This week’s goal: look at my original concept drawings, improve upon them and make the idea stronger. That being said my original concept was a plane suspended beneath the interstate that creates a more habitable location for a building, people and landscape. I’m lucky in that the interstate is around 60 feet at its lowest point on my site so shadows and over all dingy darkness aren’t much of an issue, however, the constant hum of traffic and the subsequent air pollution from thousands of vehicles speeding overhead are issues I’d like to mitigate with this plane. The idea originated from the visual quality of acoustic panels hang in a theater and swoop in towards the stage and direct your eyes to the main event. The idea is to nestle the program for the science education resource center beneath this protective plane. In addition to giving the site an element that qualitatively contrasts with the interstate its materiality would serve as an indicator of the site’s health. The images below show a project done by students at Carnegie Mellon University that use sensors to create colorful effects based on the level of nitrogen dioxide, ozone and particles in the air. See real life examples here.
"Air de Paris" – in Parc Andre Citroën in Paris
"Air Quality Balloons" by students at Carnegie Mellon University
On a slightly related note I’ve been thinking about this diagram for about a week now I sat down and made it finally. I read an article about a study done by UCLA that examined the distance air pollution actually spreads from freeways. They found that the plume could spread nearly 1.5 miles as for this diagram I wanted to map that radius out from the site and examine the prevailing summer and winter winds that could move the air pollution away from the freeway.
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