Macro/Micro Progress and Next Steps

My macro study was the development of a new urban plan for the Freight House Redevelopment District and a study of how to improve the downtown river walk, connecting it to my site and through to the baseball stadium.  Previously, I had imagined my Center For Local Foods as providing a new extention of the river walk, but now I think it can also be seen as a gateway to a new district linking the baseball stadium, the new events center, and the bowling stadium to the river walk.

My micro study was a detail-obsessed death spiral investigation into a material that I probably won’t be using.  I chose to investigate bi-metallic strips for their property of curving or straightening as the temperature changes.  I thinking I’ve is that their use at an architectural scale is limited due to this shape changing being too subtle.  Here are links that summarize what I learned, and a shadow study for a wall with curving metal panels.  Moving forward, I want to investigate memory shape alloys to see if they are possibly more applicable.  I do think that using a material that dramatically changes as the season change, somewhere on my building, is still part of my plan.

The feedback from my review was helpful.  I feel that I’ve taken the urban study far enough, though at some point I will probably want to create some vignettes showing the character of the corridor from my site north toward the events center.  The massing schemes that I showed at the review went over like lead balloons.  The primary feedback was that I need to integrate the different use blocks that I have right now into a more singular, interwoven scheme.  I tend to agree.  Secondly, the reviewers seemed to think that I needed a better way of mediating the scale of / utilizing the large parking garage.  I tend to agree with that as well.  I think my concern about the shading of that building might be a little overblown.  I should keep shading as a concern, but not let it worry me so much.  Moving forward, I need to work more in section, create a lot of quick study/massing models, and continue building on the story of how the program elements work together.