Anne Harris

October 3rd 2015

Exercise 3.1 | Reflection Paper

Professor Terry Moor

Final Travel Response

The pivotal place was in New Haven, Connecticut on Yale campus. The Ezra Stiles College Residential housing, approaching to this location the area was mainly classical architecture with lots of use of bricks. When turning the corner onto Tower Parkway Street the experience changed and could felt the plunge into another world. The site had a culture which resemble Italy. The walls were smooth concrete but the aggregates was huge almost had appearance of stone. The landscape opened up with a stretch lawn, which breathe a breath of fresh air to the site context of the campus. Another aspect of the site is the sound, outside noise was muted by the structure of the building and the calming rushing water at the bottom of the court yard. As for the public and private experience it was divided by a gated entrance from east to west wing of the site. Doing some research and discovering the history on the site, it named after Ezra Stiles Yale Class of 1746 who was the seventh president of Yale. The architect was Eero Saarinen, The site is built of rubble masonry with buildings and a tower in the style of pre-Gothic Tuscan towers influenced by the medieval Italian hill town of San Gimignano. From this site correlates some aspect to my thesis of urban fabric. The imitation, tectonic and culture reflects the community identity. By taking the fabric of Italy and inserting it into the Yale campus created a new identity that’s no longer just Yale’s or Italy’s.

Embracing the space, once past the gated gate you are surrounded with plants that are rooted from the floor to the ceiling. The scene gives a sense of walking through a forest. The path is irregular smooth stones trimmed by green pasture. The main path connects to both east and west gate. The courtyard has a small slope that leads to café at the bottom. The first slope area is designated by terrace wall that is about 3 and half feet high. People can sit and relax on top of terrace that adjacent to a hard top surface floor. As you move to the bottom of the slope smaller paths breaks off from the main path leading you to the second area. In this area people can play game of soccer or pull out a picnic blanket and relax on the grass. At the bottom of this is a water feature that has rock plate path so you can walk across and access the café. The water then rushes to the bottom of the slope under the outdoor café area. The café is really an extension of the courtyard landscape because the exterior and interior space are separated floor to ceiling with glass curtain walls. The Yale campus was dress with the influence of Italy surrounded by works modern architecture and classical.  The next direction, question is how do we “cross dress” architecture, meaning an inventory different urban fabric being merge or stich together in one location. The same manner how we dress ourselves; how do we dress the site. The breakthrough of this “how can master planning architecture with different urban fabric create a new identity?”