Site Analysis + Initial Design

A lot of progress has taken place since the last time I blogged. Our whole studio took a trip to the Ann Arbor Botanical Gardens to learn more about plant behavior in relation to the sun. A very smart man in a hilarious hat took us around the whole garden and answered many questions we had involving the many ways in which plants respond to the sun. Evolutionarily, the texture and overall shape of the leaves, the amount of leaves, and the placement of the leaves from the stem are all in response to the amount and type of sunlight the plant wants to recieve. In a more temporary sense, many plants can be classified as heliotropic or heliophobic, which affects the arrangment of the leaves. This arrangement can change every season, every day, or even every hour. David said that if he flipped a stem of leaves upsidedown, within a day all the leaves would be facing upright again.

The trip to the Botanical Gardens inspired Ashley and I to think about the programmatic requirements and their relation to the sun. We could not only classify certain program types as sun-seeking or sun-fearing, but we also were inspired by the papyrus plant and the way that photosynthesis started in the lower part of the stem, and then moved to the upper part of the stem, leaving a visual indicator of the change in the lower stem by the fact the it turns brown. We also began to think of the light not only quantitively, but qualitively, in that certain types of light can be undesirable, and in terms of a school this could cause glare on a computer screen or even overly-distracted students.

Next we modeled the shadows in Digital Project, which was way more frustrating than we had anticipated... thanks Frank.

Once we got our file to work, we decided to change the azimuth and elevation angles to coorespond to the extremes of a school day (8am, noon, and 3pm), during four different days of the school year (September 21st, December 21st, March 21st, and June 21st). What was important to remember is that September 21st and March 21st share the same azimuth and elevation angles, making these shadows twice as important to consider when designing our building.

Looking specifically at our site, we took sections and plans of all the shadows over these specific times of days. By making them somewhat transparent, and then layering them on top of eachother we had a really good visual of which portions of the site will fall under shadows the most often throughout the year.

We then had to complete the very necessary task of figuring out with programs would fit best in these layered plans and sections we had created. Which spaces needed the most light? Which spaces needed the least light? This was a very skewed way to think about placing program because all spaces would need light at one time or another. A much more appropriate way to think about it was in terms of natural light vs. controlled light. We could place a space that called for a more controlled lighting, such as the auditorium, in a location on the sight which often falls under shadow. We made a program helio-spectrum to visualize our program in terms of preference to the sun. We visualized a more unconventional hallway in that it is one that recieves tons of natural light. From there, the corridor could even provide light to the thirty-five classrooms we were required to have.

We then traced out the lightest spaces on our site using our shadow plans. Most of the geometries transformed form thread-like to large open volumes, perfect for the way we imagined a circulation space should be. The plan at 30 ft became the roof plan for the ground floor, which allowed us to puncture the roof with skylights to illuminate and guide the patron through the space. The plan at 45 feet served as the roof plan for the second floor allowing for the same type of lighting.

MORE TO COME!