paper. 10x5 inches.b. right page. final model, plywood, walnut wood and white museum board.

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“If dialectical movement are put in play (form and architecture), they are only affi rmative, one never negates the other, indeed each sustains, even intensifi es the other.”

Chris Green, Picasso: Architecture and Vertigo

left page. cross section. digital. 3/16 inch = 1 foot.right page. longitudinal section, digital, 3/16 inch = 1 foot.

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a. front view, final model, plywood, walnut wood, and white museum board.b. ground level floor plan, pencil and watercolor, 1/8 inches = 1 foot.c. 1 level below floor plan, pencil and watercolor, 1/8 inches = 1 foot.d. 2 level below floor plan, pencil and watercolor, 1/8 inches = 1 foot.e. 3 level below floor plan, pencil and watercolor, 1/8 inches = 1 foot.f. 4 level below floor plan, pencil and watercolor, 1/8 inches = 1 foot.

a

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ELEMENTS AS ONEThe outside of the museum is to be experienced as one unified element that makes a gesture to the site. A thick concrete wall anchors the first level going down to the last level underground and folding to direct the body in movement to the outside again; this wall is meant to communicate with all the spaces as a whole, while the outside folding layered is only parallel to each gallery space engaging it. The outside layered is articulated to allow slips of light to spaces inside the museum that are not entirely enclosed.

a. final model, plywood, walnut wood and museum board.b. left page. image of the top. final model, plywood, walnut wood and white museum board.

a

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CONCLUSIONPicasso’s Cubism Museum and its site are a vanishing point, where nothing can be distinguished or separated when experienced; the architecture and the site are two registers enabled to their own description and resistant to it. It is this dialogue that creates the conditions for such experiences, the same conditions and the same experience that are perceived when looking at Cubist art. A sense of vertigo and loss of the self in Picasso’s work creates the possibilities of these experiences. Vertigo is a metaphor for the way relationships within images can de-stabilize apparently stable, strongly unified ideas.

a. sketchbook diagram, ink on watercolor paper. 10x5 inches.b. left page. final model, plywood, walnut wood and white museum board.

a

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“A language is not just a body of vocabulary or a set of grammatical rules...every language is an old growth forest of the mind. “

Wade Davis

CHICAGO EXPO HIGH RISERe-create the idea of a typical world expo into a vertical high rise articulating spaces only for an exhibition celebrating “cultures at the edge of the world.”

a. right page. schematic mapping drawing, digital, 24x10 inches

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MAPPING THE EXHIBITIONThe main inspiration for my world exposition was the current crisis of the ethnosphere of the world. Cultures are vanishing everyday; humanity’s greatest legacy, languages, are being lost every time a culture disappears. The mistakes done by our Western society for the sake of power are threatening not only the biosphere, but also the cultural web that maintains alive the flash of the human spirit and the ecosystem of spiritual possibilities in worlds that are completely unknown to us. We forget that there are different ways of being, and because of our selfish desire for commodity, these ways of being are at the edge of disappearance. My main intent is to bring this notion of “thriving to exist” different realities into a vertical exhibition in the city of Chicago to create a more conscious society that is currently abundant of ignorance. The mapping exercise was an attempt to capture these realities through different images; some of the images used in the digital composition were contexts in which endangered indigenous cultures currently struggle to live. The composition within the inside of the high rise allows for large scale exhibition spaces that are located at the edge of the building, giving them a sense of loss but also a notion of freedom to extend to the world outside of them.

a. right page. schematic mapping drawing, digital, 24x10 inches

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a. final model, plan view, plexi glass, museum board and sticky back.b. left page. final model, detail image, plexi glass, museum board and sticky back.

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a

“The true purpose of the space journeys, or at least their most profound and lasting consequence, lay not in wealth secured but in a vision realized.”

Wade Davis, “Light at the Edge of the Wordl”

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a. left page. section drawing, digital, 35x17 inches.

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“CULTURES AT THE EDGE OF THE WORLD”As mentioned before, the main exhibition spaces are located at the edge of the building. The body moving through space begins its journey at the lower level that is articulated with the ground and the water edge; it is essential that water is part of the inside of the building, as water is also a basic need that indigenous cultures struggle to get clean every day. The water edge is also experienced from levels above as you can interact visually with it. The large scale exhibition spaces are big enough to create mini ecosystems within it, so that the body in space also has a connection with nature, something that vanishing cultures care to nurture in their daily lives. The main galleries are connected through the same void, and the different levels surrounding the void are shaped by the void itself, giving the journey thorugh the realm of vanishing cultures a notion of conectness with the outside world from the edge point of view. The spaces that are not at the edge of the building exhibit a web of ideas, beliefs, and ritual practices; as you journey inside these spaces, the body in movement finds a feeling of protection. This notion of protection is ultimately the message of the building to its audience, that there is an urgent need to protect the vanishing cultures that are revealed in the exhibition so that they can find light at the edge of the world.

