Mid-Review Reflection

by JP Mays

For this past Friday’s mid-term review I focused on developing the plans and focusing on the functions of each space.  This was a progression from my many earlier conceptual models and diagrams, and it was crucial at this stage to intimately understand the program and to advance the parti.

Simultaneously, I needed to examine the exterior form of the building, investigating how the interior can be read.  A 1/32″ = 1′-0″ scale model began to explore concepts of solid/void, light/dark, as well as relation to the landscape and materiality.  These last areas, through helpful critique, have become my springboard towards the next phase, namely integration into the site and material investigation.

Everlasting Midterms

by caroothers

For the midterm review, I was able to lay out the full floor plan in order to fully understand the spaces that are created.  The 8th scale model helped to understand the courtroom spaces that are created by the lines, intimately looking at the clerestory windows that provide light to the interior space.  This model was better able to display the open spaces around the courtyards as public space.  The floor plans and diagrams helped me to begin to understand the rules of this building and the spaces created within these lines.

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The next steps in the process are digesting the exterior ground condition of these lines.  I will be working on figuring out how these folded lines interact with  the ground to create the interior spaces.  The following studies will also explore the condition of the slope within the building site.  The site plan will be able to be more developed through a series of design charettes exploring the building interaction with the site.

Midlife Crisis

by cchlebda

Two days before midreview, my project underwent a midlife crisis.

After I finished my model Wednesday night, I reevaluated my design and realized that my courthouse, while highly functional, was incredibly boring. It had no “soul”–nothing that made it unique. It could have been any courthouse, anywhere. So, I went back to some of the original concepts I had at the beginning of the semester and thought about how these could make their way back into the project (“intertwining public and private spaces” and the idea of pulling the park over or through the building). I started sketching ideas that kept the existing functionality of the latest design iteration, while making the building much more interesting.

I realized that in my past few iterations, the lobby was like a completely separate building from the courtrooms, and I even had a thickened “wall” of circulation separating the two. When I modeled it, the lobby also seemed out of scale with the rest of the building. Moving forward, I want to bring the lobby/vertical circulation into the courtroom part of the building, giving the user more of a “choice” than just walking down a really long corridor to his final destination. I also want to experiment with different, crisscrossing paths within a central atrium, which will literally “intertwine public and private spaces” in an interesting way, similar to the public bridges that I was already starting to experiment with in the previous design’s atrium.

Level 1 – New Scheme

Level 2 – New Scheme

Mid-Review Process

by workbymariahroth

This past Friday was a crucial point within the semester, it was mid-review time!  I believe mid-review is an important stepping stone within the semester for a couple of reasons.  One it gives myself the opportunity to produce a fair amount of work on my design and then to take a step back and look it from afar; compared to staring at a computer screen or hunched over my desk working on models.  Two it gives my peers an opportunity to see my work and for me to see theirs, which I find can often be lost in the craziness of studio.  Third, is that new critics come in, observe my work, and give feedback.  I believe this is the most beneficial aspect of mid-review.

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Following my review I believe I have a very decent idea where to need to progress to throughout the rest of the semester.  I know I need to get back to the “slippage” and “steps” that I originally created in a former concept model.  This concept although appears slightly in the interior form of my courtroom does not progress the the exterior of the building.  An aspect that was lost throughout the introduction of all the other functions of the courthouse.  I believe that though this change will not be easy, but I am already on the correct path to make it happen.

 

Response to Progress

by workbymichelletodd

This past Friday was a critical point for the process of this project; it was the day of the mid-review. Up to this point I have gone through numerous iterations of pushing and pulling volumes in the attempt to create a building that appeared more dynamic than static, considering that my main objectives of this building are to convey some of the nature of law as well as promote walkability within the community. I have come to the conclusion over the past few weeks that law is a entity that pushes and pulls within itself. It is always responding to different conditions within the principles of the judicial system. I decided to focus on walkability within my project to promote ease for the local residents to engage with their community and be able to interact with a critical underpinning of community, which is law and the judicial process. From those two concepts, I have been pushing to create a building that spoke with a similar nature.

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As always, it is a good idea to occasionally have reviews from people who are not so involved with the project. This allows for opinions to be expressed from a different vantage than you may personally see with your project. In the process of this project I have pushed to create a building that has different plans for each level and each level responds to the prior so that the building looks different from every angle. However, from the review of the critics, it seems that I need to control and refine my concept. While the basis to my idea is good, I need to bring my ideas together and design a building rather than design 4 separate floors that create 4-1 story buildings stacked together. This advice has opened my eyes to the necessity of really expressing the common elements in plan through exterior strategies. I really need to dive into my plan and strengthen elements to work together so that their is recognizable familiarity from the exterior, which will make the building have a more comfortable environment within context and with the visitors.

Mid-Review Progress

by fcahill

For the mid-review last week, I was able to take stock of where I have come with my design and can now move forward with the feedback from the review.

