UNDERGRADUATE STUDIO II
ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN
ARCH 322 - WINTER 2024ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN
COORDINATOR
Yojairo Lomeli
PROFESSORS
Mick Kennedy, Yojairo Lomeli, Athar Mufreh, Charlie O’Geen, Salam Rida, Neal Robinson, Jono Sturt, Laura WalkerFieldhouse - A Cultural and Sports Center
Originally, a side building next to an outdoor sports field, that could house equipment, or changing rooms, a field house has become a building for indoor sports, in a sense growing to house the field.
Increasingly access to sport facilities is privatized limiting access to wellness and fitness, space for play, and sport within the city. While any surface can become a site of play – in many cities, such fields and courts for ball sports are booked months in advance, running a multi-season schedule and use is allowed only for sanctioned, and paid activities.
The shift to housing fields, is also climatically related. Ball sports can now be played year round in cold climates, as well as climates that are rapidly heating up. These buildings typically expend energy to condition the temperature of the large spaces within and are generally poorly equipped to sustain those temperatures.
Spaces such as these are flexible in their capacities to mark the boundaries of multiple sports, but also to serve as spaces of assembly, voting centers and shelters in time of emergency. They can be thought of as general purpose buildings that can "field" a wide range of programming, staging a contradiction between the highly specific and choreographed performances they intend to house, and the sometimes other less ruled programs they also service.
A Fieldhouse is a Cultural and Sports Center that finds its footing in the space of sports industrial complex and climate through the realization of a building that can house simple spaces for the practice of a sport.
STUDENT
Ranya Liu
PROFESSOR
Yojairo Lomeli
Enforced by referees and court lines, there is technically ‘one’ official game of basketball. Despite these constrictions, the practice of it morphs into individual drills, 1x1s and 3x3s, to rounds of HORSE and Knockout.
Like basketball, this seemingly singular fieldhouse gives way to multiple versions of itself - becoming a fieldhouse of fieldhouses - facilitating both the looser, smaller-scale practice to the regulated, team-based game. Each fieldhouse operates independently, but all remain momentarily connected: an open ceiling allowing trash-talk to travel, a center throughline affording glimpses across courts. Users then can experience all types of basketball under one roof.
STUDENT
Shelby Stress
PROFESSOR
Yojairo Lomeli
A field is a confine made to occupy both external and internal spaces. “Two Fieldhouses” attempts to blur the lines and definitions of said spaces through layering and illusion. Circulation comes as a consequence of buildings residing within buildings, and creates extensive pathways that allow for optimal match viewing. These circulation layers become sub-exterior spaces, determining what is considered “interior” and “exterior” at a local level through the use of wall color; white for interior, blue for exterior. Through a ruinous fashion, the main structure of the building serves as a skeletal frame for the programs housed within, resembling the organs of the fieldhouses.
STUDENT
Reid Graham
PROFESSOR
Athar Mufreh
With a family housing subdivision and condo community to the north, a senior living community to the east and a college dormitory to the west, the site embraces multigenerational use. Guided by accessibility and inclusive play for individuals of all ages and physical abilities, the Community Tennis and Recreational Building incorporates ramps to facilitate activity and motion around the courts - watching the game becomes as dynamic as playing it!
STUDENT
Malak Atwi
PROFESSOR
Athar Mefreh
At the heart of this fieldhouse is the concept of the “interface”- a defining element that both separates and unites. Drawing inspiration from the tennis court, where a simple net delineates competing grounds yet facilitates a lively back-and-forth, this project delves into how interfaces can be more than just dividers but dynamic mediums, pivotal in facilitating the interplay and exchange between two distinct realms. A linear walkway splits the form into two main volumes: the animated "field" and the restorative "house". And it is through interfaces that spaces find their meanings – not as isolated fragments but as a cohesive entity.
STUDENT
Ethan Bierlein
PROFESSOR
Mick Kennedy
This project seeks to design a fieldhouse for donkey basketball, where its experience is inherently embedded within the experience of the site. Key viewpoints and elevation changes will be recognized with contextual relationships within the landscape. The natural embodiment of both the landscape and architecture invites users to explore the building and navigate the site. With this set of design ambitions in mind, interests led to capturing or incorporating existing landscapes using stereotomic structure aspiring to "Semper's Elements". Exploring how the layering of materials and structure doesn’t merely define a spatial volume but extends space into the experience of the landscape. This embodiment of the site and building captures meaningful interactions for both humans and animals.
STUDENT
Matthew Daines
PROFESSOR
Mick Kennedy
A stable is meant to contain an animal and separate it from human spaces. In this fieldhouse, the separation of spaces is minimized. Through the creation of 3 different buildings with blurred boundaries, program is designed to advocate for Burro and Human interaction. The construction of the building focused on site available materials to mitigate carbon emissions, while keeping a sense of connection between the Architecture and the land. This is done through recycling existing trees cleared from the site, to create siding and structural components. This fieldhouse focuses on creative joinery to combine natural mediums with standardized elements.
STUDENT
Elliot Reid
PROFESSOR
Charlie O’Geen
This project seeks to formally explore the drama in the progression of entering a skating rink through the emotive quality of material and relationship to a changing ground plane. Upon arrival, the patron becomes enveloped within topography; both shielding them from the noise of traffic as well as establishing a subterranean language. The next point of interaction is the accessory programming, including locker rooms and a waiting room. This space is defined by precast concrete culverts, as well as skylights that reference Le Corbusier's light cannons in Ronchamp as a reminder that the patron is underground. Pushing into the main rink area, the material changes again to a latticed wood arch structure, a distorted reflection of the canopies that towered overhead upon initial arrival. Light pours in from chest height, obscuring the horizon line from players due to direct sunlight, while providing ambient daylight to fill the space. The level changes provide vantage points to observe the ground plane.
STUDENT
Anastasia Gaponov
PROFESSOR
Charlie O’Geen
Two planes intersect and collide to become self-structuring through a formal move that is the basis for a hockey fieldhouse situated on a hilly site adjacent to the Huron River in Ann Arbor, Michigan. The resulting space houses an ice hockey rink and its supporting warming spaces that adjust to the changing height and geometries created by the form. This logic is extended to the program, structure, and topography surrounding the site to further reinfroce their interconnectedness and symbiotic nature.
STUDENT
Ailin Yang
PROFESSOR
Salam Rida
This field house integrates an indoor soccer field with sustainable design, responding to Ann Arbor’s environmental and social contexts. Inspired by the RiverSafe Project, it features a rain garden that enhances water infiltration and ecological education. A community sauna utilizes greywater for heat storage, promoting circular sustainability. Positioned near the Huron River, the design fosters a deep connection between architecture, nature, and community, transforming the space into a hub for environmental engagement and conservation.