Progress: 5/01 - 5/02

I am very glad that we have the opportunity to further our designs at a larger scale now. I feel that I finally understand what this jump entails. In our previous projects, at their respective levels of development, I feel that there was too much detail in the smaller iterations, and not enough in the larger ones.

Thoughts on how I exactly conceive of this building...

Here is my analogy:

I think of it as a dressed up girl. The frame is her body, which has glass (the dress) pulled over it. Around the upper floor, is a solid horizontal belt. Then the louver system is like a hat, that hovers over but completes her statement.

Here are a couple more shots of where I am right now:

Progress Review

The progress review taught me more about my process as a designer than it did about my project. I learned that sometimes it is necessary to let go of an idea if it is not working, or if it can no longer continue to inform a design. I also realized that I don't often stop renovating or changing existing models to build a complete intermediate version. I feel that just by preparing these drawings and model for the progress review, i was able to look at my complete concept as it stood in its current development. It is hard to stop and do this because I fear I will forget the moves I have in my head. But I think it would better serve me to have more complete intermediate representations because they allow for better perspective on ideas. I think that I have missed out on seeing clean representations along the way, and that seeing them in the future will help my eye become more critical of my own work. Also, I am beginning to understand the value of other graphic representations. Unlike basic sketches and drafted plans, collages and other such graphic tools can explain more about a design than a scale model. I hope that adding more of these componets to my design process will strengthen my designs.

The review didn't leave me without any specific thoughts about this project, though. I have a few new thoughts on my building form that I can't wait to get out. I think they will be much more successful than what I have so far!

Site Idea

This collage describes my idea for siting my project on the top floor of the Lasalle Parking Garage. To make a connection with nature, I chose to continue the landscaping that is adjacent to the garage, ontop of the garage.

Models of the Site

Models do not have to be direct scaled representations of a particular location or structure. That was suprising to learn.

This site concept was about the garage as "sea level." I built the site down into the base of the model so that the top floor of the garage became the ground floor of the site.

This interpretation attempts to minimize the garage without minimizing the top floor (the site). By angling the sides of the garage, the emphasis is placed on the top floor plate, enhancing the perspective from the viewer on the top floor. The planes around the buildings are so close to the garage to emphasize how the taller surrounding structures impose themselves on the site. The fourth side is left blank as a reference to the Mississippi River.

Lasalle Parking Garage Project: Site

The White Board

At the beginning of this part of the project, I was not really sure how helpful it would be. But this compilation of my efforts to study the garage, its surroundings and its place(less)ness turned out to be more influential and helpful than I thought it would. For me, it was less about the "final" product of the white board, but more about the process of collecting different images, representations, and other information about the site. That process sparked the desire for more information which ultimately provided a more solid foundation for my ideas than a single site survey could have.

The Site - Descriptive Words for Before and After

Words on the Site
-Barren
-Solitary
-Easily Influenced/ Imposed Upon
-Open
-Hard
-Expansive
-Utilitarian
-Irresolute to Surroundings
-Residual
-Hopeful
Words on What it can Become
-Useful
-Willful
-Unified
-Resolved with Nature and the City
-Populated
-Appreciated
-A Lens for Nature and the City
-Alive, Soulful
-Communicative
- A "Place"

The Saenger Theater - A Sense of Place

It is really hard to think of a good place that has 'place.' After thinking for a while, and still not completely settled on this example, I am going to start with the Saenger Theater on Canal Street in New Orleans. The theater is evocative of another era, and I feel that distinguishes it from other, similar facilities. I also feel that the theater has place because it can transport whoever is inside of the theater to another world. By that I mean it is easy to forget all of the surroundings that impress someone when they enter, but when the show starts, it is easy for all of it to fade away instead of turning into background noise. Just as when I read a really good book, I stop noticing that I am actually looking at black type on white pages, the book transforms into something else. I think that is what good architecture can do. It becomes the purveyor of information. It is all that creates space. It can be simultaneously present and invisible.
I think that 'place' is a word to describe what architecture can make a person respond, or how it makes someone participate or interact in space. A 'place' like Wal-mart doesn't make me want to do anything (except to run screaming sometimes). But the Saenger Theater makes me do certain things. There has always been a certain sense of excitement, or knowing that I was going somewhere special on days I got to go to the theater. When you finally get to the theater, I feel like it makes you notice things. I love how tall the lobby is, and how the mezzanine levels feel sometimes large and sometimes comfortable. But my favorite thing to do is to look up at the ceiling in the main theater space. I can never decide if I can see it or if it is invisible. Sometimes I think it looks like a really dark cloudy night sky, sometimes it looks like nothing.
The last reason I picked the Saenger theater, is because I wish it was still open. I is disappointing that the experience of being in a place like that is not possible. Hopefully in the coming months the renovations of the theater will finally be complete, and it can again welcome people to its own particular world, and the places that world can take us.