Mid-Term Crit Presentation Material - Precipice (Yes) Bridge (Um... Maybe)

Party - Parti

Building Vision

Building Statement:

To create a form that represents, promotes and encourages the associated balance of outward detached observation and inward reflection that should be part of an architectural education. Additionally the form must:

Address the ‘historic’ neighborhood and rhythm of the adjacent mixed use buildings.
Maintain a modern identity.
Provide comfortable connected yet separate living and working spaces.
Provide protection from the adjacent railroad and highway.
Provide landscaped or green interstitial spaces.
Provide and apply responsible design precedents.

Footprint and Building Design Goals

I went to college in boulder colorado which as a city has quite a bit more involved in its and its citizens impact on the surrounding enviroment etc. I spent quite a bit of time learning about the things that each of us can do to reduce our personal impact on the earth. Recycling, composting, organic local products, public transportation, etc. In Boulder, and in many other areas I'm sure, these things seem more 'convenient goals'. Now living on Columbus Ohio, which has pretty abominable public transportation systems, you must pay to recycle, etc. The easy things to do to reduce my eco footprint have become not as convenient and unfortunatly I have fallen out of the habit of reaching for them as goals. Additionally, it seems as though because the outdoor spaces in the midwest, are not as desirable as maybe other parts of the country there is much less of a desire to 'protect them'??


Goals for the building.

High Importance

Reduce Consumption and Waste...
Use gray water systems, provide motion and time cycled lighting, provide some alternative electrical production, wind, solar, even in the small amounts that may be produced. Every little bit counts. Even provide recycled water systems within the building, if a cruise ship can do it... a building certainly could.

Design with reasonable construction materials...
Many construction materials are or can be recyled. Concrete and steel are easy to get as recycled products, while wood stud is hard. Many finish materials are now convenient to acquire as a recycled material.

Reduce emmissions...
This is kind of included in the other goals, but is important enough to mention on
on its own. When I was a boy scout, we had our moto of 'leave it like you found it' balancing what we take in and what we put out is important.

Low Importance

This might be a more important than low... and I am definetly stealing this issue from Tim S. but... if we are providing living space for 24 people... but keep in mind that this is a distance program... is that space only going to be used for the 8 days during the intensive... 3 times a year?? 24 days out of 364... What a waste...

To make sure that we are providing comfortable spaces... really... people will be living here for 8 days... and you can use history as a precident, people will be getting very little sleep. The living accomodations need to be comfortable, not like the sub-standard hotel that has been provided for this semester. Talk about reducing consumption. 8 days, 24 meals, all eaten out? Not providing any kind of kitchen or anything... talk about consuming processed foods!! Yikes. Is it hypocritical to be teaching us about this... sorry if I am writing this when I am angry... I didn't sleep very well last night. The cooling tower that was on top of my room made me feel like I was sleeping in the back of a semi...

Building location...
I'm assuming that the building will be in Boston... probably in the Back bay... that is good. But access to public transportation is important. It would suck to build it in a corn field in the middle of ohio where people had to fly and rent a car, or drive in from miles and miles.

Speaking of that... how many hours on a plane was one of the eco-footprint questions. Considering most of the class is from ohio... maybe having the intensive in ohio would reduce some global emmissions... just a thought.

See you all soon!!! Bring your own towels, and flip flops for the shower.

Bubble Diagram and Program

If everyone lived like me, we would need 4.8 planets.

Isn't why George Bush is trying to explore the moon, and mars. Now I just gotta find 2.8 more planets. Oh Crap!!! WTF.

More to come later...

Object Space Final

Climate Analysis

Climatic Conclusion for a Building Site in the Boston Area

The analysis of direct solar gain through sky cover, wind speeds, temperature and relative humidity, are all important factors in the design of building systems. The analysis of the site information for our site in Boston has led us to several conclusions. The heating requirement will be much greater than that of the cooling. Alternative passive systems for cooling can be applied in this area due to low levels of relative humidity. Due to a high percentage of cloud cover during the year, solar heat gain and solar power should not be considered as the primary concerns for design.

Cheating? Or Jumping Ahead...?

The intent was to satisfy my original understanding of the assignement. To create a singular object with the geometry that was presented, with the addition of only the three lengths of walls. Columns could be used, but sparingly. It seemed much more challenging to achieve the required transitions with only these objects. Considering we only had certain lenghts of walls, my understanding was that lining up (4) 10' walls to create a 40' wall was not an option.

The reasoning behind the addition the change of height in the walls and the 'ceilings' was an attempt to show the overlap of 2 implied masses. And in that attempt the negative spaces and overlapping spaces that are created from these locations serves to acheive the transitions that were required in the assignment. It is easy to line up walls and columns to create space and transitions, but there are many other tools that designers use to portray a transition, whether it is change in elevation, or color, or room height. To attempt to communicate these things was much more interesting to me than to line up columns, or lengths of walls.

Week 1: Object Space

Back to Boston Again

Just to let anyone who cares know... Joe and I will be arriving in Boston the afternoon of Thursday Aug 16th. To ya know... see the sites. If anyone has plans to arrive early please let us know... there might be some consuming of adult beverages taking place.