Initial Design cont.

So, we had these traced figures to represent roof plans based off the fact that these areas will recieve the most natural light at 30 ft and 45 ft.




These became the ground floor circulation and the second floor circulation. The more open geometries can serve as a type of congregation space, whereas the thread-like volumes take you to specific places on the site. As I said before, these roof plans allow for us to puncture the roof and create skylights to light the circulation space throughtout the year. We also invisioned this bright circulation space providing light to the THIRTY-FIVE classes we need to light. From this, we placed rows of classrooms along the circulation space (perhaps separated by glass walls) to provide natural light to the classrooms, as well as views into these learning spaces. This type of organization and reliance relates back to the Botanical Gardens. The way that light is traveling from the main circulation space into each of the individual classes is similar to the way that nutrients and water travel from the main vein to the smaller veins.


We also wanted our building to transform in terms of use during the change from day to night, therefore we wanted our building to not only function as a school, but also as a community gathering space. We decided to combine the dining area and the library into one space to create a more dynamic environment in which students could study, eat, read, all in the same area. This is a more efficient way to organize our school because the dining area is used for the reason for only about one hour a day. This space can also be used by the neighborhood after school gets out, where they can grab a snack or even check out a book themselves. For this reason, we placed this multi-use space on the corner for two reasons. Firstly, it would invite people in from all directions, and secondly this place on the site recieves the most direct sunlight. Therefore, the auditorium and gym are not the only areas being used after-school, but so is the library cafe, making the building more public during the evenings.









We also created a model of our shadow plans by etching the shadows into 50 layers of acrylic and painting those lines red. It really doesn't tell us much more than the shadow plans, but is a physical representation of those drawings. It's a different way of reading "dark" and "light" spaces too because instead contrasting tints of black, we are looking for very dense lines. In areas where the red lines read very dense, there are the most shadows.





This is really hard to take a good picture of, and is much more readable when having it in your hands and being able to manipulate the model yourself, but you get the idea!