Site Analysis as Design
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Site Analysis as Design Gabriel Kaprielian, Temple University
Introduction To begin with why, we often start with a study of the site, the people, history, and environmental factors that make each place unique. While the physical site serves as the base of the project, analysis provides the basis for an informed and mean-‐ ingful design approach. T HE A RCHITECT’S H ANDBOOK OF P RO-‐ FESSIONAL P RACTICE states, “Site analysis is a vital step in the design process” to identify “constraints and opportunities” that led to “good building design [which] responds to the inherent 1 qualities of the site.”
dents that have shaped their theoretical framework. This work explores modes of site thinking and representation that seek to uncover embedded knowledge, which can inform architectural design by combining an analytical and intuitive approach. I will explain the objectives of the site analysis exercises, methodolo-‐ gies used, and reflect on what was learned from my observa-‐ tions and student feedback.
Why is it then that site analysis is so quickly discarded after the design process begins? Architecture students often approach site analysis as a passive and objective endeavor that is required in order to get to the exciting part, designing a building. Some-‐ times they view the site with contempt that it may actually hin-‐ der their creativity, rather than inspire it. Is this due to purely formalist tendencies of the architecture student? Could it be the dominance of other design factors such as program, structure, and materiality? Or, is it perhaps that our approach to site anal-‐ ysis is disconnected with the design process? I propose that we reframe site analysis as a design exercise, one that involves active and subjective work through investigation and representation of contextual information. I believe that this will provide an opportunity for architectural designs that are more connected with the site and whose form is developed in response to a narrative of place. By critically thinking about site analysis as a beginning phase of the design process, students can better tackle complex relationships between the built and natural environment, observable and unseen factors, and social issues that more thoroughly place a design response within the continuum of history and culture imbedded in a site location. In an attempt to frame site analysis as an integral part of the architectural design process, I will discuss series of exercises that I have used in beginning design studios and the literary prece-‐
Fig. 1 Site Lines Collage, Adrian Tsou (Cal Poly)
Site Thinking Site is not easily defined in architecture, as it represents both a physical place and a conceptual construct. Site is never a blank canvas or tabula rasa, but a rich tapestry of embedded
Gabriel Kaprielian
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Fig. 2 Site Lines Collages, 2 year architecture students (Cal Poly)
knowledge and dormant potential. Site is more than “con-‐ straints and opportunities” from a suitability analysis. It is more than an analytical process of categorizing geological and climatic information, real estate value, or demographics. It is at once measurable and comprehensible only through analysis of its parts. Sites incorporate multiple realities simultaneously and can be represented through diverse perspectives and subjective interpretations. Site analysis offers fertile ground for an en-‐ gagement with the architectural design process.
tual identities, site offers to participate in a dialog with the de-‐ signer. Site gains meaning through analysis and the designer gains knowledge through its representation. Andrea Kahn states that, ”ideas of site come through making. Designers confront the challenge of defining sites through a creative process of repre-‐ sentation.”4 It is precisely the process of discovery through site analysis and representation that I am most interested in.
While Site Planning and Design remains a core component to licensure examination, like professional practice, it contains a narrow view of the relationship of site to architecture. This view has been primarily focused on the physical, rather than the conceptual understanding of site; more concerned with defin-‐ ing what is “important” and “valuable” information, outlined in prescribed deliverables. Architectural pedagogy has mirrored practice, often approaching site through an analytical and scien-‐ tific approach.2 This paper proposes that it is time to explore innovative approaches to incorporate site analysis as a design exercise. This begins with site thinking to question and redefine site in relation to architectural design.
