Author Archives: jrosent2@uoregon.edu

Zipper Space

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Zipper Space

 

Josh Rosenthal Final Review Board Opt-1ggyoen

Zipper Space:

Your favorite park is in danger. The park that you played in while growing up. The park that you had your first date in. The park that has been the site of picnics, family reunions, and celebrations. A developer has fenced off the park to turn into a private housing complex and you will never be able to use the site again. In the future, more parks around cities are going to suffer a similar fate. The cause: diminishing urban lands. Due to population increases and a higher need for housing, more public lands will be turned over for private development, making parkland a rarity in the center of the city.

The solution to this problem is to bring the public space back into the city in the form of a vertical park. This park would be surrounded by community spaces and flexible, high-density apartments to make the most use of the land.

The form of this tower will be iconic, an emblem of the movement to bring land back to the city and an attraction to draw people in. The form is split in half with a park running up the center, which has been termed the zipper. The form of the tower undulates in response to the wind, opening in some segments for wind turbines while becoming more closed in other segments to shelter the park. The southern face of the building has a double skin façade serving as a form of insulation for the tower. A shading device that responds to solar radiation covers the double skin façade. The tower is also designed to treat three types of water to become potable: rain, grey, and runoff. Rainwater is captured and filtered on the roof. Greywater is captured from the apartment units and then treated by running through a thick, hanging vegetation. Runoff water from the western hills is treated through horizontal basins creating a marsh on the ground plane of the tower.

The tower is approached through a plaza on the northwest side to draw people in from the Aerial Tram and streetcar. The hardscape of the plaza transforms into the marsh as it nears the Willamette River while passing under a large entrance canopy termed the apron. From here, the park is entered as a tributary of this marsh. The park is grounded by a grand staircase which leads up to the many levels. Throughout, fields can be used for playing, hills can be used as seats, and circular benches can be used for meeting. A scissor stair connects the park leading to mezzanines where the stairs meet which act as socialization spaces. The park is located primarily on the south side of the while community spaces are placed on the north for views of Downtown Portland. The units are accessed via elevator cores on either side of the zipper. They are highly flexible and can be combined in multiple ways. Each unit contains a small private garden for relaxation at the end of the day.

Most useful review comments:

Narrow your focus to only one thing and really push it: For example, Michael successfully did this with carbon and brought it to the full extent that it can possibly go. For me, I would have been able to further develop the park if I had focused entirely on it. I plan to do this in the time between now and the competition deadline in order to further nail down the concept

Make sure that your presentation is as clear as possible: For me, I still was not able to iron out my poster to the best arrangement possible. I also did not have the best verbal presentation, which may have been hard to follow at points. The main points should be clearly highlighted with the others more removed.

What I Learned:

A good graphic arrangement is key to making the presentation. My arrangement is currently too muddled and needs to be fixed again before submission.

A convincing presentation will also make or break your project. I still need to work on my presentation skills, which will hopefully be ironed out either through summer internships or through subsequent reviews.

Adjustments:

I will have more time now to further develop the park using even more precedents and also through the comments that the reviewers gave me. I would like to have a section render of the park going up the center of the page like a zipper that will have even more variation than what was there before but still using the same interventions and architectural principles. I would also like a clear visualization of the base condition of the park as that is also important. I will likely rotate the canopy render so that you can see the base through the entrance. Wind turbines will still interrupt the park as I like the idea and it adds to the form. This segmentation adds an interesting element to the tower making it so that each park space can have a unique character. For example, one segment can be the Japanese inspired garden, one segment can be the English inspired garden, and one segment can be the modern/futuristic garden. Another possibility is that each segment can become its own attraction with a unique centerpiece visible from the ground so that people will continue up the tower.

Midterm 2 Josh

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Midterm 2 Josh

Midterm 2 Studio Josh Rosenthal-1ounmwz

Vision (Revised since review):

A person is walking up the sidewalk on a bustling city street when the sidewalk curves into a giant atrium out of which flows a vertical city park, reaching up to the sky.  The person boards a glass fronted elevator and rises through layers of park until breaking the tree-line, passing a giant wind turbine, and flying back into a park.  As they rise to their level of the building, the person observes the public enjoying the park including playing children, barking dogs, and the relaxing elderly reading a book on a grassy incline.  A brief stroll through the park past bio-vertical water treatment installations brings the person to a community space opening broadly onto the park. Residents of the community are enjoying a group dinner just steps away from the amenities of the park, overlooking the display.  After a brief conversation, the person reaches their unit, turns on the stove, and collects herbs from their garden.  After dinner, they sit comfortably on their rooftop garden and enjoy the view of the city far below.  This vertical community addresses the problem of diminishing urban land, and issue that is starting to plague major cities and will only get worse over time causing issues such as sprawl and a rising cost of living.  By introducing as much community space into the tower as possible, the tower has the same qualities as a low-rise neighborhood that would cover many city blocks.

