Q2 Winter 2010: Studio 584 – National Museum at Oslo, Norway
Professor Don Genasci
For my winter term studio, the project is to undertake a competition for a new National Museum at Oslo, Norway. The competition has mostly passed and will not be able to enter, but there were several other important reasons to do the project, as it is on an interesting site and contains a lot of program.
To read more about the competition, go here:
Competition Program and information
Below are some site photos, blocking out our buildable area. Importantly, the train station and other side building are to remain on the site, as they are historically registered. The city hall off of the adjacent square is also an important contextual item.
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Q1 Fall 2009: Studio 683 – Portland Sustainability Center
Professor Don Genasci and Professor Hajo Neis
After working on design for a few weeks and mostly working on producing a good set of images for the final review, this is what I arrived at. For a first project and first quarter in grad school, it was a large endeavor. As always, I wish there was more time. But there isn’t, and you just have to learn to focus on an overall concept and develop a few details. For this portion of the blog, I’ll include links to high resolution versions of the boards and thumbnails to individual drawings.
I thought the term as a whole was a good introduction into what the school emphasizes and teaches. There was a strong emphasis on the urban portion of the design as well as integrating sustainable technologies into the building. Using these technologies is more than just saying they’re there, but integrating them into the building design itself. Whether or not I was successful in doing so, I tried to make this building about water. There is surely more rain than sun in Portland, and why not use this to the building’s advantage?
The large plaza acts as a rainwater collection device, using pervious paving material that directs the water to a water storage cistern in the basement. Rainwater is also collected on the rooftops, and stored locally at each floor through a series of cisterns. There are several diagrams on the boards that explain this visually and in greater detail.
Final Boards:
DISCLAIMER: again the colors are not precise, the web distorts the colors of the original images.
PDFS (these are around ~7mb each, not original size or res but display colors properly):
Board 1
Board 2
Board 3
Board 4
For quick viewing:
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Q1 Fall 2009: Studio 683 – Portland Sustainability Center
Professor Don Genasci and Professor Hajo Neis
Coming out of my mid review for the building design I had a good grasp on what my building was but there were certain elements I needed to focus on. While my urban space was strong, the Oregon Sustainability Center needed a stronger focus on well, sustainable elements. While I had indicated the building was about rain water harvesting and recycling, it needed to take it a step further and represent it stronger. Below are images used from my mid review and general comments I needed to improve upon. This was also my first go at rendering with Rhino and Vray, much improvement was made in my final review.
(note: the colors don’t translate well from original tifs to jpgs for the blog. The final review boards will be available to view as tifs at lower DPI)
North rendering facing urban plaza:
South facade:
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Q1 Fall 2009: Studio 683 – Portland Sustainability Center
Professor Don Genasci and Professor Hajo Neis
The next step was to begin thinking of building program, and how this related to the building form I arrived at.
Here is the building form:
The orange elements would be related to internal function, mostly program pieces where less light is needed such as conference areas and lecture halls.
Below is a start to basic floor plan organization. While not too much detail was emphasized on this portion of the project, I felt it was still important as it related directly to the appearance and form of my building.
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Q1 Fall 2009: Studio 683 – Portland Sustainability Center
Professor Don Genasci and Professor Hajo Neis
Within the building I started to look at how it could relate to the urban context and space. The main idea was to create a perpendicular axis to the space created that extended over 4th and 5th streets. This axis would in effect connect the existing church with a proposed atrium in the building. The atrium would act as an internal hub of activity, whether through office functions, exhibits or classrooms. It was to be an engaging and place of learning. This would be accomplished by including sustainable elements such as a series of living machines directly connected to the atrium every 4th floor or so. Other elements would include a vertical green wall that could be used to harvest herbs and other consumable foods and a water feature in the lobby.
Conceptual Sketch:
Floor plan diagram showing flow of space surrounding atrium:
Initial section cutting through atrium:
Section cut looking at building relationship between existing building. Needed to create a buffer here, while still creating a public space. My idea was to have a raingarden while the building’s higher stories would cantilever over it.
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Q1 Fall 2009: Studio 683 – Portland Sustainability Center
Professor Don Genasci and Professor Hajo Neis
Moving on, instead of designing the building first (minus general ideas and concepts) urban space became the focus. My initial intent and belief was to create a strong and memorable place along the Montgomery Street Corridor. This would be achieved by creating a strong urban plaza on the north end of the site, connecting it with the north block along Montgomery Street. The plaza would extend (ideally, traffic is considered) accross the streets to the adjacent east and west lots. Each of these sites were to have a strong relationship with one another, through the use of water features.
Along with that, the urban space would also create strong connections with existing elements in the context, including a church on the north block and an existing apartment building on the site.
BELOW IS THE EVOLUTION OF THE SITE PLAN
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Q1 Fall 2009: Studio 683 – Portland Sustainability Center
Professor Don Genasci and Professor Hajo Neis
The next portion of the studio was to move on to designing the Oregon Sustainability Center. I had my site chosen, which was on the southern end of Montgomery Street. Taking elements from the urban design portion I wanted to somehow integrate the canopy into the building, having an urban element become a building element. Originally I wanted this to be emphasized in the north facade.
This turned out to be an exploration and that was all pretty much, as the idea didn’t seem to jive with reviews. The idea of the urban canopy didn’t mesh with this area, and the fact it didn’t need to work as a wayfinding device on this building. So continuing the urban canopy from other blocks, I came up with the idea that the building would overhang a portion of a pedestrian path, acting as a canopy so to speak.
