In this assignment the two references mentioned in the previous assignment, namely Villa dall’Ava in Paris (on the left in the image below) and the China Central Television Headquarters (CCTV) in Beijing (on the right in the image below), are scientifically compared and the ways to study available for such a comparison are named.

comparison

Comparison

Available (and used) ways to study: comparing and evaluating drawings naming components and concepts descriptive research summing up differences perceiving and conceiving

Similarities

Both the projects are a design from the Office of Metropolitan Architecture (OMA) and both the designs break through the conventional design rules for either a high-rise building or a luxurious villa. In most villa’s, the pool is situated outside or in a basement, in Villa dall’Ava it’s placed on the roof. The CCTV building is not a traditional skyscraper, the continuous loop of horizontal and vertical sections create an urban site rather than a point to the sky. Secondly both projects make use of exceptional construction methods. The hovering parts of Villa dall’Ava are supported by slender diagonal columns and the external faces of the CCTV building are supported by a diagrid exoskeleton which reflects the distribution of forces.

Dissimilarities

The first and most obvious difference between the aforementioned projects is the difference in the overall scale. Villa dall’Ava has a built volume of around 1 350 square meters, while the CCTV building has a built volume of more than 473 000 square meters. The divergent scale mainly derives from the difference in program and function. Villa dall’Ava is a residential building which houses one family of three people, while the CCTV building has to provide room for thousands of employees. These differences are also reflected in the available budget, which was around 500 000 euro’s for Villa dall’Ava and 850 million US dollars for the CCTV headquarters.

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