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a. final model, detail image, plexi glass, museum board and sticky back.b. right page. final model, plexi glass, museum board and sticky back.

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a

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“Today’s celebrated works frequently deal with philosophical issues of representation more than with mental content; they are discourses within the discipline itself without refl ecting true life.“

Juhani Pallasmaa, “The Thinking Hand”

TAMPA BAY SKYSCRAPERcreate a program that w i l l enhance the ex is t ing components o f a s i te in Tampa.

a. right page. photo montage, digital, 17x11 inches

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THE SITEThe site is located in Downtown Tampa. I chose the site because it is the most high rise dense area in the city. The site is highly charged with culture; the modern art museum, the children’s museum, a library, a performing arts center, an university, and a park are some of the existing programmatic components of the site. With this programmatic context in mind, I proposed to create a multi cultural institute and hotel to enhance the cultural aspect of downtown Tampa. I selected the site to reinforce the cultural landscape into contemporary Tampa; a reinforced mechanism acts as the a bridge to connect these two things.

a. left page. analytical context model with parti, white museum boardc. ground process model, museum board, 1/16 inch = 1 foot.

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b

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a. analytical context model with parti, white museum boardb. process model, museum board, 1/16 inch = 1 foot.

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a. left page. cross section, digital, 1/16 inch = 1 foot.b. next spread. longitudinal section, digital, 1/16 inch = 1 foot.

PROGRAMThe main purpose of the building is to welcome Tampa’s cultural landscape and welcome those who want to learn about its richness. The building is unified by one continuous, monolithic, perforated boundary that acts as a ribbon wall through out the vertical structure. The boundary starts from one side of the building, becomes a ceiling, which separates the multi cultural institute and embassies from the hotel, and finally folds to become a wall for the private hotel. The perforated boundary separates the two programs while at the same time keeps them in union. The embassy and the cultural institute are to be experienced in one void. The perforated boundary reveals the various programs within the building; offices, exhibition spaces, conference rooms, and a theater are part of the program.

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a. final model, plexi glass and white museum. 1/32 inch = 1 foot.b. left page. final model detail, plexi glass and white museum. 1/32 inch = 1 foot.

a

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“Architecture provides our most important existential icons by which we can understand about our culture and ourselves.”

Juhani Pallasmaa, “The Thinking Hand”

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GROUP PROJECT:LAUREN S A J E K

STELLA KELMANNR E B E C C A F R Y E

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“The unique relationship between the open area, the surrounding buildings, and the sky above creates a genuine emotional experience comparable to the impact of any other work of art.”

Paul Zucker, Town Square 1959

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A VILLAGE WITHIN A CITYTo create a new type of urban landscape for the c i ty of Qui to, Ecuador wi th in the al ready ex ist ing.

a. right page. detail image of urban center. physical model.

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“SPACE IN BETWEEN” CASE STUDIESThe process initiated through a series of precedent studies on existing public plazas throughout the world. Referenced above are Plaza San Marco in Italy and Gammeltorv in Denmark. Elements of the plaza referenced in our studies are scale, public open space, pedestrian precession, vehicular precession, intensity of use, layering and hierarchy. Plexi glass space between models were constructed to interpret the elements studied and discovered within the plaza to bring a new language of thinking and building to the investigation.

a. plazza san marco, venice, italy.b. gammeltrov, copenhagen, denmarkc. right page. space in between of gammeltrov, plexi glass.d. right page. space in between of san marco, plexi glass.

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a

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a. spread. “essence of quito” collage. digital. 15x30 inches.

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THE ESSENCE OF QUITOQuito is a city where the past is layered with the present. From the old city to the contemporary surrounding, it is easy to see the development of a rich cultural valley. The essence of Quito can be seen in the expression of each one of its citizens; nostalgia and hope for a future is sensed in the child who is working on the streets to sustain his family.

The people juxtapose their own creations and the sad expressions of their face contradict the beautiful, and colorful city markets. A desperate need in growing is taking them to a path of struggle to maintain alive a culture that has been around for hundreds of years.

Our intent is to create a village within the city that regenerates and protects the essence of Quito’s cultural aspects. By providing more opportunities for their citizens to sustain themselves as a community, they will be able to focus more on the growth of what really makes Quito; for it is the people, the children of the future that will be in charge of maintaining the original vision of a future that has not lost its past.

a. right page. conceptual diagraml. watercolor and color pencil, 50x15 inches.

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a

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FOUND OBJECT MODELThe found object model initiates the design process after being introduced to the site in Quito. Found within are objects from an antique accordion as well as an electric keyboard. One of the key concepts of our design which carries throughout the process is the juxtaposition between the old and new, capturing the essence of the culture while designing a modern day intervention for the site. This model study first introduces the idea of ‘stitching’, a series of elevated walkways that connect the pedestrian within the site that also allows numerous access points from the surrounding context. Through the process of investigation and discovery of our found objects, a vertical datum emerges in the site, helping to formally structure and organize the plan. Succeeding the found object model we developed a sketch design diagram for the total site representing our attitude, design ideas, and future intentions.

a. detail image, found object model, 120 inches scale.b. found object model, 120 inches scale.c. schematic proposal, color pencil, 50x15 inches.

