Vertical Circulation

This time I really have sorted my design out and to prove it, I even built it on SketchUp  I sorted the scale of the buildings out and because they were smaller, I needed to adjust how I arranged the site. This was simply a case of levelling it out differently to fit in with the buildings. Once I had done this I then needed to work out the vertical circulation through the site. In my original concept, I wanted to create a stepped landscape in which to sit the buildings, this is to make the outside part of the centre and give it a function. I therefore wanted to split the purpose of the step into seating as well as for movement around the site. I want to make spaces that people can sit and watch the kayaking and any other events held at the centre.
Using my SketchUp model, I was able to experiment with different forms and I was able to come up with a layout/design that worked well. The main staircase on the site runs along side the staircase within the building. This is to create the link between interior and exterior. It is also the only set of stairs on the site the doesn't follow the contours of the site. There are two types of steps in my design: the usual height/depth stairs and ones which are double in dimension  These second type allow for visitors to site and watch any events. They all face towards the river as that is where my main point of focus is.

Within my design, I tried to keep the meeting rooms as separated as possible without putting a wall up around the building. I therefore have one staircase directed at that building. 

Damn Scale

After finishing my design today, I was going to start my plans, sections and elevations today. I began by measuring my sketched plan at 1:500. After I had measured everything, I noticed that it was all so big: the race office, for example, has to have a floor area of at least 10m2. My office dimensions were 17x14. I need to work on this! So, looking into materials has gone on hold until I can scale my building properly and get my drawings done. THEN I can look at materials and how to flood proof my building. Fun times 

Design: Check!

 Today I have finally finalised (?) my design. Using the foam board model really helped me to get my head around the site and come up with my design.
I started designing by using card to represent the buildings and placing them on site in various places. I then built it up and the model allowed me to see how the buildings would sit in the landscape and the views available from their positioning. 
Space was still tight so I had to add extra floors to accommodate the office and race office.


The site is spilt by purpose with three buildings. Starting upstream, the first building on site are the meeting rooms. These are separate from the rest of the site to allow privacy for business meetings etc. As well as being out of the way, the rest of the site is hidden from them by the landscape and the main building. The views would be upstream and across the river, meaning that any activity happening downstream doesn't cause distraction.

The next building is the main club building. This consists of the main space, kitchen/bar and its storage, toilets and the office and reception. I began with the building below the level of the car park and having this for the main area but I still needed somewhere for the office. I came to the conclusion that it would have to go on the second storey, level with the car park but I wasn't happy with having a private space to be the first view of the building so I added a reception space to the building and would then have a staircase, mirroring the steps outside, down to the main space. The office would the site behind the reception. Due to it being on the first floor of the building, it would have views across the site, allowing staff to be able to see what is going on at the centre. I aligned the main building to have views down the river and toward the launch site for the kayaks. This focuses all the attention on that part of the site and would also add to the privacy of the business part of the site. 
My third building is the kayak storage and race centre. I positioned this to be in line with the boundary of the car park so as not to obstruct the view from the club building. This building is split into three parts: the storage, changing rooms/toilets and the race office. The storage sits on the lowest part of the site, This is so that the kayaks don't have to be carried down hill to the river. The changing rooms and toilets are located on the next level up on the site with the race office over looking that area of the site on the first floor, level with the car park.

Now that I have the design for my site, I am going to expand on it by carefully planning the interior and the vertical circulation within the main building. I am also going to start looking into materials. As the site has flooded severely in the past, and is therefore likely to do so again, I want to think about this carefully: concrete seems the best option but I don't feel like it would fit into its surroundings very well.

A Happy Accident

So, like I said in my last post, I spent Wednesday afternoon in my room building this site model. (Photos to go up later) I decided to use foam board in the end just for convenience but I could have used cardboard as well. I was originally going to make it to scale - using our site printouts but found that was far too small so I had to improvise and make a rough sketch slightly bigger than the site. I was going to make it completely stepped but realised that this would use a lot more foam board than I had and again improvised by making 6 large/wide 'steps' instead of several smaller ones. This actually worked out better due to the scale and the thickness of the foam board. My original idea was to make the steps from one side of the site going down to the other. I worked with this until I put one of the pieces in the wrong place. But it worked. Rather than having a straight line of steps down to the water, there is one step about half way down that  is slightly different and create a space that is a bit separate from the rest of the site. This space would be good for more private functions of the kayak centre and I am now looking at putting the meeting rooms on this part of the site.

