Zidell Landing was created from the idea that the good design of a building goes beyond the inside layout. For the project I focused on the urban design of the buildings and how they worked at the ground level to create opportunities for the people to interact and see this complex as a destination spot. The Zidell Yards location in the South Waterfront is undergoing lots of renovation right now, with lots of tall buildings and towers going up with offices and condos. What this place needs now is something to attract people. It needs the ground level interaction that the south waterfront isn’t as strong at conveying. By creating a plaza between the buildings and a pier that goes out to engage with the water, it strengthens the connection to the people. Park and urban spaces relate this to the destination spots up river by the Saturday market where people hang around the waterfront on the lawns all day. The Zidell Site is next to the new Tilikum Crossing pedestrian bridge which is also connected to the Trimet system allowing visitors to pass through and connect more to downtown. My hope is that by creating a hub it will draw life to the complex and lower south waterfront, and when you do that the project as a whole becomes sustainable on a economic point of view. The screens on the building help to shade the harshest direct sun while still being oriented to nice views out to the city, river, or hills of portland.
Since my renderings have more of a conceptual feel to them I think I should emphasize that and create a rendering that more wholly represents that instead of trying to create a photorealistic view of my building integrated into the site. I think this is more the style and skill level that I am at right now in my studies and I think it is and will be the best way to show my project and what I am trying to accomplish.
I have realized that I need to keep increasing my knowledge of computer rendering skills and have found that I need to explore ideas and just experiment more. When I do draw and just go through a lot of ideas quickly I come up with lots of ideas and I think that I skipped this step more than a few times this term. But in doing so I have found how I work best and ways that I can create and show my ideas quickly and in mass quantities that way I have more time to polish the idea in other media for better visual representation.
For me continuing to learn the various technologies and methods to arrive at the end goal is going to be most useful. But also going through several iterations of each idea to really see if what I have is the idea that I want to go with and be able to use various medias to create the feelings and experiences that I want you to have in the places that I am designing.
