Thesis Process Blog

This week was a continued refinement of the scheme, with the greatest challenge being how to tie the landscape with the building. The upper office portion intentionally segregates and disregards the landscape below, but the production facility which is partially embedded takes on and responds to the adjacent landscape. I attempted to make the structure respond accordingly to where the mounds (randomly) appear along the east facade by extending struts into the landscape at an angle so they appear to be ‘drawn’ toward the land and ‘repelled’ by the water. It is only somewhat successful, so I am going to have to try something else.

Otherwise I spent much of my time adding details to the model and building Revit families.

Street

South

Interior

Plans

This week was a complete tear-down and rebuild of my whole project. After the 180° turn from last week I have put in many, many hours with my Revit model. Some major changes include:

• Jacking up the diagonal commuter railway on piers and letting the mound landscape flow below – solving the problem of the railway by eliminating its impact on the site.
• Using the piers to to envelop the raised office bar, rather than piece it.
• Add a roadway in front of the building running north-south.
• Preserve the idea of an exterior southern courtyard, as well as add an interior one.
• Bury the west elevation into the hillside and let the landscape flow over it.
• Add a bar to be used as a beacon as well as for light above the production area on the west side.

I also had to break my model into worksets and shut off the majority of the site and tree, etc so that I am able to effectively work on only a portion at a time.

Below are some plans and images of this weeks’ work:

 

Week 8’s big event was my pre-interim presentation. It was the first time that I was able to get my whole committee together for a meeting – and the only time they could was Thursday over lunch (before studio, but after morning classes). Needless to say, the presentation was rather rushed, but I was able to get all of the information across that I wanted.

Unfortunately, the committee did not care for my site change. I did it to solve issues with the diagonal railway, but as Kyle pointed out, it simply created bigger problems of access, orientation, etc. They also criticized the varied systems of organization and all the stupid ramps.

However, not all is lost. My committee did appreciate the usage of channel glass for the stairway and corten steel panels for some of the facades, as well as a number of other design choices with the office level especially. But, overall, back to the drawing board.

Below is the presentation: