Fabrication & Customization
Reimagining the Industrial Sublime
Fall 2023 | Fabrication & Customization | Teammate: Alexandra Wang, Jacky Jia | Instructor: Jeremy Ficca
The industrial sublime refers to the awe-inspiring, often overwhelming grandeur evoked by industrial landscapes, structures, or processes constructed with the scale of humans and the destruction of nature. In 19th and 20th century Pittsburgh, the industrial sublime shows the city’s vast factories, urban sprawls, and technological advancements. We are exploring the theme of scale, complexity, and juxtaposition of material and texture inspired by the concept of industrial sublime.
The position of the openings is based on a human’s eye level in various positions. On the western facade, where the stairs are located, the people would be moving. As a result, the openings are shaped so that they offer an optimal view of the outside for people who are standing. At the same time, we understood the ground level as an important level to keep open to create a visual connection for people walking on the sidewalk. On the southern facade, where much of the office work is taking place, we found it appropriate to create more openings for people seated at their desks. At the same time, it maintains similar openings to the western facade near the corner.
The panel types use rotation as a way to visually direct pedestrians around the corner to where the entrance is located. At the same time, the folded nature of each panel allows for the combination of aluminum and corten steel on either side. The sizing of the panels aligns with the centerline of the window mullions, simplifying the attachment process.
The arrangement of the panels follows a specific pattern that gradually rotates the panel from 75 degrees to 15 degrees. On the southern facade, the panels are arranged in an "aabaa" pattern, with a being half of b. On the western facade, the panels are arranged in an "aab" pattern.
Referencing industrial elements of metal production, we used spark imagery as the inspiration for the perforation pattern. The aim is to use the images as a reference to create perforations, bringing sunlight into the space.
The alternating pattern between the perforated panel and the solid panel would allow light to reflect and shine into the interior space through the perforations, generating a glistening effect on the interior space. This denser perforation responds to the Pittsburgh climate context, where people often desire more transparency and views of the outdoors. This denser pattern not only creates more openings to the surface for exterior views, it also creates a vile-like effect that maps out the spark imagery more clearly.
The penalization of the facade was reimagined based on the height of the floors. Instead of having panels that run up the whole height of the building, it makes more sense from a fabrication and construction standpoint to have each panel be smaller. As such, we used the height of the floor to divide up the panels. To accommodate the change in penalization, we slightly modified the perforation pattern to ensure no circles are cut at the
edges of each panel. Furthermore, we added a 1” return on either side of each opening to ensure structural integrity when folding.
