Fall 2011 Studio - Final Documentation

COVER PAGE

The Good Residence Hall

Ashlee Burleson ARCH 608

Final Presentation Boards The Nest Plans Check Your Mail Eat in the Air The Corner Wash & Wait Lounge Around Sleep Appendix Early Development Mid-Review Boards Moment Development

Table of Contents

Front Entry

Dining Overlook

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East Elevation

The Nest

N

West Elevation

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Plans

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3 4 35

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E

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N

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D

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C 0 5 15

A

B N N

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Plan A

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When students first enter the main lobby they will see directly in front of them a reception desk and behind that they will find their mail boxes. The mail boxes are intended to reflect the push and pull of the building as well as the individuality of each resident. The mail area is demarcated by red walls, a drop ceiling and wood floors. There are can lights directly over the mail area to allow residents to sort through their mail on site. There is a recycling bin inset in the wall to allow students to throw away their junk mail. There is also a bench seat to allow resident to sit down if they have bags with them while they’re sorting their mail.

Check Your Mail

Plan B

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As you make your way further into the building, beyond the mail area is the dining room. This area is double-height to allow for maximum light to enter the building. There are raised seating areas in the back of the dining room to allow students to be in the air while they eat to get an aerial view of Potter Lake, Memorial Stadium and other views to campus. There is also an exterior seating area that is cantilevered over the steep slope in the back of the building which adds to “floating� feel of the glass box.

An additional seating area is located along the side of the building. Students can exit the building here to make their way to campus.

Eat in the Air

Plan C

N The plaza located on the southwest corner of the site is intended to create a connection to campus. Hundreds of students and faculty walk by this area every day on their way to and from campus and the surrounding neighborhood. This open plaza allows for all passers-by (not only residents) to stop and relax. There is a cafe located on the first floor of the building that connects to the plaza. Outdoor seating is provided here so that students can enjoy the warm weather months soaking up the sun while they drink a cup of coffee or study outside with friends. Planters around the trees provide additional seating for those who wish to sit in the shade. A firepit is located in the center of the plaza to create a “hearth� for the residence hall during cold weather months. In warm weather months, a hard cover can be placed on top of the firepit to create a stage for student performances, such as concerts and poetry slams. The plaza is also cyclist friendly! Bike racks are located along the sidewalk.

The Corner

Plan D

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The laundry lounge in combination with the kitchenette is located on the end of each floor in the freshman/sophomore resident wing. Younger students need areas where they can have random interaction in order to meet people. This area combines the two acts of washing clothes and cooking. Both of these activities take some time, and often during both activites there is a waiting period, whether you are waiting on your clothes to dry or waiting for your pizza to be done. The lounge provides students with a place to combine these activites and to sit and chat with friends or study at the tables while they wait. A stair tower is also located in this lounge to connect to other floors so that students can pass through and interact with each other in this area.

Wash & Wait

Plan E

Section

Dry Erase Board Walls

The community lounge is located on each floor of the freshman/sophmore wing, and there is one lounge for each community of 26 residents. These smaller lounges allow students to interact with people who live nearby. A semi-circle couch creates an area where students can gather if needed.

It encourages students to sit with people they don’t know. This also gives students a place where they can relax outside of their room. The main wall which can be seen as you are walking down down the hallway will be painted a different color in each community lounge to create an identifying factor for the residents. Large dry erase walls are also provided outside of student rooms where residents can write messages to each other. Within the dry erase board there is an area for markers to be held.

Lounge Around

Freshman/Sophomore Rooms

Junior/Senior Suites

Built-In Furniture Detail

The freshman and sophomore wings have traditional double occupancy rooms. Younger students tend to do better in their first years of school when they share a room. In these rooms, built-in furniture is provided in order to optimize space in the small rooms. Drawers can be found below the bed as well as long-term storage cabinets above the bed. A bookshelf is located on the inside of the cubby facing toward the bed to allow students an area to keep books or to personalize with pictures and other trinkets. A mirror on the side of the sleeping area gives students a place to get ready in the morning. A desk is provided with an additional bookshelf for other school related books and supplies, as well as a cork board on the side of the study area. Each student has a small closet at the front of the room. The junior and senior suites are 4-bedroom suites with a living room area and a shared bathroom. Older students don’t tend to need the same random interaction that younger students do since they have usually already established their central group of friends. This allows older students to live with their friends in an apartment-style room while maintaining their connection to campus.

Sleep

Appendix

In the very early stages of the project, my first design iteration was a courtyard scheme. I wanted to create a space enclosed by the two residential wings, with freshman and sophomores separated from juniors and seniors. The courtyard was intended as the space where these two groups could come together. The wings had bridges that connected to a “core” where all main functions of the residence hall would be housed. This scheme was unsuccessful, mostly because of the site limitations. Since it is on such a large slope, it didn’t make sense to try to squeeze this configuration on the site. It would also pose problems for privacy with windows facing each other, and it created unequal views with some students looking into a dark courtyard while others would be looking out to Potter Lake.

Early Development

The courtyard scheme also created a sound chamber. This configuration would trap the sound of students who are hanging out in the courtyard. If students were in the courtyard late at night, the noise they are making would echo and would present problems for students living on the interior of the courtyard who are trying to sleep. I chose to abandon this scheme for a more linear design because it made more sense for this site and demographic.

