Trench Design

So, the trench is finally done.  I made the sketchup design and layout.  It includes a patio area and also incorporates green space.  The graffiti wall stretches across the entire retaining wall.

Office Space

This space was designed to give the professors more of a chance to interact with the students.  Although partially hidden the office area is sandwiched between the studio spaces and on the same level as the 3rd and 4th year studios.  The full time faculty was given 140SF offices and the part time faculty is given a studio-style space.  Past the part-time area there is a small teacher's lounge that will house the essentials for the faculty.

Final Circulation Diagrams

Ok, so not really sure why it turned blue but, above is the circulation plan by floor.  The orange (or dark blue?) represents vertical circulation, the yellow (teal?) represents horizontal circulation, and the red represents the bike lane.

This is an exploded axon of our space showing only the vertical and bike lane circulation.

Some Things I forgot

This is the Resource Core Building and the space planning that I did a while ago.  Me and Stacy worked together on this space, me in planning and Stacy in detail. There is a "mini-core" of vertical circulation connecting this building to the studio.

This is the Prototype Lab general Layout.  This lab has three different levels which represent materials, assembly, and initial production.  The prototype lab is also connected to the loading dock to make it easy for materials to be delivered and also for easy access in and out of the lab for larger projects.  It is also adjacent to the recycling center so that pre-consumer waste can be recycled.  The lab itself only has stairs but the ramp located just outside is ADA and has easy access to all three levels.

Auditorium Update

This is coming up on the final design for the auditorium.  Travis mentioned in class Tuesday that I should allow a view down into the gallery space.  I took his suggestion and I think that it will also help with the lighting.  The fixtures and lighting will go in the final.

Digital Lab Design

The digital lab was designed around student population and also current problems with the existing lab.  The biggest complaint was the lack of separation between the lab and a classroom so, there are two joining digital labs in our space.  One of the labs is for students and the other is a classroom for use during the day.  Both labs will have small printing stations and the classroom will have a projector screen and also has an auditorium-style slope so that everyone can better see the projector screen.  This is a preliminary perspective.

And Here We Go

Ok, I have been putting a lot of time into the Auditorium for my individual project so I think it's time to show the offices (group work from earlier) and the context diagram.  

The context diagram is of the surrounding area of our site.  I tried to keep it as simple as possible so the roads and background are grey, the train tracks are black, and the UNCG area is highlighted green.  The main building is in red so that it contrasts the grayscale background.

More for the Auditorium

After receiving comments from the pre-crit, we decided on a concept and also that the "forms" or ribbon elements were a good way to connect our spaces.  Stacy and I have been working mostly with the resource core, but I decided to revisit the auditorium and use the forms as a way of controlling the acoustics in the space.  Made of fabric and the color of my designated section, I am really pleased with the outcome and hope to have a hand-rendered version with more people soon to post.  This is a view of the stage but it doesn't have the back-stage layout yet.  Let me know what you think.

Auditorium Detail

I have working on the auditorium and the resource core for the past week.  The sketchup image is of the basic design for the fire stairs connecting the auditorium, bookstore and public building.

Progress

So, with a general finalization of the building shape, we have moved on to space planning, designing the core and site manipulation.  I, being in the interiors group, focused on space planning.  We discussed as a group the general layouts for each building and I focused on putting the programmed square footage in the plans to make sure that the layout was effective.  By emphasizing open space around the core, I managed to come up with a more detailed layout that was more effective.  We talked as a group yesterday about what worked and what didn't and after some corrections we are finally ready to begin more fully designing some of the spaces.

The Building Shell

I am really excited about tomorrow and the presentation of our take on the building shell.  I have been out of class but now, coming back, I am really excited about the use of the site that we are incorporating in the design.  We have stretched our building across approximately half the site and have had discussions on layout, adjacency, and then on Monday had a really interesting discussion about interior transportation of the building.  We imagine encouraging the use of bicycles INSIDE the building.  This is going to provide a way to get across an excessively long corridor as well as provide visual interest to the core.  I have been sketching this concept and will post soon with the scanned images.

A precedent that I forgot to mention...

This is the Nanyang Technological University in Singapore.  This building inspired our archs of greenery and was precedent for a building that works with the ground plane.

Finally A Light Bulb

So we met for class today to discuss our ideas for the project and presentation.  Travis suggested to our group to think more abstractly and take the form of the "building" farther underground.  So, being really stuck on the relatively straightforward shape of the building, we decided to take a break to come up with some fresh ideas that still relate to the concept.  We have now been modeling for three hours and I think we finally came up with something that is abstract, interesting, and involves more of a manipulation of the site. 

I came up with this model after realizing the true importance of our concept lies in the middle of the two sections.  I envision a community space that is open to the outdoors but completely underground and the program spreading from side to side, underground accordingly.

This is a sketch of Stacy's that better shows the ground plane.

This form represents the "coming together of the two, now-separate segments that are education and community.

Group Sketching

Group earthworm found a common theme in our drawings and as we looked over our goals, we found that public(community) vs. private(educational) was a main concern of everyone's.  So we decided that the private should be less accessible to the public by putting it higher above ground level.  We eventually came up with a chart like this.

Once we had a common goal, we took a while to draw out some fresh ideas.  We knew we all enjoyed the interaction of the land with the building and we all wanted to incorporate more organic shapes.

Finally we began to see a common shape emerging.  This wrapping type symbol puts emphasis on the connection of public and private, educational and community.  We were all happy to have found such a good way to emphasis the literal purpose of the project in such an abstract shape.

Manipulating the Ground

After studying site manipulation as a trench, I began to work with creating variety in the site by manipulating the ground plane in other ways.

I also began to program certain general areas to get an idea of the circulation that was possible in this kind of building.

Expanding

This is an idea that I came up with after we discussed my "trench" in class.  It was really interesting to draw but really impractical for the site. 

This was a second take on the trench idea.  I imagined using pathways to create interest from the road and intersecting them to provide a feeling of unity among those who would use it.

NEW IDEAS

So I spent all weekend trying to come up with new ideas for the site manipulation group ("group earthworm").  I am really fascinated with the idea of an underground building but completely stumped by how to maintain natural light throughout.  Another hitch is that I want the building to be visible from the road which is proving difficult.  I have been working with ways to drag the eye down and create interest (shown above).

Here are all the sketches....

Here are a few more models

The New View

These are the models I made Tuesday in class.  I was concentrating on a concept related to the railroad.  I think that it would be a good way to connect the college to the twon and also provide a linear program that more closely relates to the site.

When I talked to Travis, he made me more aware of the site in relation to the building and suggested stretching the footprint across the whole site.  That is what I am working on now.