The work and writing of James Corner has brought site analysis into the foreground of the design process. Like Kahn, Corner has come to a similar conclusion in his essay on the “A GENCY OF M APPING ,” where he states “… mapping is perhaps the most formative and creative act of any design process, first disclosing and then staging the conditions for the emergence of new reali-‐ ties.”5 Mapping is a subcategory of site analysis that as Corner describes is itself a design process. It involves the geo-‐spatial representation of information, which must be selected, orga-‐ nized, and abstracted for visual clarity. As Corner says, “Maps present only one version of the earth’s surface, an eidetic fiction constructed from factual observation.”6
In S ITE M ATTERS, Carol Burns and Andrea Kahn describe site thinking as “continually oscillating between material and con-‐ ceptual, abstract and physical, discursive and experiential, and general and specific points of view.”3 This varied and contradic-‐ tory interpretation reconfigures site as a dynamic process and places it in a broader discourse. With both physical and concep-‐
Mapping, as a component of site analysis, derives its meaning as a creative practice. Maps are able to layer information to high-‐ light areas of convergence; they can uncover unobservable site factors and visualize multiple time periods simultaneously. In this way, maps can “reveal and realize hidden potential” and “by showing the world in new ways, unexpected solutions and
Site Mapping
Site Analysis as Design
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Fig. 3 Narrative Mapping Collages, 4 year architecture students (Temple University) and 2 year architecture students (Cal Poly)
effects may emerge.”7 However, it is the mapping process as a design activity, rather than the map representation, which I see as the most important aspect to incorporate in site analysis pedagogy. Site Experience In contrast to mapping, direct site experience allows the body to observe the site through the senses. A site visit literally puts the site in perspective view. Rather than the predominantly plano-‐ metric view of most maps, walking through a site allows for another form of mapping that can record temporal moments and phenomenal characteristics. Elizabeth Meyer has called this experiential perception of site “haecceity.”8 The sights, smells, sounds, tastes, and feel of a site recall a corporeal knowledge that is often referenced in a phenomenological understanding of the world. Furthermore, this type of intimate site knowledge begins to define a sense of place. The philosophy of experience found in a phenomenological approach to architecture offers an important counterbalance to site knowledge mitigated through the computer screen. Heidegger’s concept of “dwelling” ascribes meaning to site or a locale when it is built upon. He describes the process of defining a boundary, which I take as a reference to site analysis, as “that from which something begins its essential unfolding.”9
Christian Norberg-‐Schultz continues this ontological perspective as it relates to a sense of place in the built environment. His concept of “genius loci” is described, as “representing the sense people have of place, understood as the sum of all physical as well as symbolic values in nature and the human environ-‐ ment.”10 A reading of the site in these terms cannot be easily reduced to a representative form. However, this personal and experiential understanding of site is a wellspring for design inspi-‐ ration. I believe that Juhani Pallasmaa says it best; “My body is truly the navel of my world, not in the sense of the viewing point of the central perspective, but as the very locus of reference, memory, imagination and integration.”11 Site Representation As a practice, architecture is primarily concerned with design representation. Similarly, the process and product of represen-‐ tation in site analysis serve as an act of disclosure. Andrea Kahn says that “site representations construct site knowledge; they make site concepts manifest by design.”12 In this way, site analy-‐ sis becomes a design process that is connected to architectural production. Nevertheless, it is the process of site representation rather than the product that is the most generative aspect. Kahn continues by adding that “representations such as draw-‐ ings and models, do not simply illustrate what designers think; more profoundly, they reveal how designers think.”13 This reflects my own interest in understanding how students learn to design, and in this case, how the site can inform their approach.
