Payette advocates for embedding fabrication within architectural practice to enhance design, control risk and add value. The physical artifacts we generate help all parties understand the design problem and have a voice in its resolution. We use these artifacts to preclude potential disconnects between the architect’s design intent and the way these ideas are understood by owners and builders.
Thoughtful listening and the clear communication of big-picture design priorities cultivates allies and adds value for all parties. This approach to communicating more effectively through fabrication positions end-users as co-authors, predisposing successful projects where the community served by the work feels a sense of ownership in the design process.
This week, we`re celebrating the recently opened Hursey Center at the University of Hartford.
Driven by the University’s desire to create “a destination and activity hub” in the center of campus, the Hursey Center sits prominently in the middle of the Main Green. This unusual approach disrupts the campus’ existing organization, reducing the amount of primary open space but replacing it with several smaller open areas, recalibrating the scale and form of the campus and improving its character, spatial structure and hierarchy.
#designalways #artofmaking #architecture #archdaily #universityofhartford
COMMUNICATING DESIGN INTENT THROUGH FABRICATION
There is often a disconnect between an architect’s design intent and the way these ideas are understand by owners and builders. Especially with large client groups, architectural drawings can be difficult for all parties to quickly understand. This leads to inefficiency in the design process and key client voices may not be empowered to contribute. A scale model or mock-up frequently proves a more accessible means of communication, helping all parties understand the problem and have a voice in its resolution.
THE POWER OF PHYSICAL MOCK-UPS
The large-scale project mock-ups we can swiftly iterate in our FabLab are useful both as internal design tools and as a powerful means of communicating complex design intent to clients and builders. These artifacts are an integral part of the feedback loop between design and construction, compelling us to reconcile architectural intentions with the rigors of physical production in an immediate and highly informative way. Mock-ups are employed to test methods of assembly, and rapid prototyping is used to explore subtle variations in material texture and scale.
CUSTOM DESIGN
With a nudge from our client, the team designed a ceiling that didn’t just “work” with the building’s palette, but rather gave a space its own, fresh identity. By rethinking the ceiling, we developed a new take on a perforated metal panel ceiling that gives the EXP Event Space a unique material presence in the building and communicates the truly special nature of this location on the Northeastern campus.