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a

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b c

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“SPACE IN BETWEEN” The space in between model on the right page is a study of the outcome of the nolli plan. An idea of the preliminary main path of the village is highlithed as well as the density of the center of the village. The black plexi is the water and boardwalk spaces.

a. nolli plan, digital 30x32 inches.b. right page. detail image, space in between model, plexi glass.c. right page. space in between model, plexi glass.

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a

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BLOCK STUDY MODELSOur next step in the process allowed us take a portion of our existing plan and continue to further detail our design at a 3/32” scale. Present in the physical model is the most dense portion of the site; the urban center, which houses a public market, open space plaza, public theatre, learning center, amphitheater and park space.

a. main plaza model.b. museum block model.c. secondary plaza block model.

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a

b

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“STITCHING” HISTORYArchitecture and urban planning are very powerful tools for the future of cultures; for it could take them to the path of degrading the people or enhancing their lives. Our project strives to construct a modern day village that maintains the values of the citizens of Quito. We created a system that structures the village around a series of interconnected pathways that lead to nodes within the site, but, also connects the site to the existing context. We communicate this idea through the concept of ‘stitching’; a network that integrates the citizens and the various functions offered within the site. Agriculture, city markets, art studios, museums, education centers, public theaters, house of hope, nature trails, public parks, and open space plazas are some of the proposed programmatic components that will allow for a cultural growth of Quito’s communities.

a. detail of board walk.b. right page. detail of main path through the urban center.

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a

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a. physical model of urban center, 1/60 inches scale.b. process physical model, 1/120 inches scale.

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a

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b

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ELEVATION STUDYThis study begins to help understand and interpret the materials used in Quito to create a vocabulary for the rest of the project. Three different zones were considered while designing the elevation; ground zone, middle zone, and sky zone. The elevation montages below capture the character that exists within the streets of Ecuador through materials, shading devices, climate, and scale. When looking at the facades of existing Quito, one realizes that the horizontal layers begin to blend with the terracing qualities of not only the architecture but the mountainous landscape. Some of the elements took into consideration while designing the facades are terraces, balconies, layered materials, windows, columns, doors, stairs, and public hallways.

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a. main plaza.b. secondary plaza.c. museum.d. public performing arts theater

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a. north end subway cross section, digital, 1/16 inch scale.b. market plaza cross section, digital, 1/16 inch scale.c. typical cross section, digital, 1/16 inch scale.

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“While high art and high theory have nevr been so skeptical of beauty, daily exprience has neveer been so certain.”

Nick Mount

a

a. cross section, public market pavillion, digital, 1/16 inch scale.b. detail image of typical ground and elevated pathways.c. detail image of secondary plaza.d. detail image of main plaza.

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b

c

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1/16” DETAILED BLOCK MODELIt is essential for a healthy community to have a common space where citizens can gather to celebrate their culture, to protest and challenge the status of their government, to dance, to perform, to sing, to create, to reconnect the art and beauty of every day life. A block was designed ith this in mind; a public amphiteather is offered to the public to have these kind of possibilities become part of the community.

a. process pla,. pencil and color pencil on sketching paper.b. detailed block model, public theater, 1/16 inch scale.

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b

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PROGRAM OF BLOCKThe public amphitheater offers a folk art museum that is connected with alley crafts markets that are typical in Quito. The elevated walkway along the market serves as a roof and protection for the space below, allowing the perforated boundary to bring light into the alley. Below the main stairs is a movie theater. The main stairs end into a platform and slowly slopes down into a softened articulated water edge to allow people to interact with the water.

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a. process pla,. pencil and color pencil on sketching paper.b. detailed block model, public theater, 1/16 inch scale.

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a. detail image of main public stairs.b. detail image of elevated pathways.c. physical model. 1/16 inch scale.

a

b

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advance design C

a. detail image of urban center, physical model, 1/64 inch scale.b. open space plan, digital, 1/120 inch scale.c. over all plan, digital, 1/120 inch scale.

a

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b c

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a. detail image of rural and residential area, physical model, 1/64 inch scale.b. circulation plan, digital, 1/120 inch scale.c. land use plan, digital, 1/120 inch scale.

advance design C

a

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b c

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“THE ECHO”The echo of our project expresses our idea of preserving Quito’s rich culture and allowing it to create a new culture within it for the new generations to grow as one whole community that works towards the benefit of their own; one that can learn about something held in common and start to enroot a notion of responsibility for its own surroundings.

a.”the echo” construct, wood, plexi glass and sticky back.

advance design C

a

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FINAL INTENTAs the project moves toward a resolved overall design on the site, we still strive to investigate and challenge our initial twelve visions for Quito. Our plan continues to be structured around ‘stitching’, a series of interconnected pathways that lead to nodes within the site. This system also connects to the roads, transit hubs, and the existing context. The main objective of ‘stitching’ is to integrate the citizens and the various functions; agriculture, city markets, art studios, museums, education centers, public theaters, house of hope, nature trails, public parks, and open space plazas.

a

advance design C

a. detail image of main open plaza, physical model, 1/64 inch scale.b. overall physical mode, 1/60 inch scale.