The layout of the site reminds me of the ripples that the river made and I remember making a video of the currents in the river just up stream from the site. This connection to the river works well and I can use this idea to further develop my design. The river is, after all, key to the project and to Ironbridge. I know need to concentrate on relating my buildings to the site and therefore to the river. I am currently working on the site layout and how I can create enough height within my buildings.

More models!?

Today I was back in studio and developing my ideas. After working with my sketch models, I though I would be ready to start trying to layout the buildings around the site and I started working on this this morning while waiting for a quick tutorial.
Talking to our tutor helped me to organise me thoughts thoroughly and it was decided that instead of moving onto the builds, I should focus on the landscape as this was the main idea behind my design. I was told to decide what I wanted my site to focus on; at the Minack Theatre, the seating is all directed down the cliff top towards the stage. I need to decide where I want the focus of my site to be centred.
Bearing this in mind, I tried different things on my site, having the steps leading in certain directions, the building protruding at different directions. 
There is only so much I can visualise with a 1:500 scale plan and a pack of tracing paper though. Therefore, my next move is to have a go at some site models and play around with it in 3D. I plan to spend tomorrow afternoon and possibly evening working on this until I find something I am happy with or an idea that I can explore further and hopefully have some sort of design by the end of the week. 

Manifestos and Models

Our homework from Tuesday's studio session was to make a manifesto of our design. This would be a tool that we would use throughout the project to keep us on track and remind what we wanted to achieve on site when we have lost our minds at 3am and the design just isn't coming. 
I set about doing this on Wednesday:


The idea behind my concept is to create a public space designed around the contours of the site. Instead of having a single staircase within a building, I want to create a building or series of buildings within a stepped landscape. Each building/part of the building will have outdoor access, allowing different areas to be open at different times without having to open the whole building. By making the stairs the main focus of the site, I can then create different levels and different types of spaces within the site. Different heights can provide observation points for watching the kayaking or places to view the iron bridge and over the river, for example. The exterior stairs also allow spaces for various functions, seating, event areas etc. Missing steps in places will help to create these different levels and the buildings buried within the landscape will also create these multifunctional spaces and viewing places. I am going to take into careful consideration the requirements of each rooms/space of the areas to help me place them most effectively on site. For example, the kayak/canoe storage and service area will be best suited at the water’s edge while the race office would have the best views of the landscape from the top of the site. As a precedent, I am going to look at the Minack Theatre in Cornwall which makes the most of the natural form of a steep cliff top landscape to create and open air space, providing views of the stage further down the hill. I am also going to look at some precedents of visitor centres to see how they utilise the space, where they place the utility and service rooms relative to their public spaces. 

Rather than having it printed out and stuck on my wall, it's now my desktop background which means it is a constant reminder not only of my design but that I should be doing some sort of work instead of browsing Facebook et al.

We were also set with the task to create sketch models to explore our concept and develop our ideas.
My first was just to get my into the right frame of mind but it turned into a model of the site to help me become spatially aware of the landscape. I added some card stairs to it to try and get an idea of how they would sit in relation to the landscape. 

I felt that my second had more of a purpose to it as I was looking at how my buildings would site on/in the site. As the site is narrow, I realise that I would have to excavate into the bank and some of my building would be underground while some of it would be extruding from the landscape. I will have to think about the layout carefully, making sure that all the public spaces are easily accessible from the outside as that is my main public space.

My third and final model (for the time being at least) looked at how I would create large flat spaces in the landscape. There are two ways that I can achieve this: creating spaces concave to the landscape and spaces convex to the landscape. I will probably use a mixture of these two in my final design.

Developments and Precedents

Since I last wrote, my design has changed yet again. 

My current design, the one I'm going to roll with, involves not putting a staircase inside the building but by putting buildings within a stepped landscape. I got my inspiration from somewhere I visited on holiday in Cornwall years and years ago. 

The Minack Theatre, Cornwall

The Minack Theatre was build by Rowena Cade as a place to perform plays that she organised. Set on the cliff top, it makes the most of the topography. Its use of the landscape in which it sits is the reason I chose it as a precedent. 

Our site is steep and I want to make use of that to create an outdoor space that looks out onto the River Severn and the activities on it. 

I began developing my design by working in plan and looking at where my building would be placed and how the whole site would be arranged. 

