Final+project


 * __Final Project:

Parque Cristal__** Chacao, Caracas, Venezuela



In this video I will be explaining to you how the topic we studied in this trimester are present in Parque crystal building. Fist of all this building seems to have a very simple shape. It is just a cube with some holes in its front. This simple geometric shape can achieve very interesting spaces. As we look at it for the first time we can notice that the architect used almost one color in his design. The entire building in covered with blue crystal just like its name, looking like a crystal park. The color wasn’t only used to make the building look beautiful but because of the architect’s idea to make a very big building that could look very delicate. That is also the reason why he gave the texture of crystal to the entire building. The combination of crystal and the color blue give the person in its presence the illusion of looking at the sky very closely. Everything that surround parquet crystal is reflected by it so it looks almost like a bib mirror of the areas near it and it doesn’t create a boundary but a connection between its surrounding and its interior spaces. Texture and color are also used in the floor and they have every specific function. The architect used gray, white and concrete to create an illusion. When people walk towards the entrance the floor is also guiding them trough gray lines marking the way to the big entrance. Parque crystal has two big holes that indicate the access very clearly but these big holes also have an impact on the way light passes trough to the interior spaces. Light is the main element of nature the architect used. He wanted to create a strong connection between the interior and exterior spaces with the light. He created and enormous central space almost like a park and very illuminated inside the building to let light create a space that is inside the building but feels like outside. The rhythm in these building is achieved by the repetition of shapes and color in most of its facades. There are two different repetition of shapes in these building. One of them is in its sides with smaller windows and the other in the front façade with blue crystals. The holes in the front façade and on the roof of the building also have a effect on the acoustic. Any sound made inside this space beneath the big holes bounce in every wall and the reverberance is control only by the holes because the sound can only stop when it escape to the outside. This building has a public building scale it means that it has spaces that big amount of people could be in it at the same time. That is why the access is made by a n amazingly big hole on the front façade and its elevated more that one meter from the street level. There are two scales in these building the first is the public one that is you see as you walk towards it. But there is another scale in these building, a smaller one, where the offices are located and the spaces doesn’t required big measurements. Finally, the circulation is what brings all of these elements together. There is the vertical circulation which can be seen from the outside, the stairs that connect one floor to another and the visual connection that exist in a space sharing many floors. Fist of all, this connection of floors is achieved in the ground floor and the second floor, but there is also another connection. As the building is covered with crystal all of the floors located on the top of the building can see what is happening in any other floor and all the way around. Also there is the horizontal circulation that occurs in all of the floors of the building but it is more obvious in the ground floor where there is a connection between the exterior and interior spaces.

Learning about all the topics in these wiki help me to see more than just buildings in Caracas. Now that i know how to understand the characteristics of a building and what makes good of bad decisions on making a good design, I can apply these knowledge into my own designing process and improve in my projects as well. It would help me on my journey of becoming a good architect.

Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31rDwaA798s

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