Student Activity Center, Detroit, MI (2nd Year Project)

[ebardhi]

Project
2nd Year School Project

Location
Detroit, Michigan. It is right outside the University of Detroit Mercy Campus.

Type of Project
Student Activity Center and Dormrooms as an extenction to the main campus.

Design Parameters
Sleeping Quarters. Accomodate 72 students.
1.Sleeping 600sf
2.Lounge/dining 300sf
3.Kitchen,storage, 180sf
4.(2)Bathrooms 120sf
Social Activities
1.The Lounge 600sf
2.Computer/Reading Room 400sf
3.Dining and Kitchen 1,600sf
(Dining room is to be a flexible space that can be used for other activities.
4.Fitness Room 600sf
5.Storage, and Toilets. 400sf
Parking for 40 students.

Concept
1.Horizontal Site [580'x120']
-emphasize horizontality
----connect better with the site
----horizontal circulation to express the site
2.Cover Parkinglot Walkway from the weather
3.Public and Private
-living spaces
----uniform units that seem to be pushed into the building
----raised up from the ground for security and privacy
-Bedrooms
----Private. Movable walls to open to other bedrooms if space is needed.
-Living Rooms
----Public. Open to main corridor to reinforce interaction of students.
-Dining Room- Open up to campus area to for a connection.
-Exercise Center- Farthest away from the sleeping quarters to reinforce the reason of the exercise center.

Drawings
The drawings that I will provide are pages from my Portfolio. The real drawings from school had to be hand-drawn and therefore there was not much attention spent to the look of the SketchUp images--since they were not required and were done hastily just for the portfolio.

Tools/Programs
Hand drawings (Ink on vellum, with color pencil enhancement)
3D Images (SketchUp)

[ebardhi]

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[Hemma]

Thats a pretty nice looking project :) However, i was just scrolling through the panels really quickly and i was eager to actually see what your building look like. And the thing is that I don't actually get to see it until right at the end. Perhaps, something worth thinking about as presentation method, is to have your best looking image in your first panel (replacing the brick building photo), and so it grabs the audiences' interest first, so that they continue looking at it.
Also another thing is, how big are these panels? A3/A2/A1? because you can actually make the fonts of texts a little bit smaller.
keep up the good work!

[ebardhi]

Hi Hemma, thanks for the fast reply. These are not actually panels. They are pages from my [8.5"x11"] portfolio. The actual drawings were ink on vellum, and these are scanned to show as much as I could from the project itself in the portfolio. I agree with what you are saying about grabbing interest, but i wanted to have the progress showing since it is a portfolio. That is the reason why the fonts are big, so they are easily readable on ANSI-A [8.5x11] piece of paper. The original vellum drawings were 18"x5' because of the scale and the unusual size of the site. Thanks again for the fast reply.

[BruceWalker]

Welcome edardhi - it looks like you're going to have a quality contribution to this forum.

I'm intrigued by your planning and think that it has potential, however I believe you've failed in your goal of 'emphasising the horizontal'. You emphasise horizontal by long thin strips - such as strip windows, roof planes etc. Your facade is split vertically into elements - and although this is fine it isn't what your brief has stated you've intended to do.

Apart from that - well presented, heaps of work...look forward to seeing your next projects.

[ebardhi]

Thank you for the welcome BruceWalker.
I agree with you that I lost the "horizontal" once I tried to show the different units. This is true especially on the campus [dining room] side.

[chuckmorgan79]

I agree with what's been stated, I'm not sure the building really emphasizes the horizontals. I think it would be more sucessful as one long connected strip with strong ties to the site itself. As is, it appears to be sitting on the site, not really integrated. Some clever grading with outside pedestian circulation might help ground the building.

What happens in the bridge? What does it connect to? Was it created first to cover pedestrians coming in from the parking lot? It's hard to get that much info on a 8.5x11 (text, room names), but I'm still confused as to what the space is use for. It might be a typo, but I wouldn't list the walkway as a concept. It might be a way that the concept (horzontality, etc) is reinforced, but a covered walkway in itself is not a concept.

