STUDIO 2A

woodbury university

FALL 2017

INSTRUCTOR: ANALI GHARAKHANI

IN THE ROUND- An in-depth analytical study is made of everyday domestic, work, and recreational rituals through written research and case study, with an emphasis on spatial accommodation of program through materiality, finish, structure, and form. Projects set in limited contexts emphasize the influence of internally driven relationships, with a special focus on hybrid programming.

The circle, perhaps architecture’s first curve, has no known point of origin, and has been variously praised, deformed, and denied in the past 400 years of architectural discourse. During the Renaissance architects such as Alberti and Palladio asserted its perfection. Later the architects of the Baroque period such Guarini and Borromini, sought out derivations and deformations of the circle as the generator of form. In the late 1990’s, the architect Greg Lynn used it as marker of the static geometries-

of the past and sharply contrasted it with the emerging “fluid” geometries of the spline curve. Some contemporary practices have turned back to curves and curved surfaces derived from conic sections, in an attempt to reengage discussions of curvature with issues of structure. In all cases, the circle, and more generally, the curve has been a contested territory of formal and theoretical debate.

Michelangelo’s original plan for San Giovanni Dei Fiorentini

Diagrammatic translation of the plan of San GIovanni Dei Florentini translated vertically.