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b

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RO

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RT M

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12

INDEPENDENT STUDY

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INITIAL INTENTThe human’s mind has been one of the most speculated subjects in the study of philosophy. A human being is both, a body and a mind. A human being has both, physical and mental experiences. It is essential to comprehend the relationship between these two to analyze their (individual) connection to architectural space.

Is it possible that mental and physical experiences could be separated, even when the body and the mind seem to work in complete union, at the presence of an architectural space?

Architecture really has to be experienced. Each moment has to be lived. Every perception felt within a space, feels like a union with the space; a kind of union where every thing existing in the stillness of the present is perfect for each other, the one that brights the soul and the consciousness, that one that makes you feel as if the puzzle is done.

The light, the materials, the void, the space, the mind, the body, the soul, the consciousness, all together feel like they are one. Because everything in this universe is disconnected, and deep inside we belong for that kind of union.

This is how architecture changes consciousness.

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a. Diagram of body and mind in unity experiencing a kind of wholeness, and impossing the possibility of perceptual separation, watercolor and digital.

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“THE ELEPHANT IN THE DARK”This is the Sufi tale, narrated by Rumi, the poet:

When one perceives a space only through our sense, our experience of that space can be said to be incomplete. Only sensual perception is not enough to fully engage one’s mind with the space. But when the space is perceived through the mind, we have a clear understanding about its uniqueness as a whole. Engaging consciousness is like gazing with ‘the eye of the sea’. The ‘foam’ is just representations collected from the senses; ‘You behold the foam, but not the sea’. Humanity is swimming in the ‘eye of the sea’ yet they are interacting more with the ‘foam’. We will eventually be flung off the sea along with its foam. That is when we stop thinking for ourselves.

“The Elephant in the dark, on the reconciliation of contrarieties

Some Hindus had brought an elephant for exhibition and placed it in a dark house. Crowds of people were going into that dark place to see the unknown beast. Finding that ocular inspection was impossible, each visitor felt it with his palm in the darkness.

The palm of one fell on the trunk. ”This creature is like water spout,” he said.The hand on another lighted on the elephant’s ear.To him the beast was evidently like a fan.Another rubbed against its leg.“I found the elephant’s shape is like a pillar”, he saidAnother laid his hand on its back.‘certainly this elephant was like a throne’, he said. The Sensual eye is just like the palm of the hand. The palm has not the means of covering the whole of the best. The eye of the sea is one thing and the foam another. Let the foam go, and gaze with the eye of the Sea. Day and night foam flecks are flung from the sea: amazing! You behold the foam but not the sea. We are like boats dashing together; our eyes are darkened, yet we are in clear water”Rumi, 1995 (Changing Mind)

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a. “the notion of the cube is what remains true” diagram, watercolor and digital.

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a

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ON DESCARTES’ MEDITATIONS II & IVSensual perception seems to offers us a bridge to certain knowledge about everything that we can possibly think of. We seem to know about everything yet the only thing that we will never truly understand is the notion of the “I”; What am I? Our imagination cannot even begin to grasp what this notion is like. This alone makes us wonder whether everything that we know, trusting the reliability of the senses is truly certain. There is a unique attribute in our minds that can be separated from our bodies, and this is what is so distinct about human beings. Sense perception is an attribute of the mind. Sensual perception is a thinking activity that

a. speculating on conscious experience, watercolor and digital, 10x10 inches.

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requires the attributes of the body to function. Sense perception is said to be deceiving by Rene Descartes.

Imagination is another attribute of the mind, for it seems that everything that is known to us can be grasped through this process of thinking. Everything that comes to our imagination is the product of objective sensory experiences. Being that sense perception can be deceiving, what does remain as truly certain? I believe that the attribute of the mind that Descartes is looking for is that of consciousness, since it does not need of body attributes to perform.

I am when I am aware of my own existence. The mind does not need the body to exist, yet the body needs the mind to function. When we are able to understand something without the help of our imagination we cam truly be certain of that knowledge.

When we experience pure understanding in our mind, we experience what it is like to engage with consciousness.

Our reality is a continuous dream that encounters paused moments of conscious experiences. To experience consciousness is to experience an awakening in our reality, a transcendent gaining of knowledge with certainty.

