Midterm Feedback

My midterm review provided important feedback on my project, and on the background information that is missing from my presentation.  The review itself was pretty rough, and I hope not to go through a similar experience come finals week.

The biggest criticism of my project was that I had not clearly made a case for why my site was the best location for the local  foods center.  I will resolve this over the weekend by producing graphics that show analysis of the market potential for a grocery store in downtown Reno,  a brief study of available sites in regard to a set list of criteria, and an improved site plan that better shows how my building fits into the urban context.   When we got closer to speaking of the architecture, I feel that my building parti was well recieved, though I will need to re-work my plans per a few of the reviewers criticisms.

Going into the midterm, I was feeling pretty good about my progress, and though I have to go back and revisit some aspects of my project before I can move forward, I think that my project will be better for it.  I definitely had fun producing the plans and sections for the midterm – they are a combination of computer drawings, ink, colored pencil, and colored paper.  Using the plans and sections to show the spacial configuration as well as how that spacial configuration changes over the seasons is a bit difficult, I hope during the next round that I can go further in making this information more legible.  I’ve also been making models that explore different types of physical transformations that might occur in the building, I want to make a lot more of these, but I will probably wait on that until I get a tighter handle on my building.  Below are some of the images from the midterm and some animated gifs showing my kinetic models.