ARCH 102: Golden Gate Park at Haight St. Community Center Jasmine Pettway Spring 2016
Growing and Expanding Designing a kite, I studied how to shape interstitial spaces. The final iteration began as inspiration from a highway system in Detroit, Michigan.
Designing Spaces Utilizing the previous spatial exploration, this is the attempt to design a community center, incorporating a tea house, and an activity that includes the entire community.
How do I go from my spatial project, to redesigning a park entrance way?
Site Visit
Having grown up in the neighborhood, I did historical research on Golden Gate Park and Haight-Ashbury District. Haight-Ashbury has a colorful history in community, art, music, political activism, and of course drugs (Summer of Love 67’), that has shaped the ambiance of Haight street.
Japanese Tea Garden: Remnants of the Mid-winter International Exposition of 1894 Haight Street Shops
Golden Gate Park was envisioned and engineered by William Hammond Hill and John Hayes McLaren in 1860
Grand Gestures We began with gesture models that describe a word from a given poem. Mine was also guided by material and an attempt to embody the Haight.
Fire
Leaf
Cobble Stone
Creek-washed
Dark Gestures Understanding the inspirations behind the gesture models, I needed to understand the spatial qualities of them to inform my design choices. Charcoal is a great representation of gestures: it’s messy and quicker to sketch and shade with. Instead of drawing from the eye, I drew from black and white photos under trace for a better perspective of what is negative/positive, solid/volume, bold/dissipating.
Second Glances After reevaluating my gestures and research, I choose two of my models to look at even closer. Now, I redrew the photos with the physical model by eye, and found a repetitious motion in the cobble stone gesture and added the aurora of the creek-washed gesture, hoping they would come together later.
Diagraming Diagramming seemed simple at first, and then I realized a more holistic view was needed. It became easier to understand in progressions. Through diagramming, Washing or Hygiene became the parti.
A 360 View To understand how I could bring my 2D drawings into 3D models, I looked at curved buildings similar to the language of my model and drawings. Shoffice, Platform 5 Architects
Halo: Swedish Students’s Solar Decathlon entry
Harbin Opera House, China- MAD Architects
Structure Finally, floor plans began to develop. However, program guided design choices, when design needed to guide the program.
Seeking Resolutions I wanted to finish my building, but in doing that, I abandoned my initial design inspiration. Some of it read through the final piece in elements like the stairs, but it was not resolved. I was not satisfied and realized I needed to go back to the drawing board.
Overall, I’m proud of the rigor that I put into the hand crafting and drawing of my project. However, now I need to utilize more technology for efficiency, and remember that I’m not designing a building, as architects, we design spaces.