“Sense perception? This surely does not occur without a body, and besides, when asleep I have appeared to perceive through the senses many things which I afterwards realized I did not perceive through the senses at all.” Descartes, 1641 (Meditation II).

“I am, I Exist.” Descartes, 1641 (Meditation II).

“But when I distinctly see where things come from and where and when they come to me, and when I can connect my perceptions of them with the whole rest of my life without a break, then I’m quite certain that when I encounter this things I am not asleep but awake.” Descartes, 1641 (Meditation II).

“I notice quite clearly that imagination requires a peculiar effort of mind which is not required for understanding; this additional effort of mind clearly shows the difference between imagination and understanding.” Descartes, 1641 (Meditation VI).

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ON THE RELIABILITY OF THE SENSESIn his quest to find “certainty,” Rene Descartes set out one main rule for his study; that anything that aroused some kind of doubt would be regarded as false, and that whatever aroused doubt would be picked out and carefully analyzed until he recognized whether it truly had certainty or no certainty at all. To determine certainty in all, Descartes decided to doubt everything and all, and within this set of mind find out what is indubitable. “I will believe that my memory tells me lies, and that none of the things it reports ever happened. I have no senses. Body, shape, extension, movement and place are chimeras” (Meditation II); with this statement, Descartes starts out by doubting the reliability of the senses to find certainty in an external object because no true knowledge could come from bodily experiences. In order to find the true foundation of external objects, we had to know them through our mind; since, it is the only path that could take us to certainty, just as we are certain through our mind that we exist when we think, as the cogito conceptualizes it. In the Meditations, Descartes uses three different arguments against the reliability of the senses: the problem of sense deception, the dream hypothesis, and the wax example. These methods are Descartes’ proof that the only thing that makes us certain is thought and that the sense cannot be trusted to find true knowledge. Although I believe that Descartes’ arguments make sense in a way, it is hard to think of a way where the senses would not be needed, since, through sense perception we gain experience, and without experience what would we know? Thus, making the senses part of a process in the discovery of knowledge. In each case, I will discuss how the senses act in the process of finding certainty as my response to Descartes’ theory of dualism.

The objects of our imagination are the result of all the external data of sensory perception that we’ve collected through our life; we can imagine just about everything that we’ve experienced, yet the only thing we can not even grasp in our imagination is the notion of “I,” the self. We can only experience that notion through thinking, through a process called introspection, where we have to completely close our senses, and be the “I”. But the human mind’s nature is that of child’s mind: explorative, adventurous, creative, free, and a little bit in denial and afraid to find a reality that will restrain it; the less we know, the more we are free. In order “to conquer ourselves rather than the world,’ as Descartes said, we have to truly understand his “I think, therefore, I am” idea; most of humans take a stand point of: I am, therefore, I think. In our quest to find trueness, Descartes states that there is a problem of sense

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deception; we cannot trust the senses to find true certainty because they deceive us. External objects can seem to be in different definitions and stages if understood only by the senses. At the moment when the senses are deceiving us, they are also trying to deceive the mind, and sometimes the mind could be deceived, like two warriors trying to win a war; it is either the mind taking over sense perception or sense perception trying to take over he mind. There are many experiments that we could do to prove that our senses are deceiving. Let’s take for example these two challenges that I saw in a documentary the other night. The first one was trying to guess what someone was saying while the camera focused on her lips for us to see their movement. Here, two senses are being activated: sight and hearing. While my two senses were trying to make a decision in my mind, I decided to go with a specific word, which was wrong. It turned out that our mind was tricked; the producers of the documentary recorded the voice of the woman saying one word and video taped the movement of the lips saying another word, thus, confusing our senses and proving that they can deceive us. The second experiment was to see a word, but there was something particular in the word that proved that the senses could deceive our mind. Half of the word was covered horizontally, so in reality we could only see what it seem to be half of letters. When we look at the half of the letters, instantly our mind tries to make up the other half to find the word. When people guessed the word, and were shown the complete word, they found themselves to be wrong. Our mind is instantly trying to make the other half of incomplete things based on everything that we know and it’s activated through the senses. This case is another proof of how deceiving senses can be, and how deceived our mind is. But if we did not have senses, then there wouldn’t be such concept as deception, as we experience it everyday. Deception, of course, has an opposite in order to exist, and that opposite is trueness, honesty. One cannot exist without the other. Darkness cannot exist without light, and light cannot exist without darkness, they need each other to survive. If there were not deception, then real trueness would be an alien concept for us. If the senses did not deceive us, then the mind would not be as important as it is.