Gabriel Kaprielian
Site Analysis as Design Where and how do architecture students begin their design? What informs their design process? What determines whether their design is an appropriate response to place? How do they conceive meaning and develop an argument to justify their design approach? I will share examples of how I have attempted to address these questions by incorporating site analysis exer-‐ cises as a core component of the design process. This includes a broad view of site definition that recasts its boundaries, both physical and theoretical. A variety of mapping techniques are utilized to uncover hidden site information that cannot be ob-‐ served, while experiential site visits form a basis of corporeal knowledge and complement the geo-‐spatial studies. Ultimately, the exercises that I will describe explore the way students make meaning from site analysis and incorporate it into their design. Site Analysis as Architecture nd
At Cal Poly, I taught two consecutive years of 2 year Architec-‐ ture Studio and the corresponding activity session for Environ-‐ mental Control Systems (ECS). When developing the curriculum for the studio, I sought to incorporate knowledge from the ECS lectures and labs directly into the design process. However, student attempts to integrate a traditional approach to site analysis into the design process often appeared more of an afterthought than a design driver. What originally began as an attempt to integrate concepts from the ECS class into the studio led to a much larger exploration of site and how it is perceived and taught. The architecture studio project was a small monastery sited in the Carrizo Plains of California. The monastery was required to be off the grid and without electricity and central heating. As an externally load dominated building, this foregrounded issues of site location, climatic conditions, orientation, and passive sys-‐ tems covered in the Environmental Control Systems lab and lectures. The labs for ECS take an analytical and scientific ap-‐ proach to understand concepts such as solar angles for fenes-‐ tration and how this can inform building orientation, aperture size, and appropriate shading devices. In an attempt to incorpo-‐ rate these topics into a beginning design exercise, I realized it becomes a subjective and exploratory investigation with a mul-‐ titude of potential meanings and outcomes. The first exercise was to create Sight/Site Lines. This began with a field trip to the site in the Carrizo Plains where students were asked to demarcate observable phenomena as lines. These lines may include views to distant geographical features, such as
a mountain peak, or more immediate topography such as rock formations and trees. They were asked to take photos of these views, while also recording images that created a “palate” of the site’s colors, textures, and patterns. In addition to the sensorial aspects of the site analysis, students were asked to consider what they were not able to experience directly. This included temporal factors such as climatic changes over the course of the day and year, how the site has transformed throughout history and geologic time, and the relationship of the immediate site to the larger region. Back in studio, students transcribed their fieldwork onto a digital site map and added to it with Site Lines that were not visible during the visit. Using Climate Consultant and a sun path dia-‐ gram, students mapped the predominant wind directions and important sun angles at different times of the year. The combi-‐ nation of the Sight/Site Lines subsequently served as a scaffold for the next three exercises, Site Lines Collage, Site Morphology and Monastery Mash-‐up. The Site Lines Collage exercise asked students to combine on-‐ site observation with historical, geological, and cultural research of the site. Using the Sight/Site Lines as an organizing principle, students were tasked with visually composing their site re-‐ search, with focus given to representation and compositional hierarchy. The final production was a complex reading of the site mapping and layering of information that revealed new site knowledge and manifested ground to build upon.
Fig. 4 Site Morphology, Adrian Tsou (Cal Poly)
In the next phase, students translated their two-‐dimensional site analysis into three-‐dimensional form through the Site Mor-‐ phology exercise. This involved transcribing the Sight/Site Lines onto a solid base and then using piano wire and museum board to respond to the site analysis through construction. Specific guidelines were given on how the wire and board could be fold-‐ ed to maintain a level of structure and abstraction. This was not
Site Analysis as Design to be considered a building, but rather a design response to the site factors, allowing for a diversity of interpretations. This ap-‐ proach involved allowing the intuitive “thinking hand” to collab-‐ orate with the “analytical mind” to develop a meaningful and compositionally compelling respond to the site analysis. For example, the wire may start as the angle of the sun on a sum-‐ mer solstice and then bend into alignment with a view. The folded board could follow the line of the wire or be considered a separate element, deciding to enclose an area and block pre-‐ dominant winter wind or create an opening to receive the sun and reveal a view. While there was no scale in the model, stu-‐ dents were asked to consider the scale of parts to each other in the composition.
Since the students were unable to visit the site in person, an experiential aspect of the Sight/Site Lines exercise was missing. To compensate for this, students conducted extensive mapping of the surrounding area using Google Earth for views and ArcGIS to layer data. With digital mapping software, each team layered current city data and geo-‐referenced historic maps to investi-‐ gate the urban transformations along the waterfront and on their assigned pier. In addition to transcribing important view sheds, climatic factors, and the present built environment, the Sight/Site Lines also layered past transformations and future sea-‐level rise scenarios.
