Design Fever

After our 36-hour charrette, we shook up the groups and sites, and I found myself with a completely new group. I'm pleased with this--the new group is more diverse than the other was, and the three who originally formed the group had come up with a really strong idea. I was excited to take the knowledge I had gained from the charrette and apply it to a new project.

My workload in my other classes was a bit lighter this past week, which enabled me to really immerse myself in design work for studio in recognition of our deadline, next Friday. And good thing, too, since I got knocked on my back by a 103 degree fever on Monday! Lots of sleep and fluids chased away the fever and brought my energy levels back up, but I still don't have a voice...which could make group discussion a little difficult.

My role in the group has been to hammer out the program of each building on the site, establish how much square footage is needed for each, and use that information to begin schematic design for each building. It's a huge effort and there is no way our buildings will be fully designed by Friday, but I have really been plugging away at it--partly because I'm really feeling inspired and motivated, and partly because this is the part of the design process I am best at. Each building has been through two or three iterations at this point, which means they are nowhere near finished, but we are certainly learning more and more about what we want them to look like and what they are going to be.

We knew we wanted the site to be populated by business professionals, but we are also expanding our residences to singles and childless couples. (Not that our site will be hostile to kids, just that all our apartments are one-bedrooms, and none of the programs on-site are specifically directed at kids.) With this in mind it is easier to figure out how to tailor our buildings to these people. I have been spending a lot of time laying out units--again, not with the intent of creating a final design, but rather just to see how the layout of apartments will influence the building's shape, and to get a rough estimate of how many units we can build. I absolutely LOVE residential design, so this has been a really fun challenge.

One of the biggest struggles so far has been facade. I have always struggled with facade, for whatever reason, but this site is especially tricky. Since it is an entire block, every face that is located along the street needs to be engaging and welcoming; that is simply responsible urban design. Our project has an extra layer of trickiness, though, because of the rehabilitated alley that bisects the site. We are adding a super cool shading device to it and making it welcoming to pedestrians. This means that the alley-side facades have to be engaging and welcoming, too, but have to negotiate with the shading device. It's tricky but I think it will be really cool when it's done!