A Moment of Pause, A Moment of Paradise
Architecture | Space Time, Nature, and Community
Architecture | Space Time, Nature, and Community
Honolulu, USA
Published in Retrospecta 46 : Yale School of Architecture 2022-23
Published in Retrospecta 46 : Yale School of Architecture 2022-23
The image of Hawaii is always portrayed as paradise. With stunning tropical forests, turquoise waters, and lush mountain peaks, Hawaii is an ideal paradise. However upon visiting, the pristine image of Hawaii produced by media and stories is juxtaposed with shacks, mountains overtaken by houses, and concrete structures. In addition to the built forms, Hawaii faces global issues such as systemic social inequity, cultural history, and climate change. Thus, the project starts to question what does it mean to be a paradise?
When speaking with the locals, the image of paradise is reintroduced not as visible icons but, within their lifestyle and connection to “place.” The locals’ lifestyle revolves around the ocean, mountains, and the city in between. In a similar way, Hawaii divides its district or ahupua’a, a watershed-based system of land and community, from the mountain to the waters. There is a deep interconnectedness between place and Hawaiian belief. As Hawaiian belief starts from the point of view between “I” and the place. It is about creating relationships. Through the learning of Hawaiian values, the project reinterprets the site, its potential, and its history.
Traveling to Hawaii, listening to various locals, and developers of the site, and being in, walking, and experiencing all the different aspects of the site led to an appreciation of all the various and unique ways Hawaii has developed and produced space to coexist with nature. Nature not only in terms of iconic forests and beaches but, also from everyday life such as the change of sky, a rainbow after a foggy morning, the breeze that comes from the mountains, or the shade produced by a Lanai, a type of roofed, open-sided porch. It pauses people in certain ways and gives memory. Thus, the project proposes to create a place within the everyday for a moment of pause.
Within the site, exists a Kenzo Tange Japanese newspaper factory, Hochi, which is currently vacant. The Hochi building is constructed with factories at the rear mass, offices in the front mass, and parking on top of the factory, which is a typical typology in Hawaii. Using the parking level as a spine to connect the whole site, the buildings are nodes within the site, and pockets of small to large open spaces are produced as a negative, creating a multiplicity of spaces, a space one can ponder and pause.
Site Analysis + Strategy:
Situated in the historic Kapalama watershed, the site faces various development needs. The project is partnered with Kamehameha School, which holds various sites within the ahupua’a and is looking to redevelopment, as there will be a new railroad stop in the area that connects the site to Honolulu and the airport. With the railroad development, the city of Honolulu released a Transit Oriented Design plan that reevaluates the FAR, building heights, and density of development. They are utilizing this location as a means to help resolve housing shortages in Hawaii.
The site currently houses a Kenzo Tange building (b.1972) which is now vacant, and along the site, there are various large warehouse buildings used for industrial and manufacturing goods. East of the site houses Honolulu Community College. Lastly, behind the site exists smaller houses, built up to create pockets of the community for the workforce. Thus, the project proposes to first bring the educational facilities from the Honolulu Community College into the site as well as play with the scale of both the smaller houses and warehouse to create moments of pauses.
Situated in the historic Kapalama watershed, the site faces various development needs. The project is partnered with Kamehameha School, which holds various sites within the ahupua’a and is looking to redevelopment, as there will be a new railroad stop in the area that connects the site to Honolulu and the airport. With the railroad development, the city of Honolulu released a Transit Oriented Design plan that reevaluates the FAR, building heights, and density of development. They are utilizing this location as a means to help resolve housing shortages in Hawaii.
The site currently houses a Kenzo Tange building (b.1972) which is now vacant, and along the site, there are various large warehouse buildings used for industrial and manufacturing goods. East of the site houses Honolulu Community College. Lastly, behind the site exists smaller houses, built up to create pockets of the community for the workforce. Thus, the project proposes to first bring the educational facilities from the Honolulu Community College into the site as well as play with the scale of both the smaller houses and warehouse to create moments of pauses.
Immersive Space
Immersive Spaces are spaces that are primarily visited by visitors. These are spaces designed to immerse into experience. To feel rather than to understand. Through amplifying different senses at different moments of the experience, the architecture opens the viewer to feel nature rather than understand nature. As the visitors walk down a ramp, visit a courtyard, see the valleys beyond, one of the five senses are heighten by blurring the use of the other senses. It is to get away from our visual understanding. It is to open all senses to feel the world. In the same manner T.R. did when he came to visit Medora.
It is to listen to an emotional story of Theodore Roosevelt.
Immersive Spaces are spaces that are primarily visited by visitors. These are spaces designed to immerse into experience. To feel rather than to understand. Through amplifying different senses at different moments of the experience, the architecture opens the viewer to feel nature rather than understand nature. As the visitors walk down a ramp, visit a courtyard, see the valleys beyond, one of the five senses are heighten by blurring the use of the other senses. It is to get away from our visual understanding. It is to open all senses to feel the world. In the same manner T.R. did when he came to visit Medora.
It is to listen to an emotional story of Theodore Roosevelt.
Secondary “Ground Floor” - Inhabiting the top of the Lanai
The ground floor becomes vastly open to the public. It creates a multiplicity of spaces where people may ponder and pause. It is inspired by the context of the negative spaces of the smaller scaled development and how community begins to overtake the public sphere creating a safe zone. On the upper level, in line with the Hochi parking level datum, a new semi-public sphere begins to appear. Accessible only to those who inhabit the built nodes (towers), open spaces at various scales are formed to house flexible events conducted by the residents or owners of the nodes (tower). This idea has been inspired by how large warehouses around the site began to occupy their spaces for their needs.
The ground floor becomes vastly open to the public. It creates a multiplicity of spaces where people may ponder and pause. It is inspired by the context of the negative spaces of the smaller scaled development and how community begins to overtake the public sphere creating a safe zone. On the upper level, in line with the Hochi parking level datum, a new semi-public sphere begins to appear. Accessible only to those who inhabit the built nodes (towers), open spaces at various scales are formed to house flexible events conducted by the residents or owners of the nodes (tower). This idea has been inspired by how large warehouses around the site began to occupy their spaces for their needs.
Flexible Program - Datum/Parking Area
The parking level at Hochi expands and becomes a spine that connects both the architecture and communal space of the whole site. Using the infrastructure of the Hochi, the expanded areas are first programmed as parking lots. However, designing the routes of the cars in relation to the parking area allows for certain parking zones to be closed off to house multiple programs. For example, parking at N. King St. may be used as both a parking lot but also a concert hall for the community, or the parking on the HCC site may be used as both a parking lot or an HCC event space. The shift in the program allows for multiple uses of the same space creating moments of pauses in relation to time.