The final exercise to incorporate the Sight/Site Lines involved creating a deconstructivist mash-‐up from a Cistercian monas-‐ tery case study. Students were asked to draft the floor plans of an assigned monastery in order to understand an ascetic pro-‐ gram, building organization, and scale. Like a mash-‐up song, the programmatic parts of the monastery could be cut and rear-‐ ranged using the Sight/Site Lines geometry to create a new composition. The resultant Monastery Mash-‐up combined site analysis, representation, and precedent study together, estab-‐ lishing a framework to inform further design. Site Analysis as Urban Design th
At Temple University, I taught a 4 year Urban Design studio this past fall, where I employed similar site analysis exercises to see how they would work in a larger urban context. The studio pro-‐ ject was to redesign the Northeastern Embarcadero waterfront of San Francisco for the year 2040, accounting for sea-‐level rise by the mid and end of the century and projected population growth. The studio was tasked with creating a resilient water-‐ front plan for the entire waterfront site from the Ferry Building to the Cruise Terminal. For the first half of the semester, stu-‐ dents focused on the urban design scale and were paired up to redesign one of seven piers and the corresponding waterfront area. The second half of the semester focused on individual architectural design of a single building on their pier. Given the complexity and scale of the project, I incorporated a variety of new exercises that utilized mapping to uncover the interrelationships between social, ecological, and infrastructural factors. Additionally, the importance of urban transformations along the waterfront was vital to an understanding of the cur-‐ rent and future conditions. Therefore, students researched the local urban morphology and historical ecology to inform their Sight/Site Lines and Narrative Mapping Collage.
Fig. 5 Narrative Mapping Collage, Lauren Benegas (Temple University)
The Narrative Mapping Collage represented site analysis re-‐ search of the past, present, and future. Beginning with ArGIS, students created a scaled geo-‐spatial map as the base of their composition. Their collages combined photomontage tech-‐ niques with geo-‐referenced maps and data, uncovering a lay-‐ ered understanding of complex and intertwined site factors. The second phase of the Sight/Site Lines exercise involved creat-‐ ing a compositional hierarchy by defining major and minor lines, deleting and trimming geometry, specifying important nodes of
Gabriel Kaprielian intersection, and defining spatial relationships. While abstract and relatively subjective, students were asked to consider the meaning of each operation as it related to the site factors.
Fig. 6 Sight/Site Lines, Case Study Mash-‐up, Programmatic Word Collage, Lauren Benegas and Sierra Summers (Temple University)
Students conducted case studies of similar waterfront projects around the world, which they drafted as scaled figure ground projections. Again, students created a Case Study Mash-‐up, where they arranged building footprints from precedent studies and then edited them with their Sight/Site Lines geometry. This gave the students an understanding of scale and how buildings might be situated on their constructed site design. After a refin-‐ ing of the resultant figure ground footprint, students overlaid a programmatic word collage to represent design intent of each interior and exterior built space. Given the wealth of information in the urban context, the site analysis exercises proved to be highly successful in generating site knowledge and formal representations. Each team usually focused on a few Sight/Site Lines as major organizational factors, whether they were based on a connection to the existing pat-‐ tern of development, climatic orientation, or views. Some teams were inspired by their Case Study Mash-‐up compositions, while others focused more on an infrastructural or formal pattern of development. Site Analysis as Past, Present, and Future The last example of site analysis integration in design that I will share is from a summer program that I directed at UC Berkeley called Design and Innovation for Sustainable Cities. In this inten-‐ sive five-‐week program, students explored an interdisciplinary and multi-‐scalar approach to design and analysis in the urban environment. Through lectures, urban seminars, workshops, field studies, and studio work, students engaged in discourse and design aimed at addressing the challenges of urbanism with innovative and sustainable solutions. In response to the San Francisco Resilience Plan for 2040, students worked in teams to develop resilient urban design proposals in four neighborhood corridors within the city. Their task was to respond to several interconnected challenges posed by the city including, climate change, infrastructure, social inequity, and housing.