The Minack Theatre has steps that provide the seating for the theatre as well as access through the site. I want to incorporate this idea into my site but I also want to create flat spaces which provide extensions to the main club space and spaces for activities.

To help me to design the layout of my site, I looked at precedents of visitor centres. Searching on ArchDaily provided me with Orokonui Ecosanctuary Visitor Centre in New Zealand. 

I colour-coded the different types of spaces and marked them on the plan: blue for public, red for semi-public, yellow for private and green for facilities. From this, I was able to see how buildings of a similar purpose were arranged. I noticed that the public spaces were the most central within the building and everything that needed to be reached by the visitors came off this central space. The facilities were more hidden but were still easily accessible while the private spaces were completely set back from the main space, with access hidden on a kind of need to know basis.

I am going to use these precedent to help develop my idea into a cohesive design over the next week and I plan on having my design sorted before Christmas - want to actually have something akin to a holiday this year!

Thinking Outside The Site

Apologies for the crude photo - on a bit of a roll at
the moment

After having to take a step back from my initial design and talking myself though ideas, I finally came up with a design that I think I can work with.
My biggest problem with the site is how narrow the site is. There is also quiet a steep terrain to it which makes it even more difficult. 
So, in order to maximise what little width I had, I had to think outside of the site. 
One of the key ideas for this project is vertical circulation. I haven't quite got a design for the staircase (Thinks back to A level project) and whether I want it as a prominent feature of the building or not, but I have an idea of how my building is to be laid out, taking into account the changing levels of the site.
Rather than having an entrance car park level and trying to get down to footpath (main site) level like my previous design, I have instead made the most of this second storey to create a central atrium space as my multi-purpose area. I have connected all of this first floor space with a walk way around the double height space which will be home to the race office, office and meeting spaces. Downstairs will be the main area and the facilities including toilets, kitchen and storage.

Obviously my design needs more than a little bit of refinement but felt I should update the blog/journal. Back to work and time to do some actual sequential drawings now!

New Project

I should probably begin at the beginning for this project; I'm already doing design work but if I backdate this post no-one will know! Shhh.
The project began at the end of October. The brief was given and this time there was a choice of two sites: Ironbridge in Shropshire or Graz in Austria. I chose Ironbridge and as a group of 3, we decided we would need more than one day one site so we headed down on the Monday before we had to meet tutors on the site on Tuesday. 

We headed down there on an early morning train to Shrewsbury and after just missing the two-hourly bus to Ironbridge we explored the town centre to kill some time.
Finally on the bus, the weather started to turn nastier and the rain, fog and crazy bus driver made for an interesting journey. After arriving at Ironbridge, the first destination was the site which was around the back of the Museum of the Gorge carpark.

The site is long an narrow and offers views across the river, upstream to the powerstation and downstream to the iron bridge. After exploring the site and it’s immediate surrounds, we felt it was only right that we went and saw the iron bridge so we headed up there and to the toll house. 

We then decided to try and get views of the site from the other side of the river and went for a walk along the river bank towards the powerstation, actually reaching the fenced boundary. The cooling towers looked so ominous in the mist.
Turning to walk up the hill, we found some stairs leading up the side of the gorge. Thinking that they didn't go up very far, we went up them. We ended up climbing until we would have been able to see the town, if it wasn't for the fog. 
After coming to the conclusion that the fog was getting worse, we made our way back down the hill. Quickly. Visiting the museums was next on the list so we got our Museum Passport from the Museum of the Gorge and once we had visited, we headed up the road to Coalbrookdale, Enginuity and the Museum of Iron.

Day 2

The day began by catching another early train to Shrewsbury although delays meant that I nearly missed the bus out to Iron Bridge but Arriva buses can always be trusted to be late!
Once there, I visited the site and took more photos. It was even foggier than on Monday which made for some more eerie photos towards the power station. Having some time to kill before meeting on site, I headed into town and up the hill. I found a path just off the town square that lead up to the church. From here, I followed the road until I found a small garden/park on the hillside. Making my way through this park, I headed back down the hill and to the site. I was hoping to be able to get some views of the bridge from the top of the hill but there were too many buildings in the way.
On reaching our site, we began making sketches and taking photos as well as drawing out sections through the site at different places to get an idea of what the land form looks like.

As we had done a majority of the museums the day before, after we had gathered everything we felt we could from the site, we went up to a steel sculpture park where we thought of a good idea for a video. The park was full of some really interesting sculptures which could provide inspiration for my building.