Unstably Off-Center

This studio explores the value of off-center: a building that is unstable, needs to lean, wobbles, and is imperfect. The project studies the role of the center to offer a way of evaluating how we connect and where we land. A center is a shared location on multiple levels—geometric, spatial, and social: the center of a circle, a building, or a space that everything else revolves around. In the context of architecture, what if there are multiple centers? The project is a “Center of Centers”—an Aquatic Center, Event Center, and Learning Center located in Malibu, California. I studied the wobbliness of spinning peg tops and how they are unstable and have multiple centers in motion. I want the project to inspire an architectural conversation of playfulness while maintaining the seriousness of architecture. Diagrams study how different pegs are off-center and how the gravitational point shifts when they are put in motion. Further studies explore the assembly of different centers, different ways of leaning and support, and how the introduction of rectangular elements breaks the singularity of circular dominance.