Sculpting Biosynergies 2011

The review went fine. When there are only a few weeks left, I already know what I need to work on.

see the board here

After the review, I’m back on re-working on the organization of landscape and the relationship between the transparent strips connecting the theaters and the exterior space under the freeway, as well as the walkway to the floating box in the river. The idea is to use nature to filter the air quality from the freeway before it reaches the building while allowing natural lights to get through at the same time.

I feel like things are moving in the good direction.  There’s a lot of work to do in the next few weeks.

First Review

The environmental review last Monday helped solidify many of my passive strategies I am integrating into my design.  I’ve diagrammed solar, wind and water concepts along while formulating my wall section and roof form.  I feel like I have analyzed various viewpoints of my building on many scales and that I’ve 90% synthesized my design.

This feeling was reflected in many of the juror’s comments and feedback.  Actually all three of my jurors were intimately familiar with Latin America having traveled or worked remotely in Panama and Colombia.  Both offered new insight into my design proposal but commented that my process and means of arrival for the final design was clear.  That felt great to hear.  I feel on a firm foundation for my final review.  I do have a few design issues to resolve but will quickly wrap up to move forward.

What is the intimidation I’m keeping at bay is the amount of production work ahead over the next three weeks.  I’m currently hashing out the plan to condense and clarify ideas to cleanly and beautifully represent in my final presentation.  I have a fair amount of design information and the space allotted is minimal and time is of the essence.

Here is a link to my DRAFT portfolio we were assigned to put together.  Given the number of sketchiness and place holders, I was hesitant to publish it on Issuu, but here it is with my initial abstract bundled in.  I plan to update these both while final drawings come to fruition.

Monday’s review of the “environmental” aspects of our project felt somewhat like a dress rehearsal for the final (final!) review in a few weeks. If I’ve learned anything here at U of O it’s that there are basic rule of thumb concepts that everyone should know about air, water and sun in regards to buildings but those concepts can be taken to extremely complicated engineered solutions. I’m not an engineer so striking a balance between understanding the basics of passive design and “getting” the design intent of the more advanced application and understanding how to ask questions about its appropriateness to the project is really where I wanted to focus for this review.

Primarily I’ve been looking at using natural ventilation and a double skin facade to take advantage of my buildings being aligned along prevailing winds. The panels posted below summarize what I chose to focus on for the review. If anything, at this point I think I’ve been getting better at tailoring the drawings I put up to what I want to talk about and I felt like it helped focus the conversation. My favorite comment went something like this

“You’ve got the amount of work an army would spend years doing to think about in 3 weeks so just ignore everything we just told you to change and focus on one thing.”

This may be the single most helpful comment I’ve ever received in a review because then they actually helped me figure out what I wanted to focus on, how to think about it and how to accomplish it in a short period of time. bam. done. Below are my boards.

My reviews on Monday were pleasantly focused on specific issues that I wanted to target, namely, the use of space on the terrace level, hvac system issues, and designing the details of the retractable roof pieces over the market.  Regarding the use of space on the terrace, Susan Emmons Poss confirmed my primary strategy of a combination of garden areas, play areas, and gathering areas linked by paths.  I need to work a lot on how the covered spaces are articulated in relation to the market roof.  Her main concern about the terrace was how easy it would be for people to climb on the roof of the market from the terrace.  I have not yet figured out how to resolve this.  My choices?  a)barbed wire fence b)pretend that the problem doesn’t exist c)make the roof walkable d) create a separatation between the roof and the terrace e) build some sort of wall around the terrace.  I hope to resolve the question on Saturday.  After speaking with Susan, I spoke with another helpful landscape architect who convinced me that I need to break up the scale of my entry plaza.  Sean Scott helped me work out my HVAC system, to which I need to add a central forced air heat pump system at the culinary school.  We also discussed simplifying my ideas about the retractable fabric roof.

I feel pretty good moving forward.  Two major design issues remain, how the market roof meets the northern housing block, and the exact design of the columns and curb of the podium.  Below are a few sketches of landscaping, a summary of my energy saving strategies, and a sectional perspective show a first draft of my HVAC and water systems.  This will probably be my last post before final reviews.  Wish me luck!