One of many. We had our midterm on Monday (actually, we have a second one coming up in a week and a half – its nice to be able to re-scheme and have it reviewed before the final, so that you have some time to develop more fully). I got some not particularly clear feedback, but the gist is that I’m thinking about fairly drastic changes to my project. The project is a wetlands education complex on the western edge of Eugene. You can see actual information about this place and project here.
My basic scheme will remain the same, I think. I’m running site circulation up from the bike path on the southern edge of the site, through my linear hilltop grouping of buildings, and splitting it between an observation “telescope” and back down to the bike path. Three main buildings interface with the path – a staff building to house the office functions of the the various wetlands protection partners; a community building to provide a meeting place for citizens involved with the wetlands; and an education building where the school programs they currently run will have a permanent home.
Really, what’s in question is the making of the buildings. In my presentation, because of how schematic it was, it appeared that structure would run through exterior walls, and activities would take place within little boxes all related to each other through a single, thin interface.
My concepts, though, are much more about layering, about a switch-rich architecture. I’m not sure how to express this, though. In my desk crit today, Don and I discussed the method of creating simple superstructures with boxes inside that shape the overall shape and offer convenient ways to define specific rooms within larger, catchall spaces. However, there’s something about this method that I’m resisting. In some ways, it just seems too simplistic. It doesn’t have very much more depth to it than a more traditional room arrangement – although I guess that has in part to do with how the boxes themselves are constructed.
One of the other thoughts is to use the somewhat complex roof structures that I was beginning to develop and bring them to a more tight configuration that spoke clearly to the spaces they defined. There’s something I’m a bit uncomfortable about with the potential for not just exposing the primary structure, but making it do acrobatics. I don’t think this place wants to be ostentatious. I think this method has a lot of promise, since I’m not sure that it necessarily becomes ostentatious…
Thirdly, there’s an idea that I’m floating around with that I thought might be a bit Fay Jones, but when I looked at his work, it didn’t seem particularly relevant. Its a more delicate use of structure – a bit more on the stick framing side of things – but without the sheet-rock. I looked again at the Viikki Church and I think that its a good start. This is what I’ve been trying to get at with the Radical Tectonics, but I’m really not quite sure what I’m aiming at. The Atlantic Center for the Arts has some of it…and the building I took my original inspiration from, the Institute for Forestry and Nature Research in the Netherlandsalso has it in certain ways. I guess I’m trying to find something with a bit more depth to the wall than the first and a bit more simplicity than the second.
Well, I’ve fuffed on, and I’m not sure any of it is particularly clear. What it comes down to, though, is that I’m ascribing this great meaning to this doubling and tripling of the walls. That I want some kind of depth to these spaces, but I don’t know how or why.