From the beginning, I have been focusing on the building form and how that can represent as well as function as a ‘movement’ metaphor; for the public who comes to the courthouse as well as the system itself.  I presented alot of process from my beginning thoughts on movement, how it could translate to the court-set and then the courtroom design itself.  From those sketches, I jumped into the built form in conjunction with floor plans.  This was a very challenging part of the design because the 3 different circulations (public, private and in-custody) needed to be kept separate but still be economic in square footage. I was able to come to a solution by treating the courthouse as a Municipal courthouse (which it is) and not as a federal courthouse, where the separation of the private and public circulations are much more strict and necessary.  With the circulation, the biggest issue was the in-custody movement because with the rotation and setback of the courtset on each floor, if something worked on the 4th floor, it may not work on the 1st floor; I finally realized that I would have to have the criminal and magistrate courtrooms on the floors 1 and 2 in order to make it work.

Beginning Ideas

Early Plans

Courtroom Design Sketch

Form Progression

Court set (purple) + Vertical Circulation (green)

Current Plans with Vertical Elevator Circulation as ‘Constant’

View of 2nd Floor Entrance

Courtroom Rotation

Entrance and Rotation

I like where my form is at the moment, but with the feedback from Friday, I have a number of ideas that I want to try out and see where they lead.  This will also help in streamlining my plans because I feel that much of my support spaces can be better worked into the scheme of the building.

by pdgaither

Plans of the building have been my main focus for a little over a week. I have been struggling with circulation but I believe I have done a good job at condensing it. There are still a couple of places in my plans where I can shift to condense farther, but I just wanted to get what I have up. I am working on sections of the building now and those will explain the shifting and sharing of spaces much better than can be read in plan. There are four floors to the building and the courtrooms are split, 2 on one side, 6 on the other. I did this in accordance with the site, having the 6 courtrooms facing the busier street, and the 2 facing the less busy street. The forms interlock with one another allowing circulation to traverse around as well as in between the courtrooms and support spaces. Observers to every courtroom are one level above said courtroom and behind the jury. I see the observers as an extension of the jury, so having them with one another made sense to me. As I said here are the four plans with sections coming shortly.

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Finding that Balance

by fcahill

One of the first things I wanted to figure out was the courtroom design as I felt much of the form of the building would stem from that.  As my main metaphor that I’m trying to realize within the building is the idea of movement I felt it was important for that to come through in the courtrooms.  I played with curves and straight planes to try and find a balance between the two…I knew that they would be pivotal in helping bring people into and out of the courtroom but what then?  I feel that the courtroom design below finds a nice balance between the two while keeping the particular lines of sight and circulation clear and understood.

From there I moved to the form of the building, beginning in model form, but I ended up working in Rhino as it took waaaaay to long to building each courtroom-but the exercise did help in realizing how they might work together as pairs or as individuals as well as what they potentially looked like stacked directly or with some horizontal rotation.  The first two (on the middle row) play with the paired relation of the courtroom while the third delves closer into the elevation and some play with materials.

Finally, the sketches were a play in plans, elevations and sections as to how the courtrooms would look.  Interestingly, it becomes very planar even though I am cutting/viewing the curves so while there are curves they must be ‘experienced’ as you move through the spaces, which continues the idea of getting in (to the courtroom) and then getting out (and on with your life).

The Process of Programming

by workbymichelletodd

While I have concluded on a desired massing, the struggle now lies within figuring out a programmatic sequence that will allow for comfort and ease within the building as well as create a massing that is similar to what I desire. Because the volumes of each floor are push and pulled, the circulation becomes complex. The logical way to start planning was to create a central core of circulation that includes the elevator, as well as bathrooms, so that each floor has one central node about which the courtrooms are planned. This core begins to function a vertical axis about which the building is planned. The second key aspect that becomes even more complex because of my desired massing is the separation of circulation for the in-custody defendant transport and public circulation. Because these two paths should never cross, they must be developed as their own entities, which makes the programming more difficult.

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Intro to Complexity

by caroothers

Moving forward with the idea of physical lines as a solution to the courtset construction, the program has begun to develop.  The program within this form mimics the overall form of the building, very linear.  With overhead planes which create implied spaces throughout the building, these linear programmatic elements are able to be pushed and pulled to create moments and develop an interaction between them. The ribbons have established a set of rules and created programmatic reference within themselves.  Some begin to become solid barriers, while others attempt to disappear in the light. The building form becomes an icon through its form.  It needs its own set of design rules that must begin to form in the program of the building.

1. Each court room will be made of 3 ribbons/lines, separating the courtroom into three distinct spaces.
2. The separation of the court rooms will be a ‘solid’ ribbon or a ‘void’ ribbon.  Solid ribbons house the court holding areas for the judicially challenged and void ribbons serve as circulation light wells.  this relationship further distinguishes the dark/light solid/void pattern that is developing in as a metaphor for the building.
3. Public circulation will be perpendicular to the ribbons through the interior of the building, weaving through the columns.  (there has got to be another metaphor here for ‘weaving’ circulation).
4. Private circulation will be perpendicular to the ribbons through the exterior of the building, weaving through ribbons.
5. The judge’s chambers will be at the exterior moment of this ribbon to allow for potential views to the exterior and a connection to the community which they serve.
6. Each ribbon will consist of more than one program, however, the programs within the ribbons will be related.  e.g. the courtroom ribbons will house the courtrooms, as well as offices for the people who work in the room.  The Solid ribbons will serve as a utility function and a security function.  Since the judicially challenged people of the court are (in this humble writer’s opinion) a commodity of the court a utility that passes through the courthouse.  This ribbon will be the holding cells, vertical circulation for those people, restrooms, and storage.

The lines themselves become a program specific element that can be defined for a specific use throughout the building.