For a second year presentation, it looks pretty good. The living unit layout image really doesn't tell me much about the space, I'd rotate the camera to get a better view. Some more nitpicking, personally I think you've overused the underscores here and there...it gets a little choppy.

I hope you are enjoying your time at UDM. I graduated from LTU a few years back. I had Paul Metalic and Julie Kim for a few classed and crits. I work at IDS in troy www.ids-troy.com, and started an illustration company with another LTU graduate www.rendercorestudios.com

Thanks for posting,

Chuck

[primocordara]

I feel like mentioning the Urbino dorms by Giancarlo di Carlo, I think they might be a good reference for this project - quite a different project location of course-

[ebardhi]

Hi Chuck, thank you for the critique.
The main use for the building is an extenction dormroom to the existing dorms. There are the other program spaces, and the other important space is the Dining room which can be converted into an activity space.
The reason why the covered walkway was part of the main concept was because i wanted to put some main spaces on top of that. As the design involved, i only ended up with the Exercise Center. I also wanted the students to feel "special". I wanted them to know that the building was their residence. Similar to a house, where you have your garage and driveway, which helps you from the weather, i figured if i covered the parkinglot [old idea which was changed], or covering at least the walkway i could give the students that resided there, that special feeling.

[ebardhi]

Here is a better view of the individual units. I wanted them to have one main living space for 3 bedrooms [6 students] which was visible from the main corridor. This way it pushed the interacion between the students. There would be a big window to the corridor that could be closed with blinds if privacy was needed. I used some nonstructural interior walls to hide the bedroom doors and other obstructions to give a clean dining space and a little privacy to the other spaces.

I am enjoying my time at UDM. I just finished a couple of weeks ago and now have been trying to make a website/portfolio that can help me in employment to help further my ideas for next semester in fall. I am pretty sure that i will have Julie Kim as my Construction class professor next year. Thank you again for your help.

[ebardhi]

Thanks for the reference Marcelo. I searched online for Giancarlo di Carlo and i found several different entries for him, however i could not find any for the Urbino Dormatories themselves. I will try searching again the next several days, but if you have any links in mind, or saved somewhere within quick reach, i'd like to see them.

[GCR]

Nice presentation and graphic style, overall...

I have a few general and graphic comments however...

1) I agree w/ Hemma about the text... It looks as if you're trying to take up space by using text... As a general rule, don't rely on the written word to speak of your design intent and solution... allow it to be spoken graphically

2) I feel it is a very "sensible" looking building, almost 'vanilla" if you get what I mean... At a university level, I would have liked to have seen you push a little harder w/ more interesting forms and use of materials.

In the board below, I have an issue w/ the structure engaging the walkway... I really don't like those kind of angled spaces that people can occupy. It make for a "closed in" and claustrophobic space. ( I realize it's not a closed space in the sense of a 'room', but by 'framing' it as you have it does make for an implied space) It just begs of people banging their heads as they walk by... Also, if you're going to make a strong achitectural gesture, as to "engage" the public, it should have some significant meaning behind it...

[GCR]

Also, I see these "dynamic" breaks, or pivots, in the building... What generated them? What do they imply or relate to... When you "break" a building like that, there become this very dynamic point at the pivot... could this have been expressed stronger, architecturally?

When doing a design that has a repetitive nature to it, such a dorm, your faced early on w/ making a decision of using a single loaded or double loaded corridor system... I'm not convinced that a double loaded system was the best choice for this site... I think it has made the spaces a little cramped, or forced... (see highlighted are below)

A dorms should be a constant play of Private space and Public space.. these public space are very important in a dorm setting... They should really be the "hub" dorm. building...

Highlighted in you board below, There is a section of the "vertical circulation"... I'm not sure this really needs to be presented, and if it does, it shouldn't have as great a hierarchical meaning (Unless it's a strong architectural element, and not just a utilitarian function) as the building section. I'm not entirely "convinced" by that section...

Last comment, the floor to ceiling height is HUGE... If your going to give that height to a space, it should speak much louder architecturally than just volumetrically....

