The site is based on the study of one of the western gates of the three locks located between Boston’s North End and Charlestown. The design of the building is based on a rotary to linear movement mechanism: a rotor moves the top half of the building which also displaces vertically by way of a diagonal section cut.
This project is a study of movement in architecture. It is not only about bodily passage, formal transformation, or implied structural forces, but also movement in time and space, actualized mechanically. It is a project in which architecture becomes the geometric inscription of a series of actions and positions. As such, it kinetically redefines the fundamental tenets of stasis and permanence.
The program is a building whose movement is calibrated to simultaneously perform or engage with the open/shut operation of the gate and produce three discrete organizations of spaces and sequences.
Harvard University Graduate School of Design
Master in Architecture
Fall 2011 / Cameron Wu Studio