Descartes’ second argument against sense reliability is the dream hypothesis. As he found himself aware of more circumstances that proved the senses as deceiving, as for example “sometimes towers which had looked round from a distance appeared square from close up; and enormous statues standing on their pediments did not seem large when observed form the ground,” he

independent study

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found that “the judgments of the external sense were mistaken. And this applied to not just external senses but to the internal senses as well” (Meditation VI). The dream hypothesis was another reason for Descartes to doubt the senses. He questioned the difference between being in a dreaming state of mind or in the present reality; “when asleep I have appeared to perceive through the senses many things which I afterwards realized I did not perceive through sense at all” (Meditation II). Whenever we are in a state of dream, we appear that we have sensual experiences, but this is only in the dream and not in reality; or maybe we have different realities that do not synchronize with each other. The sensual experiences that we have in the dreams are not reliable because in a way they are deceiving another reality. But how do we know if we are in a dream or not? Or, if there are different un paralleled realities? Descartes proposes that if we can doubt whether we are awake or in a dream, and the sensual experiences in the dream are unreliable, then our senses are unreliable when we are awake. Our senses are never reliable. However, at the end of the Sixth Meditation, Descartes recognizes the problem with this hypothesis. The error is that “there is a vast difference between –being asleep and being awake-, in that dreams are never linked by memory with all the other actions of life as waking experiences” (Meditation VI). Both realities are not continuous, and even if we were to distinguish dreaming as a type of reality, the memory in the dream itself is not continuous either, for we tend to jump through time multiple times when we are dreaming without even realizing it. One thing that I have more clear is that internal sensory experiences that we have in dreams, might be the same as internal experiences that we have in reality; for when sometimes when I dream that I am suffering or terribly sad about something and crying, I wake up crying myself and feeling the same pain as in the dreams. Could it be that maybe these types of sensory experiences are also a bridge between dream and reality?

The last argument against the reliability of the senses is the wax example. This was an experiment specifically to test the senses touch and sight. Here Descartes wants to investigate a piece of wax that just got out of its comb. He examines every sensual experienced that he encountered with the piece of wax. “It has not yet quit lost the taste of the honey, it retains some of the scent retained in the flowers from which it was gathered; its colour, shape and size are plain to see; it is hard, cold and can be handled with difficulty; if you rap it with your knuckle it makes a sound” (Meditation II). He then

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puts the piece of wax by the fire, and all the physical attributes of the wax change and the way we perceive them too: “The residual taste is eliminated, the smell goes away, the colour changes, the shape is lost, the size increases; it becomes liquid and hot; you can hardly touch it and if you strike it, it no longer makes a sound” (Meditation II). The sensual experiences given byhe wax are perceived now completely different, but just because they look different, does not mean that they are not the same substance. For Descartes, this was another proof of the unreliability of the senses to find certainty. Out of this experiment, came the question of where and how could we find the true knowledge about the Wax with certainty. As we see these results, we start inter lacking all the different and opposite reactions in the senses. When we start investigating the piece of wax from our intellect, we start to understand that there is something unique about this wax that makes the wax, no matter how many times it changes of appearance. It is as if I am trying to look for the intellect of this piece of wax with my intellect and connect them both. A wax is “merely something extended, flexible, and changeable” (Meditation II). With this argument, Descartes seems to finalize the argument for how our senses deceive us from finding certainty, but I believe that even though the senses were not directly involved in finding the true knowledge about the piece of wax, they were part of the process, because we needto understand that a piece of wax can go through all of those stages to conclude that there must be something that makes it so unique and distinct. The only way we could understand all those attributes was through our senses.

Even though I can find some logic in Descartes’ arguments against the reliability of the senses, I still believe that in order to even have a concept such as certainty, we need the senses to prove that knowledge is something so unique that is the opposite of what they do: deceive. We cannot find the intellect of something without first experiencing all its attributes.

BIBLIOGRAPHYChalmers, David. “Philosophy of Mind: Classical and Contemporary Readings.” Descartes, Rene. “Meditations on First Philosophy (II and VI).” New York: Oxford 2002.

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ON THE REAL ACCOUNT OF CONSCIOUSNESSSeveral philosophical theories account on the idea of intelligence to discuss how consciousness could potentially made possible. It seems like the ultimate mission of man is to create a prototype of artificial human with even characteristics as to define it a conscious being. Even though I believe that every external system of the world has a consciousness of its own, human consciousness is unique in itself. Computationalism, connectionism, dynamical system, and cognition are theories that discuss what makes a system conscious. Even though each theory claims to account for consciousness, they fail to address the real characteristic of human consciousness in their artificial systems.