Reviewer Suggestions:

  • The community spaces at the edges of the tower are currently overly large lowering the efficiency of the building, the building should be pinched more north to south leaving the community spaces at the far ends
  • Another possibility for the community spaces is to move the cores farther from the garden and have the community spaces open up onto it (one zipper)
  • There are currently too many stairwells on a single floor plate and too much space is allocated towards a community stair, the feature should only be included every other floor.
  • Make the gardens and community spaces as convincing as possible to sell the scheme
  • Highlight the gardens and community spaces more on the plan
  • Make the west side of the crown taller and place an observation deck to highlight the view of Mt. Hood
  • Make sure that each side only has three elevators and implement a scissors stair on each side in replacement to allow for two exit paths per enclosed section of building
  • Include less unit plans and more targeted unit plans to conserve space and highlight the private gardens in the social space
  • Provide a better diagram for the double skin facade
  • Make the base one open pathway highlighting the atrium above

Personal Goals:

  • Further push the design of the gardens to eventually lead to a very detailed perspective render of the space with smiling people in similar quality to my full building render
  • Push the idea of community spaces at the edge of the gardens for more privacy for individual units and research even more methods for social interaction clearly visualizing them in a render
  • Further develop the podium so it does not have to be covered by trees in the main render anymore
  • Develop more private community spaces at the edges of the tower for retreat and access to the best views
  • Increase the graphic quality of all diagrams and further push the green and orange color scheme
  • Experiment with different crown forms to see which element best caps off the building while providing a sustainable and community friendly impact

Josh Rosenthal Midterm Reflection

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Josh Rosenthal Midterm Reflection

[embeddoc url=”https://blogs.uoregon.edu/ecotopia/files/2017/04/Josh-Rosenthal-Midterm.compressed-1qbfswj.pdf” download=”all” viewer=”google” ]

Vision:

A person is walking along the sidewalk on a busy city street.  Slowly, the sidewalk starts to slope upwards through a path of gardens and businesses until it becomes a fully vertical pathway of circulation.  The person has reached the main street of a new vertical community containing shops, restaurants, and other amenities essential for life to flourish.  From this point, they can either climb up the street or ride an elevator to their respective floor.  Upon reaching the desired level, they enter a small neighborhood plaza of the city where neighbors gather to interact.  After entering their unit, they walk up a short stair and relax on their private sky garden after a stressful day at work.  This vertical community addresses the problem of diminishing urban land, and issue that is starting to plague major cities and will only get worse over time causing issues such as sprawl and a rising cost of living.  By introducing as much community space into the tower as possible, the tower has the same qualities as a low-rise neighborhood that would cover many city blocks.

 

Strengths:

The strengths of the project in its current state are that it is heading towards the vision that I have described above.  The module that I have developed will still work for the project due to its allowance for flexible spaces upon combination.  I feel as though the vertical zipper is a strong idea which I will have fun developing over the remainder of the term.

Lessons Learned:

The unit layout in its current state is not as flexible as it can be for combinations of units.  The major issue is that the units connect at the bedroom and should be connecting at the living room for a full embrace of community.  The double height space at the center of the units is also wasting space as it is too luxurious.  In terms of community organization, the areas around the core that I currently have marked as community space will be overly dark and are also too tall to be considered a good use of space.  I have also not thought enough about solar exposure for the building and how to incorporate other sustainable strategies.  I learned about several sustainable strategies from Tom Hahn.  These include how to orient openings in the building to scoop up the wind and how to collect water through the zipper feature.

 

Bringing it Forward:

In order to bring my project forward, I am going to first focus on how to rearrange the floor plans of the units for more possibilities including how to connect them vertically.  I will then rearrange the typical tower floor plan according to data that I will collect from the site.  I would like to also figure out how to integrate businesses into the zipper area of the tower in an appropriate way.  I am thinking about limiting to only two zippers, one for the public and one for the private residences.  I am also devising how to rearrange the core in order to enhance this process.