MINISTRY OF SOUND VISUALIZATION
Harvard GSD Career Discovery Program, June 2015
Velum and Lead Drawing
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This project brought on a new dimension in the concept of scale— the site. The site needed to contain an archive theater that encapsulates 30,000 square feet of specific programming including indoor and outdoor theaters, a public market space, and space for a storage archive. Upon initial site analysis, the site’s sound was taken notice to. WIth this relation to sound in mind, it was decided that the film archive must relate to sound and would therefore contain music videos and also serve as concert and music festival venue.
Velum and Lead Drawings
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After a few time-point sound analyses, average findings were recorded. It was found that increase in sound was correlated with increase of pedestrian access. Therefore, programming of the music venue site was done based on transition of sound. The buildings on site would act as a sound barrier— keeping ambient noise from coming within, while also keeping concert noise from travelling into the surrounding neighborhood. With the properties of the physics of sound in mind, the inspiration of curves were used in terms of both their concavity and mathematical representation. Sound is measured by the log curve and the concavity of a surface reflects sound in specific ways. Both of these sound curve ides can be seen through the design process here.
Upper Left: Bristol and Foam Model
Lower Left: Computer Generated Graph
Upper Right :Velum and Lead Drawing
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In physics, sound is measured on a logarithmic scale, as shown in the graph to the right. A logarithmic curve as defined as rise to run would be: (up 1/over 1), (up 1/over 2), (up 1/over 3), (up 1/ over 4), etc… hence the curve reaches infinity in the x direction fast than it does in the y direction and is represented by the logarithmic curve. With this, the site was divided into unit areas in each direction, as represented by the grid drawn on the site. Logarithmic curves were drawn based on the unit grid, while concavity decisions were based on the following: concave surfaces focuses sound waves to a single point, and convex surfaces dissipate sound. Sound on the interior of the site (convex surfaces) is dissipated to allow for enhanced music listening at all interior site locations, while sound at the edges of the site (concave surfaces) is focused to a single point so as to keep ambient music noise to a minimum outside of the music festival venue.