Week 4: Update

Well  This week was certainly challenging, and i haven't made as much progress with getting into my building per se, but I am starting to get a better understanding of what the frame work will be for this project.  Every day I feel more and more confident about the placement of my new alignment.  To help lift its importance I generated three likely models of where the alignment could possibly be placed in relation to my site.  Some intuitive attempts at some site massing has got me thinking about scale, and how the site will be used throughout its development.

schem 1.  Connected by plaza; Street car Cuts through Site

Scheme 2:  Streetcar meets up with LRT.  Shared Platform

Scheme 3:  Street car on 99th,  200 ft distance

 Im leaning towards the last scheme.  It has a great opportunity to use the lobby of my building as a place for the connection to occur.

I filled most of my week by going to a handful of different lectures, about one a day.  Symposium on monday, Brian Cavanugh Wednesday, Teddy Cruz Thursday and finally finishing with Emily Pilloton on Friday.  All were amazing tspeakers and surprisingly shared a similar theme of humanity and using our design capabilities as work towards a less architectural outcome.

This up coming week I will be attempting to set in stone the three phases of my project which will be heavily tied to program

Phase 1: Ted X/School and alignment
Phase 2:  Retail/ office
Phase 3:  Residential

The trick here will be creating building that will be able to share similar cores or have foot prints that allow for the addition of future cores/ lobbies.  I think the best solution for dealing with this anticipated future growth is some type of generative design.  THere are certain forms that generally lend themselves better for allowing growth to occur in a cohesive matter for example squares interlocked with hexagons, etc...  These types of relationships also lend themselves well to structural systems which is important when considering future upward growth.

andrew kudless

louis Kahns dia-grid structure

Im really interested in how phase 1 will inform phase 2 and so on.  It is important that each phase allows for the next to happen yet during its solo existence doesn't look incomplete.  There is still a lot of work left to do, but I feel like once I resolve these urban issues the rest of the building will just fall into place.