Fig. 7 Urban Design Mid-‐Semester Poster, Lauren Benegas and Sierra Summers (Temple University)
With only a quarter of the students having a design background and the vast majority coming from abroad or across the coun-‐ try, the importance of site analysis was paramount to develop-‐ ing an informed design response. Site analysis was framed in both physical and theoretical terms. The urban seminars and lectures allowed for discourse into the meaning of site and a critical examination of methodological tools for design and study. Field trips to the sites with guest lectures combined an
Site Analysis as Design experiential understanding with a deeper framework of site knowledge. Students worked in groups to create analog map-‐ pings of their sites, examining the observable factors, categoriz-‐ ing and geo-‐referencing photographs and notes on the wall. Students had a robust introduction to mapping with ArcGIS to compare with their analog mapping observations and investi-‐ gate the unseen ecological, social, and infrastructural factors, past, present, and future. Teams were asked to consider the urban transformations of the past, how this affected the pre-‐ sent, and how it can be used to inform future design proposals. The studio result was an urban design proposal that sought to address the challenges posed by the San Francisco Resilience Plan, while responding to the unique conditions of their neigh-‐ borhood. The final production included a model that combined analysis of the past and present urban environment and specu-‐ lative future design.
graved acrylic base with a massing model of existing buildings cut out of basswood. The speculative design proposal was then 3D printed and overlaid on top. Besides creating a compelling physical artifact, the Past, Present, Future Model sought to make visible both the final design and the process of site analysis as one composite assemblage.
Reflections What is clear from my experience attempting to develop site focused design coursework, is that there are a vast number of approaches and comprehensions of site possible. Methods and perceptions of site analysis that are currently incorporated in the practice of architecture are only scratching the surface and may not equip students for the future trajectory of the profes-‐ sion. Rather than mirror practice, I believe that it is essential to challenge the normative approach to site and expand our methodologies and perception of what is “useful” site infor-‐ mation. I see new potential directions for architectural peda-‐ gogy to incorporate site thinking and site representation as a primary design driver. The exercises that I have presented represent a modest step at incorporating site analysis as a design activity in the architecture studio. It is clear to me that these exercises have been success-‐ ful in foregrounding site as a primary factor in the architectural design process, while at the same time they are idiosyncratic, flawed, and bias in the approach. The question of how to begin the design process is a complex and divisive one. We often de-‐ velop “tricks” in our design methodologies that allow for an abstraction of variables and system of problem solving that is both analytical and intuitive. Architecture is neither a clear nor linear process, as design decisions are worked on and reworked through an iterative process.
Fig. 8 Past, Present, Future Models, Design and Innovation for Sustainable Cities (UC Berkeley)
This Past, Present, Future Model incorporated a light box in the base that illuminated the historic maps printed on a transparen-‐ cy sheets. The current urban form was depicted by a laser en-‐
The Sight/Site Lines exercise represents one methodology to incorporate a variety of site factors to begin determining rela-‐ tionships between the building and surrounding context. This abstraction allows for a level of subjectivity and intuitive design thinking, while incorporating analytical and measurable factors. The ambiguous relationship between the two is often confusing for students at first. However, in the process of editing the Sight/Site Lines, students make a vital leap from transcribing site factors to developing a hierarchy of relational qualities that make a path for site thinking. In this way, students begin to ac-‐ tively participate in creating a mapping of the site rather than a “tracing.”
Gabriel Kaprielian The planar approach of the Sight/Site Lines and Collage exercis-‐ es are certainly bias toward a planometic design. This is a limita-‐ tion to the formal arrangement of a design process that looks primarily from a single vantage point. By beginning in the plan view, students tend to base much of their design on floor plans. The Site Morphology exercise is an attempt to begin translating the two-‐dimensional work into three-‐dimensional form without simply extruding the plan view. In many ways, I believe this ex-‐ ercise is more successful than traditional massing models for its formal constraints and abstraction. However, students have often expressed similar confusion in translating a three-‐ dimensional abstraction of the site analysis, while not directly designing a building. I feel it is precisely this tension that leads to design breakthroughs. The use of mapping in the site analysis exercises, while also bias toward a planometric view, is a rich process of “gathering, work-‐ ing, reworking, assembling, relating, revealing, sifting, and speculating.”14 Mapping is itself a design activity that makes sense of layered information through abstraction and represen-‐ tation. The use of mapping in the architecture studio is far more than creating a base map. Rather, it is a process of uncovering multiple layers of information and making them visible through representation. James Corner reflects on the “maker’s own participation and engagement with the cartographic process” as a vital aspect of developing new insights in developing a dis-‐ course with the site to inform appropriate design solutions.15 Incorporating the composite montage of the collage adds an-‐ other layer of agency in uncovering and representing site mean-‐ ing. This technique breaks from the conventions of the geo-‐ spatially referenced information and allows the students to layer alternative site imagination, which can convey multiple subjective realities. In the seminar class that I am currently teaching, called appro-‐ priately “Site Analysis as Design,” I have been incorporating a similar theoretical framework for course reading and discussion, while utilizing many of the site analysis design exercises. How-‐ ever, in this case, there is no architectural design project in the course. The design is the representation of the site analysis it-‐ self. The course is set up to explore and question what it means to construct knowledge through design and discussion of the site. Students have expressed how little they have focused on site in previous design studios, or how this type of investigation is not typically taught in architecture, but rather the disciplines of landscape architecture, planning, or geography. However, they have already shown a deep interest and aptitude for ex-‐ ploring concepts and representational techniques that manifest site knowledge. Many have discussed how they might incorpo-‐
rate this understanding into their design studio project, while others simply describe how the focus on site analysis as design allows them to see the world in a new way.
Conclusion Architectural pedagogy should not remain static in an approach to site analysis that mirrors the profession, but rather explore new tools and techniques that aim to incorporate site knowledge directly into the design process. This may come from rethinking the relationship between conceptual construct and physical condition of the site, leading to what Carol Burns and Andrea Kahn refer to as “concrete theorizing.”16 New ap-‐ proaches may also be informed by interdisciplinary cross-‐ pollination. I believe mapping, as described by James Corner, is still a relatively untapped potential in the architectural design process, which can open new worlds of knowledge, past, pre-‐ sent, and future. There is no blank canvas for architecture. The site is a rich and fertile ground of information, stories, and haec-‐ ceity. By finding innovative ways to uncover what is imbedded in each site, architectural responses will be all the richer for it.
Notes 1 Floyd Zimmerman, “Site Analysis,” in The Architect’s Handbook of 2 Carol J. Burns and Andrea Kahn, “Why Site Matters” in Site Matters: Design Concepts, Histories, and Strategies, Burns, Carol J. and Andrea Kahn, eds (New York: Routledge, 2005), x. 3 Burns and Kahn, Site, xxi. 4 Andrea Kahn, “Defining Urban Sites.” in Site Matters: Design Con-‐ cepts, Histories, and Strategies, Burns, Carol J. and Andrea Kahn, eds (New York: Routledge, 2005), (New York: Routledge, 2005), 286. 5 James Corner, “The Agency of Mapping: Speculation, Critique and Invention,” in Mappings, ed. Denis Cosgrove (London: Reaktion Books Ltd., 1999), 216. 6 Corner, “Agency of Mapping,” 215. 7 Corner, “Agency of Mapping,” 217 8 Elizabeth Meyer, “Site Citations: The Grounds of Modern Landscape Architecture,” in Site Matters: Design Concepts, Histories, and Strate-‐ gies, Burns, Carol J. and Andrea Kahn, eds (New York: Routledge, 2005), 110-‐112 9 Martin Heidegger, “Building Dwelling Thinking,” in Basic Writings, trans. David Farrell Krell (New York: Harper Collins, 1977), 356. 10 Gunila Jivén, Peter J. Larkham, “Sense of Place, Authenticity and Character: A Commentary,” in Journal of Urban Design, Vol. 8, No. 1, (Philadelphia: Taylor and Francis, 2004), 67-‐81. 11 Juhani Pallasmaa, The Eyes of the Skin: Architecture and the Senses, (Wiley-‐Academy, Great Britain, 2005), 11.
Site Analysis as Design 12 Kahn, “Defining Urban Sites,” 286. 13 Kahn, “Defining Urban Sites,” 287. 14 Corner, “Agency of Mapping,” 228. 15 Corner, “Agency of Mapping,” 228-‐229. 16 Burns and Kahn, “Site,” ix.
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