Week 3: Update

This week I spent most of my time working out my grasshopper script for my material study and preparing materials for our review.  So I didn't have a whole lot of time to refine my urban plan or site plan.

I feel like my material study was rather successful. Although I did not get a chance to cast all three lifts (due to time issues and materials)  I was able to prove to myself that I am capable of using grasshopper to model form work for casting wall-like forms.  Im not sure how this will inform my building since I am still in the urban planning phase/conceptual but I will be thinking of applications for this as my project develops. Id really like to find a way to reuse the form work in the project.  Maybe as a suspended ceiling, a flooring or a screen.  It just seems to make sense.  If I am going through all the effort to make sophisticated form work, it would be a shame to then throw it away after its task are over.

Ah the review.  The review was really helpful. So far I keep envisioning my project as this do all be all thing that totally reinvents the gateway neighborhood through the eco-district initiative.  But this has been keeping my project from getting anywhere because 1. Im not and eco-district expert 2. Im only one person and 3. the urban planning efforts needed to do this would most likely take years.  The reviewers had a very simple suggestion, "Do this project in the context or in light of an eco-district, rather than actually making an eco-district."  This has really been liberating.  Second they help instruct me on what to do about my streetcar aspect.  They are absolutely right, it doesnt make sense in a context of increasing multi-modal transit to place the streetcar stop 4 portland blocks away.

I am going to approach this project with strong assumptions.
1. That eco-districts are important to this neighborhood and increasing/providing "mobility" options is key.
2.  That Urbanization of this area is important and will occur over the next 50 yrs.
3.  Lastly a mixture of habitat while developing this area is crucial.

This assumption will begin to act as parameter that will dictate my project and also make sure that this project will fulfill some of the goals associated with the development of eco-districs.

This upcoming week i am going to zoom in onto my site and start developing building forms that are in relation to my concept of growth in phases.