In Computationalism, consciousness is equivalent to intelligence; exhibiting intelligence is enough proof for having and being a mind. This theory has the view that the human mind’s main function is that of an information processing system. Everything that we are able to process intellectually is part of an information cloud in our brain and to be able to imitate this type of system would make able the possibility of creating a machine that has an artificial mind. Computationalism perceives intelligence as “just a matter of physical symbol manipulation; it has no essential connection with any specific kind of biological or physical wetware or hardware. Rather, any system whatever that is capable of manipulating physical symbols in the right way is capable of intelligence in the same literal sense as human intelligence of human beings” (Searle 670). In order to understand how this theory fails to account for the character of consciousness, we must first investigate the process in which computation processes information. This process simulates human thinking, which is a type of symbol manipulation; everything that is stored in our minds is a symbol structure, and with each symbol there comes some kind of reaction or interpretation. Computation imitates this process by “taking input and following a serial algorithm to produce a specific output” (Dunst). The artificial mind internally symbolizes whatever we want it to symbolize of our external world; thus, requiring continuous updates in order to continually make sense as a mind. Human have the capability of communicating and taking input in our minds through language, which is made out of two parts: Syntax and Semantics. “Syntax is the structure, and rules for proper formation of meaningful statements, and semantics is the content or meaning that statements express” (Dunst). The difference between a conscious human mind and a machine is that human have the ability to not only digest syntax

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a. hand drawn sketches, pencil, 4x8 inches.

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statements, and be wrong about them, but also is able to understand semantic ones, which a computer will always lack. “If my thoughts are to be about anything, then the strings must have a meaning which makes the thoughts about those things. In a word, the mind has more than a syntax, it has semantics. The reason that no computer program can ever be a mind is simply that a computer program is only syntactical. Minds are semantical, n the sense that they have more than a formal structure, they have content” (Searle 671). A machine will never be able to connect thoughts with feelings; they can know about feelings, and they can react to them in the correct manner if we wish them to, but they will never be able to think or feel for and by themselves, as we humans are capable of doing.

After computationism, connectionism began taking place “to replace the computer metaphor with the brain metaphor” (Rumelhart 206). Connectionism started out with speculations about how a computer system could imitate the architecture of the brain’s functionality instead of the actual thinking process. Their “strategy has thus become one of offering a general and abstract model of the computational architecture of brains, to develop algorithms and procedures well suited to this architecture, to simulate these procedures and architecture on a computer, and to explore them as hypotheses about the nature of the human information processing system” (Rumelhart 206). Every program is broken down to the abstraction of a neuron to determine its best functionality process; every operation is “neurally-inspired.” The main goal of connectionist is to build a system the way it needs to be organized by implementing input, hidden and output layers in order to get an intelligent behavioral result to even make decisions by itself by learning from its own environment; every layer is connected by a node, and can be affected by its previous layer in the thinking process for the model. It is similar to the human mind in that their “algorithms must involve considerable parallelism” (Rumelhart 207), which is present in the way humans process information. In connectionism, “every mental process operates by their relations to other mental process” (Dunst). It is a semantic fact to humans that nature can be about the perfect functional model of study for the creation of anything. This study in particular is called biomimicry, where the structure and function of biological systems serve as a model for the design of new technology. Although the result can be successful, it does not mean that the newly designed thing can act as the original model. Even though connectionism is using the architecture of the brain as the model to re-create a mind, it does

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not mean that their models are minds, they just act as minds in the way the process thinking, but they are not actually experiencing what it is like to be a mind. Their models might be biological plausible, but they are not biological in themselves. Connectionism also fails to address semantics in the process of thinking, which is a big part of what makes consciousness, to be able to understand and relate to the meaning of any statement.

Computationalism and connectionism are similar in the way that both seek to replicate human intelligence in a machine through out representation. In Roodney Brooks’ essay we start looking at another point of view when it comes to this matter; he has the belief that the previous theories only focus on isolated aspects of intelligence and that these theories do not touch intelligence as a whole. He states that “human level intelligence is too complex and too little understood to be correctly decomposed into the right sub pieces at the moment, and that even if we knew the sub pieces we still wouldn’t know the right interferences between them (Brooks 395). With this in mind, he proposes a different approach to create artificial intelligence. Instead of simulating the mind through computers, he proposes to create a type of creature that may act as dynamical system in which its interaction with its external environment may state space its own evolution, allowing it to create changes within himself over time depending on its internal and external relations. Brooks start to define intelligence by analyzing the way humans have evolved through out history. He states that the essence of humans is “the ability to move around in a dynamic environment, sensing the surroundings to a degree sufficient to achieve the necessary maintenance of life and reproduction” (Brooks 396). One particular characteristic of humans is that we are successful autonomous beings as long as we are physically able to do so. Autonomy is what Brooks is searching to find in these types of creatures, he “wishes to build completely autonomous mobile agents that co-exist in the world with humans, and are seen by those humans as intelligent beings in their own right” (Brooks 401). The requirements of these creatures are very similar to human’s characteristics. The most important one and the one that is the most impressing to me is that “a creature should do something in the world; it should have some purpose in being” (Brooks 402). We humans are conscious of our place in the world and we often wonder what is our purpose here as we engage in the journey to find it; the only difference is that we humans truly understand this quest, we are conscious of our desire to find it, just as the creature is wanted to do the same. In this case

