Urban Lab / Observatory

Urban Lab / Observatory Jordan Keller

Urban Lab / Observatory Jordan Keller

Physical Site Precedent Project : Anagogical Project : Process Project : Analogical

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Urban Lab / Observatory

Physical Site : Location and Orientation

Cincinnati, Ohio 4

Eighth Street

60’

Site

Main Street

Sycamore Street

400’

Seventh Street

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Urban Lab / Observatory

Physical Site : Location and Orientation The western end of the site (at the intersection of Seventh and Main) is more enclosed than the eastern end. This third of the site is surrounded by buildings at least 50 feet tall.

The skyline of the low-lying outskirts can be seen in the distance. This end of the site has a more imposing atmosphere about it. There are buildings encroaching on its space. The traffic at the intersection is busy and in constant struggle with crossing pedestrians.

Site

Intersection at the South-West Corner of the Site 6

Seventh Street is rather calm in between green lights. Most of the traffic stays closer to center city. Traffic coming toward the site is often intercepted by Main Street, which runs perpendicular. Currently at this place, there are parking lots on both sides of seventh street, one of which is the site.

Site

7th Street (Along the Southern Edge of the Site) 7

Urban Lab / Observatory Precedent

The symbol of the gable roof and brick as a building material came to the front of the design process. Walking through the streets of Cincinnati, it is clear that brick is the predominant material of the city. It is also clear that the city is virtually evacuated at six o’clock in the evening - the majority of the people who work in the downtown area live outside the city.

After six o’clock, the streets are dark and quiet, the stores are empty and the restaurants are few and far between. The site for this project, as well as many of the lots surrounding it, serve as parking lots for daily commuters. These parking lots are expansive - sometimes stretching across an entire city block. The eventual proposal attempts to recognize the existing materiality of the city, while suggesting a migration from the suburbs to main street in the interest of reinvigorating the downtown area with the energy that it has during the work-day.

Brick Walls and Gable Roofs 8

Barn Sketch

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Urban Lab / Observatory Precedent

The Pompidou Center is a coordination between a steel framework and the components of the building situated within. The scale and weight of the building is lightened by the delicacy of the bracing that makes up the elevation. The building could be thought of as a large mass that sits in a nest of structural elements that stabalize it.

Piano and Rogers are organizing an elevation for the Pompidou Center that will express the building’s parts and connections to the street.

The elevations have space and depth. The building does not stand for anything in particular, but it certainly stands for itself.

The notion of mass connected and stabalized by a steel network is explored in the anagogical models on the following pages.

Centre Pompidou : Paris, France : Renzo Piano and Richard Rogers 10

Partial Elevation Drawing 11

Urban Lab / Observatory Project : Anagogical

Anagogical Models (Rockite and Steel Wire) 12

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Urban Lab / Observatory Project : Process

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Level 12

Level 11

Level 10

Level 9

Level 8

Level 7

Level 6

Level 5

Level 4

Level 3

Level 2

Level 1

South Elevation Diagram 14

Process drawings capture the spirit of the thoughts and ideas behind the project. Two of those guiding principles for the design of this building are shown in the drawing to the right.

The first is the expression of each individual room in the elevation of the building. The concept behind this is that the building is an aggregate of rooms situated above, below, and to the side of one another. Building is an additive process.

This arrangement of rooms in the building gives the elevation depth - the elevation is not a plane, but an occupiable space. The entire building is the facade - the facade is the entire building.

The second principle is the integration of plan and elevation drawing. The two drawings are traditionally closely related and are both needed in order to construct the building. This drawing questions what new relationships between the two might be revealed when they are drawn with the same lines, as part of the same drawing.

Drawing is for conveying the idea already imagined, but also discovering that which the mind could not have conceived without the drawing. Drawing records, but it also generates.

Constructing the Plan from the Elevation 15

Urban Lab / Observatory Project : Process

South Elevation 16

Drawing : Constructing the South Elevation 17

Urban Lab / Observatory Project : Process

Model : Constructing the South Elevation 18

Model Collage (East Elevation) 19

Urban Lab / Observatory Project : Analogical

Model Collage (7th Street) 20

Model Photo (South Elevation)

Construction Detail at Foundation 21

Urban Lab / Observatory Project : Analogical

Rooms

Observatorium

Exhibition

Archive

Apartments / Studios

Galleries

Main Pool / Changing / Seating

Private Pools

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Space Types 23

Urban Lab / Observatory Project : Analogical

Observatorium

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The “observatorium� is a four-level seating area for the community. It is located at the highest point in the building and offers a view of the downtown area of Cincinnati. It can be a place to read, write, work or simply observe. There is an attempt, by displaying the city to its people, to generate awareness about the place in which the people live. They might observe acts of theft and they might observe acts of community and togetherness. Whether they be observations of charity or wrongdoing, the idea is that the people begin to take ownership of the city they are observing - encouraged by the good and determined to right the wrong.

Model Photo

Observatorium Collage 25

Urban Lab / Observatory Project : Analogical

Main Pool / Changing / Seating

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The pool is at the heart of the building. It is the most likely place where residents, employees, and visitors will interact. There is a changing and locker area in the room next to the main pool and seating in the room above. The room above becomes a balcony to view the pool in the room below. This close interaction between rooms (like the interaction between the pool and balcony) is something that occurs throughout the building and helps stitch the seemingly compartmentalized rooms into a network of spaces and interactions.

Model Photo

Pool Area Collage 27

Urban Lab / Observatory Project : Analogical

Structural Model 28

Corridor Behind Apartments

View from Intersection at 7th and Main (Night)

Apartment Detail 29

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Jordan Keller