Lots of Presentations!

On Monday, we had a scheduled presentation for the principal, janitorial staff, Shane, & Claire at Roosevelt. However, only Shane & Claire were able to make it because there was a small fire earlier that day in the boy's bathroom. Nonetheless, we got a lot of good feedback from the meeting. We presented both schemes and told them that we were leaning toward starting with an island scheme and "growing" it together in stages to a connecting-module scheme (what we've been calling the organic scheme). 

They helped us think about the strong possibility of kids climbing on the structures, and ways to prevent this. (Wide overhangs? Tall roofs?) They overturned our assumption about avoiding blocking light from the east wall of the site: it gets harsh sunlight in the afternoon, and shading would be welcome. They liked the idea of decorative panels, but emphasized that they should be easily seen through. 

On Wednesday, we gave the same presentation to Tom & Brett from the University Fellowship (www.university-fellowship.org), who had offered to help us find contractors (if not also help pay for materials and construction)! At the same time, we presented to the rest of our studio so we could get feedback from them. 

Tom & Brett were excited about the design. They invited us to their service the Sunday after next so that if they ask their congregation for donations, they'll have some smiling faces to associate their lighter wallets with. Actually, the way Tom put it, they'd like to give back to their school in exchange for letting them have their Sunday services there. They're going to arrange to have us talk with some contractors from their church afterwards.

When we met up with our studiomates afterwards, they gave us great advice on both schematic design and design development. They suggested we try some larger-sized modules to make 

the columns less dense. We talked about widening the courtyard, or maybe making two courtyards. Along those lines, we also talked about having two entrances, or a separate entrance and exit. 

For those of you not in dB studio, we printed out some 1/8 site plans so you can play with some layouts. Come by the studio anytime to pick one up, they will be sitting on my desk (the one with the bike wheel). An easy way to make triangles/diamonds is to make an 8.5" x 11" rectangle in Sketchup, then draw the triangle sizes you want converted to 1/8" scale. When exporting as an EPS file, click "options." Under "Image scale", enter 1"  for both 'In Image' and 'In Model." You should now be able to print it from Illustrator without having to scale it. (Sorry for boring all you Sketchup whizzes out there...)

Of course, if it's easier for you to just make your triangles/diamonds on graph paper or something, that's a good way to do it too. 

Continuing with design development feedback in studio, our classmates suggested we could use material other than chain link, such as hogwire. We also talked about how we were going to simplify construction by making a "kit of parts:" repeatable footings, columns, collar connections, and roof forms. They suggested we look into playground construction, which sounds like it would be really helpful.

In all of our meetings, we got lots of compliments on our site model. Good job everybody! 

--April