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though, it is us, just as we want to find our place in the word, who also want to find a place for the creature in the world, the creature does not actually acknowledge such feeling and desire. Such creature might perceive feelings from the external world, such as the change in temperature for instance, and react to it, but it will never feel it as we humans do; if the temperature is too hot, the creature might survive, but a human actually feels pain. These creatures can act for themselves reacting to their environment, but theydo not have desires, goals, feelings, and thoughts in themselves. In order to understand the four theories of cognition we first have to understand what cognition means and how they define intelligence, as intelligence is often associated with consciousness. Cognition has two principles: the parity principle and the complementary principle. The parity principle has to do whether something is functional equivalent, and the complementary one whether if is needed as an integral part of the process. To fully understand consciousness in this view, the newly created system or creature has to be made of experiences, desires, beliefs, and emotions. In Haugeland’s view, “what makes action intelligent is its relation to currently unreal situations” (Dunst), and how perception can be the main learning component to store the experiences, desires, beliefs, and emotions to use them and apply it to current situations. When perception of the external world is more taken into account, a skill of knowing how to use the information becomes available. Embodiment and embeddedness are two theses that are related in the way we perceive the world. When we are in a state of embodiment, our bodies “directly affect the kinds of cognitive processes that can occur at all levels of mental activity” (Dunst), are cognitive capabilities can be determined by our skill. Embeddedness is the thesis that as we gain experiences due to situations and interaction with the world, we constraint our possible behavior, and when we encounter the same situation again, what ever that was experienced is part of our cognitive process and we will act upon it according to the previous interaction. In enactivism, the same idea of “the world is the best model” is applied. Phenomenologically, the world is given to perception as available” (422); we perceive and actively engage with the world because that is the reason the world is there for. Even though this theories are quite convincible in addressing intelligence and more than that, how it is directly connected to how we perceive the world, this robust systems still lack the fact that they cannot feel like we humans feel, they are made of external objects, lacking biology. They can represent feeling but they will never know the semantic meaning of it.The different theories are great at creating a form of consciousness that have

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sentience, sapience, wakefulness, intentionality, direct access, and even narrative; but they lack of a seat of consciousness, self consciousness, and qualitative experiences. Human consciousness has something that will never be able to be recreated because it is only human; the ability to grasp semantics, the meaning of our external world into our internal is what is so unique about us. How we perceive the world and what it means to us is pretty much what gives each individual a unique sense of selfhood. The semantics of these collective experiences is the reason why we interact with the world one way or another. Consciousness can be a real, experiencable phenomenon when we are aware of the semantics of a subjective interaction of the mind with the external world.

BIBLIOGRAPHYSearle, John R. “Can Computers think?” Philosophy of Mind: Classical and Contemporary Readings. Ed. Davil J. Chalmers, New York: Oxford, 2002. 669-675.Dunst, Brian. “Classical Computationalism and Aritificial Intelligence.” Philosophy of Mind, University of South Florida. 01 June. 2012.Rumelhart, David E. “The Architecture of Mind: A Connectionist Approach” Mind Design II. Ed. John Haugeland. Massachusetts: A Bradford Book, 1997. 205-232.Dunst, Brian. “Connectionism and Dynamic Coupling.” Philosophy of Mind, University of South Florida. 11 June. 2012.Brooks, Rodney A. “Intelligence without Representation” Mind Design II. Ed. John Haugeland. Massachusetts: A Bradford Book, 1997. 395-420.Dunst, Brian. “Extended, Embodied, Embedded, and Enactive Cognition.” Philosophy of Mind, University of South Florida. 15 June. 2012.

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ADDITIONAL PROJECTS

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a. ches diagram. pen on textured paper. 7x7 inches.b. chess pieces. walnut wood.c. right page. chess set. walnut and maple wood.

THE ENERGY OF MOVEMENTA game of chess opens a window into your opponent’s mind. This diagram below captures the energy of each one of the player’s movements in a game of chess, and the conversation with each other’s mind.

a

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project in collaboration with ashley garret.a. detail image. physical model.b. connection detail drawing. ink on vellum.c. right page. connection detail plan and section drawing. ink on vellum.

a

b

UMBRELLA HOUSE SHADING DEVICE PART I

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project in collaboration with ashley garret, carly wooten and jorge lucero.a. detail image of tectonic connection. physical model.b. image of physical model.

UMBRELLA HOUSE SHADING DEVICE PART II

a

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a. basilica di santa maria del fiore. ink and watercolor. sketchbook.b. querini stampalia inside stairs. ink and watercolor. sketchbookc. brion cemetery plan and section study. ink and watercolor. sketchbook.

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italy study abroad

d. richard meier ara pacis museum volumetric study. ink and watercolor. sketchbooke. brion cemetery plan study. ink, water color and color pencil. sketchbook.c. carlo scarpa details study. ink, watercolor and color pencil. sketchbook.

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“The only reason for time is so that eveything doesn’t happen at once.”

Albert Einstein

“The only reason for time is so that eveything doesn’t happen at once.”

Albert Einstein

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