I understand, some of these "mistakes" are probably a lack of construction knowledge at this point in your training... I think overall, this was a very well presented project for 2nd Year..

[primocordara]

Found a fotostream in flickr (http://www.flickr.com/photos/ryanlintott/65685550/),
It is not an exact reference, but you should definitely see it. I was there 15 years ago, the place is magic! It was even called as the main example of "Existential Architecture" in a book with that name.
The idea of unwinding corridors joining the dorms, providing casual encounters and views of the surroundings, the blending with the landscape...

[primocordara]

here a more general plan. It is placed on a hillside, the corridors and stairs sort of follow a "donkey's path"...

[Hemma]

ebardhi, I just had another real quick look into your project, and just realised that for a student housing project, you could actually have explored a major theme: some uni students loves to party hard, others just want to study and get good marks. You need to make spaces, so that you can have areas that allows you to have on the loud music, and people doing weird things, on one side and areas that are quiet enough for people to study or read a book. Its all about the likely events that would occur at a uni.

[coral]

Edmond,
I have to say that your plan is stronger than the 3rd dimension of your design. The plan shows similarly scaled boxes strewn across the building as though tied to the ribbon of a corridor. There is a sense or rythm, repitition, and interest with the collision of angles between the boxes. Then it looks like you extruded this plan straight up. It would be much more interesting if the elevations had more of a relationship with the plan, with this idea of the corridor ribbon holding together the boxes.

By the way, welcome to the forum. I grew up in Grand Rapids, MI, but don't know Detroit very well - except for the occassional concert or Red Wing game.

[ebardhi]

Wow thanks for all the comments everyone.

Hi GCR, thanks for the comment. Let me explain this better. I don't think i explained it well the first time. We are required to do all the drawings by hand therefore i could not use pannels to display the work. It was done ink on vellum pieces 5 feet by 1.5 feet. At the end of the semester, after all the critiques were done, we were given a few days to prepare a portfolio with all the work of the semester. It had to include a somewhat chronological order of everything done--program, site analysis, concept, etc. And since it is a portfolio, I won't be able to explain it with words, which is why I included the text for a better understanding. I believe it is 12 pt font for the 8.5"x11" pieces of paper.

For the materials that i wanted to use, I was first leaning towards concrete. However it seemed very cold with the grayish/white color, so i felt a little warm color, similar to a lot of the buildings on campus would make it warmer. But it is true I did not research it enough.

I also agree with your comment about the framing of the dining space. I was thinking of putting landscaping near the framing as it lowered below 7 foot height, however it is not showing in the design.

[ebardhi]

I forgot to mention this in the concept section, which is a big part of the actual design. As you can see in the picture that I uploaded, the main entry is far from the "student activity center" and the back[dormrooms] parkinglot. I wanted to make this big parkinglot in the back more accessable, and i thought it would be a nice big entrance. Therefore I had the different breaks in the units to curve towards that parkinglot, a kind of "welcoming" to the people. By doing this kind of movement, the building also has an inside curve, which would make a nice outside hanging out place of the students.

The sections were not the best, but that has to do a little with poor time management :). The ceiling heights are pretty high, 12' I think, and yes unecessary for the dormrooms.

[ebardhi]

I like the way the Urbino Dorms look, especially their repetition in the first picture that you posted Marcelo. It somehow reminds me of Moshe Safdie's Habitat '67, but very orderly. It also fits much better to the site, rather than being a "sprawling mountain".

Hi hemma. Yes that's a nice concept. I tried to go somewhere close to it, which is the reason why i put the movable walls in between the rooms which would supply the privacy, or give an open space for parties if it was needed. However, i don't think i explored it enough. I think i had too many ideas in my head and once i put it on paper i had to follow some more than the others and it was tough to get them to flow well.

Coral,
Thanks for the comments. I agree with you. I first wanted to start with elevations and sections and use those generate the design, but it was difficult due to the size of the project and ended up using the plan as the most important, and generating the rest from the plans.
Thank you for the welcome. There are a few architecture students from the Grand Rapids area, but i have never been there myself.