Elevations

As a group, we are still sticking to the original deadline of April 30, so we are getting into the details of plans, sections, and elevations. I drew up some very basic elevations to show where the slope of the land interacts with our building. I am working on sections now to show floorplates and how they work with the ground plane. This is helping us who are working on the interior decide where we can place windows and entryways and such. I am also trying to figure out how the bike lane interacts with the site. We decided on having an underground loading dock to access the bookstore and cafe, so as not to disturb the site by throwing in a large loading dock in our prime landscaped areas.

LEED credits

So since I am overwhelmed with LEED info right now, and we are incorporating sustainability into our building, I am making a list of all the LEED credits we might be able to achieve for this project. I'm going to assume we can get all the prerequistes, and since we aren't going into huge detail about the mechanical systems, I'm only going to assume the two required points for the Energy and Atmosphere category. Credits we could achieve so far:
Sustainable Sites: 1, 2, 4.1, 4.2, 4.4, 5.1, 5.2, 6.1, 7.1, 7.2, 8 (11 total)
Water Efficiency: 1.1, 1.2, 2, 3.1, 3.2 (5 total)
Energy and Atmosphere: 1-worth 2 pts (2 total)
Materials and Resources: 2.1, 2.2, 3.1, 4.1, 4.2, 5.1, 7 (7 total)
Environmental Quality: 1, 2, 3.1, 4.1, 4.2, 5, 6.1, 8.1, 8.2 (9 total)
Innovation and Design: 2 (1 total)

Total 35 credits = LEED Silver

Since we have no budget and don't know anything about HVAC systems, it's hard to estimate the EA credits and percentages for the MR credits, but we are looking at materials that are recycled, regional, and salvaged. We have a 100% green roof, contributing to some SS credits, and since our building is very narrow, its possible to have views and daylight in much of the space (EQ c8). Once we get closer to the end, I will look at this again and see if we could implement more credits into our design.

Moving Forward some more...

Today at our meeting, we discussed in more detail materials we plan on using for our project. Since we have such an organic form on the exterior, we are going for a contrasted interior with a more industrial material palette, with certain elements connecting the exterior and interior.

We also talked about our concept. We've had this gesture since the beginning of the project, but needed a more solid concept to inform the interior spaces of the building. We came up with a few words that are key in our building design:

interlocking, layering, centralized

With these words we are developing a concept statement that incorporates these words and states in the intent of our building design.

We discussed circulation a bit and also what needs to happen next with the bike lane. We are trying to figure out how the bike lane connects to the site and what happens at the ends of the bike lane.

Moving Forward

We are moving along at a good pace, haven't had any major roadblocks yet, and are developing our building further and further each day. I think we are at a good point where we can start putting out some somewhat solidified plans and sections. We need to develop a more solid concept as a group, since we are working as individuals on some parts of the building, so that everything comes together nicely, and looks like it was designed as a group, not several different designs trying to exist under one roof (or several roofs in our case). We've nailed down some color choices and are continuing our materials studies today. Once we have materials chosen, it will help limit our choices, and make our individual spaces more cohesive. I think we are at a good point design-wise and have some things that need to be worked out, but I think we can dive deeper and really start to nail some of this stuff down. Let's keep up the good work, and not forget about our deadlines (two weeks from Tuesday was our goal, I want to try to make that happen!!)

Bike Lane

We have been working on the interiors of the building and dividing up spaces. I think we have a general layout of where we want everything in the building, and are working towards getting floorplans. I have been working in Sketchup to further develop some of the spaces. For the individual assignment, I am working on retail design, which includes the bookstore and supply shop. After doing some sketches of general ideas, I put them in Sketchup and combined them. Some ideas where the clear wall being the entry into the space, and the curving elements along the back wall serving as shelves for art supplies as well as display areas for merchandise.

Also, I have been working on the bike lane that we are proposing to run the length of our 800' long building. The bike lane is elevated 8' AFF on the main level, which is 16' high, allowing enough head room below and above the bike lane. I have been working with the space under the bike lane and trying to create some lounge areas and various elements under the bike lane to avoid creating a long straight path down the length of the building. With the shape of our building, we are going to run into the issue of having a long narrow walkway and having rooms on either side, so we have been discussing ways to break up the space, including punch-throughs to the exterior, and interior grouping of rooms with break-out spaces in between.

Building Form! (subject to change)

We have a building form! or so we think. It's almost 800' long and 75' wide (don't think we'll be getting the LEED SSc5.2-Open Space credit). But we will be getting SSc4.2 for the bike lanes incorporated into our building. Since it is so long, we needed a way for students to get back and forth between two ends of the building. I have some diagrams for potential programming of spaces. I think it goes along with what we discussed as a group, but can be changed if need be. Since this building is so massive, I think for the interiors part, we are going to focus on a few key parts of the building rather than trying to detail every part of it. The spaces we plan to detail are the core, auditorium, event space, lounge areas, bike lane, and part of the community space, a section of the studios, and maybe more if need be.

Retail design sketches

Since I am developing the retail spaces of the building including the bookstore, art supply store, and maybe part of the fresh market (overlapping with the food service design), I made a few sketches, keeping in mind materials and big gestures to make the space interesting. I don't see either of these being used necessarily for these projects, as I was thinking about thesis when I drew the first one, but still can incorporate some of these big gestures, like the curving shapes stretching from the wall to the ceiling, and the curving shape on the ceiling in the lower one. The lower one is modified from a picture in a magazine, before I get some kind of copyright infrigment, so I am not taking credit for the design but am using it as more of a precedent study. I am working on some more sketches and will continue to develop these spaces as we start to divide up square footage of the building.