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Q1 Fall 2009: Studio 683 – Portland Sustainability Center
Professor Don Genasci and Professor Hajo Neis
After 4 weeks or so I reached a final design proposal for this portion of the project. Below is the siteplan for the design, emphasizing on three pivotal points: both edges of the corridor and the proposed site for the OSC.
Below are drawings showing the environment on the 405 landbridge part of the project.
Below are drawings showing the proposal for the area at the Southeast end of Montgomery Street, where it descends down to the river. The idea was to create a stair that went down, but was surrounded by a denser urban context that exists there currently. This creates some continuity between the rest of the corridor and creates a stronger anchor for the site than currently exists.
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Q1 Fall 2009: Studio 683 – Portland Sustainability Center
Professor Don Genasci and Professor Hajo Neis
The other end of Montgomery Street crosses over the 405 freeway. This was an important junction as right now it is a disconnection between the West Hills and the rest of the City. The bridge over the freeway is rather small and doesn’t entice people to cross to either side. Early designs just included the urban canopy extending over the bridge. The intent was to create a visual marker that would be both visable to the pedestrian and to the cars passing underneath. Later iterations involved beefing up the bridge and creating a land bridge as a destination point along the corridor. This provided a better experience without the anxiety of crossing the freeway and creates a stronger connection.
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Q1 Fall 2009: Studio 683 – Portland Sustainability Center
Professor Don Genasci and Professor Hajo Neis
The first end I addressed was where Montgomery Street descends down to the river and crosses 3 very busy streets. The roads are feeders to the freeway, and acts as a welcoming point to this part of downtown Portland. Giving the gateway some meaning and better identity would entice more people to travel Montgomery Street and strengthen the corridor. Generally the design went from this quasi urban-suburban place to something that resembled a staircase surrounded by functional buildings.
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Q1 Fall 2009: Studio 683 – Portland Sustainability Center
Professor Don Genasci and Professor Hajo Neis
Along with improving the two ends of the corridor, changes were also designed within a few of the PSU blocks, mainly in regards to the integration of the urban canopy. Initially where the overhead bridges are was an idea of connecting to them on the ground level. Something about them bothered me, but wasn’t quite sure yet what it was. After this explorative process to promote their existence, I discovered I just didn’t like them. So the simple solution was to get rid of them, moving all pedestrian movement down to the street level. This promotes more use along the corridor.
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Q1 Fall 2009: Studio 683 – Portland Sustainability Center
Professor Don Genasci and Professor Hajo Neis
Below are some initial site plans, and are focused on a few areas more than others. The first of course is where the OSC is to be built. This analysis will become more apparant and explained in the building design portion. The other two areas are the ends of Montgomery Street, where it crosses the 405 freeway and the other end where it descends to the river, crossing a few busy streets. Focusing on these ends is intended to provide a stronger connection to the rest of the city while providing visual markers that something is occuring along the corridor.
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Q1 Fall 2009: Studio 683 – Portland Sustainability Center
Professor Don Genasci and Professor Hajo Neis
Kind of reminds me of the urban sombrero for some reason. They both keep the rain off our heads at least. ahem. For the urban design I was faced with the dilemma on how to connect all the seperate peices together, and I thought that using an urban canopy would work well. Now what this canopy is, was something that was struggled with much throughout this process. The logic and intention behind this solution is that it would be a significant visual element, that where applied would act as a visual cue that you are still along Montgomery Street. This would alleviate some of the wayfinding and general feeling of being lost at certain junctions along the path.
While acting as a wayfinding device, it is intended to also function as a means of shelter in another wise rainy city, and even act as some sort of rain collection to keep water concentrated in certain areas.
In order of progresssion, from initial to semi-final implementation.
Originally the idea was to have the canopy extend over the street, while smaller off branches would function over the sidewalk. But the original scale of the canopy was going to be large, and mostly organic and curvilinear in form. This prompted several issues, and after a review or two I ditched this idea. Too grande, and covering the cars seemed like an improper gesture.
The next attempt shows a more pedestrian appropriate canopy, that where applicable would attach to existing buildings. This provides the necessary shelter and connective device throughout the corridor. There are parts that are more natural and park like, and within these areas the canopy becomes more organic and sculptural in form.
These were close to some final diagrams showing the implementation of the canopy and some initial ideas on how it might become part of the Oregon Sustainability Center when done.
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Q1 Fall 2009: Studio 683 – Portland Sustainability Center
Professor Don Genasci and Professor Hajo Neis
This diagram represents the overall flow of Montgomery street, my interpretation of it. The gradients represent that change from Urban settings, to university settings, and the inclusion of green space throughout.
The path above is the route I took, and along the way special events that occured or altered the path.
A more elaborate examination of the street brought about several problem areas: the 405 crossing, the PSU plaza, the southeast connection to the river, and the overall disconnection of the elements/events along Montgomery Street.
During this phase of the project, 3 sites for the urban sustainability center were to be chosen from. Site one is the site I choose to build the OSC on, and faced a few interesting challenges. One was integrating the streetcar, the other was building around a current old brick building.
Initial ideas including working around the streetcar, which cuts diagonally through the site and somehow integrating the existing PSU plaza and site 2 to the north into the urban design.
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