After the pin-up on Friday, I feel as though I am headed in the right direction with my design concept and ideas, but I need to refine them in order to move forward with the project. The concept of “life behind the wall” seems to have potential because it deals with the greatest issue of the site, the highways, yet it needs further development in order to work with the other areas of the site. I think that the concept can be strengthened by creating a relationship between the wall and the other programmatic spaces. For example, one of the reviewers suggested that the wall become the “high density” area and as you move away from the it the spaces become less dense. This is just one idea but it begins to form a concept that can be applied to all areas of the design, both the small and large scale.

I think that I am getting closer to developing an urban vision that will support the project. Right now I have been trying to create too many types of spaces on the urban scale. I need to now focus on the primary rout to my site so that there is just one developed axis and the others become secondary.

The project lends itself very well to district sustainability because, due to the nature of Gateway, there is a significant amount of excess energy. There are strong possibilities for heat exchange between Fred Meyer and my project, as well as other buildings that may be developed in the future. The vast amounts of impervious surfaces can become excellent ways to capture rain water and there are hundreds of square feet of roofs that can be used to harvest solar energy as well as green roofs. With all the potential in the district, the question becomes how can my project use all these resources.

My next step will be to refine my concept so that I can apply it to the site and begin to place the program into the concept.