April 2016 - May 2016
Objective
Design a community space located next to Washington Park in Over the Rhine, Cincinnati. The space must include: a reception area, gallery, library, coffee bar, restrooms, elevator, fire stairs, and tour gathering seating area in specific dimensions. Project Description
The City Room is a project dedicated to exploring civic life in Cincinnati and Over The Rhine in specific. The building should serve as a free and open public space that promotes social interaction and the human experience of walking and looking. It’s required that the building contains a reception center, bookstore, cafe, tour gathering area, two restrooms per floor, and elevator, a vity living room, gallery areas, and a garden area. Overall, the building should complement Cincinnati and the community life. Concept Statement
Over The Rhine has blossomed throughout the years from a poor run down area to a thriving community. The city has slowly grown from an ugly environment into a beautiful place. My concept for my design was “a flower in bloom” because I wanted to resemble this growth of the city to that of a flower opening up and blooming flawlessly. I imagined my building as opening up as your ascend vertically just like a flower opens up through it’s growth. I also plan on my design to be very open and spacious to resemble the openness of the park in comparison to the close crowded city buildings. In summary, like the progression of the city, my building too shall flourish into something wonderful. |
City SpaceProcess
While touring Over The Rhine, I was taken by the look of the historic Italianate architecture. I found the bold colors and designs to be very interesting and wanted to keep this style in my design. Although, I also noticed the rise of the more modern buildings in which most contained some form of balcony or large glass fixtures. I decided then that for this project I wanted to incorporate both styles. I then began to sketch dozens of ideas and eventually developed my concept in which I wanted to focus heavily on nature and open spaces. After tons of planning, I settled on my final design that includes four floors and three balcony opportunities. I designed my balconies in such a way that they switched sides with each other to resemble petals, a central middle space for the constant elevator to look like the stem, and the outer appearance to closely mimic the windows of the surrounding buildings. I then began to design my model and sketch out some future possible building designs |
Analysis / Self Assessment:
I believe the strengths in my design are that I incorporated both the beloved historic styles as well as the new developing building designs. I feel as if this mix makes my building stand out but also fit in as well. I also think that on a building note, my craft and overall unity of my model is very well done. In addition, I believe my idea is unique but also very cooperative and flexible. With saying that, there are numerous things I think I could have improved on or changed with my design. For starters, I did not take into account the natural light or lighting in general. My rightmost balcony would realistically get little to no light during many hours of the day. Also, I should have included more skylights through the ceilings and floors of my building. Although my facade is decently interesting, my floor plans are very basic. I would fix this by the imagined furniture and items my building would possess but overall should have developed my floor plans better. In addition, I wish I had more experience with materials because it would have helped my designing process, but overall I am satisfied with my model although there is also much room for improvement.
I believe the strengths in my design are that I incorporated both the beloved historic styles as well as the new developing building designs. I feel as if this mix makes my building stand out but also fit in as well. I also think that on a building note, my craft and overall unity of my model is very well done. In addition, I believe my idea is unique but also very cooperative and flexible. With saying that, there are numerous things I think I could have improved on or changed with my design. For starters, I did not take into account the natural light or lighting in general. My rightmost balcony would realistically get little to no light during many hours of the day. Also, I should have included more skylights through the ceilings and floors of my building. Although my facade is decently interesting, my floor plans are very basic. I would fix this by the imagined furniture and items my building would possess but overall should have developed my floor plans better. In addition, I wish I had more experience with materials because it would have helped my designing process, but overall I am satisfied with my model although there is also much room for improvement.