One of the first interior developments was the concept of a sliding door to the dorm room. The corridor wall would be about 2 feet thick with sliding doors on the interior and on the exterior. There would be a doorway on one side of the dorm and a “window seat” on the other side of the dorm.

The idea was that the doors could be on a track and slide either from the door or the window seat depending on whether you wanted to sit in the window inside the room or in the hallway. This would also give residents an opportunity to interact with people that are passing by. This concept was never fully developed because it presented too many problems in terms of privacy. Having the doors on tracks wasn’t feasible because they cannot be completely sealed which would allow sound to travel freely between room and corridor. This also poses a problem in terms of fire safety.

Early Development

I quickly developed an idea for the configuration of the dorm rooms in the freshman and sophomore wing that included “gang” style bathrooms that were located within the corridor. By creating wide corridors that bump out around this central bathroom area, it not only allows bathrooms to be centralized, it also creates “communities” where the bumps are. It allows for space to have a small lounge or study area within the corridor. This creates a more pleasant corridor experience than having the restrooms located in any place along the corridor and just having a standard 8’ wide never-ending hallway. I redeveloped this idea later on, but the general concept is still present in my final design.

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My plans from the mid-review are similar to my plans for the final. The room configurations are generally the same, however on the North wing I eliminated the curve at the end with the extra group of suites. I was able to add a fourth bedroom into each suite and provide enough suites to accommodate the residents in a smaller amount of space. I also eliminated the basement level suites, but added a fourth floor on the North wing. In the south wing, I eliminated the dorm rooms on the upper floors in the curved part. Instead I just have the cafe in the curved part on the first and second level. I was also able to accommodate the number of residents required within 5 floors by tweaking the configurations slightly. The core functions did not change from mid-review to final.

Mid-Review Boards

N/S Section 1/32”=1’

West Elevation 1/32”=1’

East Elevation 1/32”=1’

E/W Section 1/32”=1’

West Aerial View

East Aerial View

My elevations did not have much articulation in the mid-review and went through some major changes for the final. In this scheme there are 4 floors on the North wing, with one half-underground, and 5 floors in the South wing. In the final I have moved the North wing up a level by eliminating the basement but adding a fourth floor. The curved area is only 2 stories tall in the final versus 4 stories in this scheme.

East Ground View

West Ground View

In the mid-review, I did not have any materiality to my building. I was playing with the idea of limestone and a metal panel system from the beginning,but I didn’t know how to achieve this. My exterior was mostly driven by the glass box that pushes through the core of the building. I wanted that to be a main focal point for the project. Later, it becomes more articulated by adding angles to the curtain walls which mimic the angles on the window trim.

Mid-Review Boards

Single Room 1/8”=1’

Double Room 1/8”=1’

Junior/Senior Suites 1/8”=1’

Sculptural Mailboxes

Laundry Lounge

My room layouts stayed generally the same from the mid-review to the final, however, I did eliminate the single-occupancy rooms from the project which allowed me to accommodate more residents in less space. I also designed built-in furniture for the younger residents.

My moments were underdeveloped at this stage. The laundry-lounge and mailbox areas were further designed throughout the rest of the semester and are still present in the final.

The mailbox area developed from the mid-review to more of what you see here. This moment became more zoomed in to focusing just on the mailbox area instead of trying to encompass the entire lobby and entrance view. I split up the mail area from the view to the floating dining room seating to showcase both of these features of the core more fully. The mail area is intended as a place where residents can enter the building and immediately have something they can identify with. The boxes are intended to be customizable so that residents will easily be able to spot theirs and have their “signature� on the building.

Moment Development

The dining moment developed from this more simplistic idea. I initially wanted the dining to be contained in the glass box so that it would project out over the sloping hill and could be seen from campus as well as providing beautiful views to campus. The idea progressed and I created elevated dining areas that would have more aerial views of Potter Lake and Memorial Stadium. I also added an outdoor seating balcony that cantilevers over the sloping hill as well as an outdoor seating patio to the side of the dining area.

The plaza moment became more inviting in the final project. The area of the building that is located here was minimalized to contain only the cafe and convenience store on the first and second levels. A smaller glass box protrudes from this area to mimic the large dining facility. Outdoor seating and a stage invite students and faculty that are passing by on their way to and from campus.

The dorm rooms and community lounge changed quite a bit from the early development stages. In the dorm rooms, the sliding doors with the window seat is no longer present. Instead, I tried to focus more on the interior space and how the furniture could create a “cubby-like� experience. I designed built-in furniture. A bed with storage below and long-term storage above creates a more enclosed space and gives a similar experience that would have been created with the initial window seat.

In the community lounge, I had originally only thought that gang bathrooms would be located with perhaps a small study area in the open space.

However, in further development, I designed a small lounge space that acts as a gathering space for students living in the surrounding community as well as a place where residents can mingle and bump into people that they haven’t met.

I tested many different ideas on the facade, including butterfly roofs and box windows. I decided against the butterfly roofs as there is not much need for them in Lawrence for water collection, and they would present problems in the winter because of snow build-up. Instead the roofs are flat in the final project. The idea for box windows came about because I was interested in breaking up the monotonous facade, but instead of having some windows bumped out and others not, I designed two different windows with angled trim that would either angle in or out at the top and bottom. These two variations alternate randomly across the facade, creating an undulating pattern.