INCLUSION AND DIVERSITY

Creating an environment that utilizes systems to actively enable all groups to interact.

TYPE OF PROJECT- CULTURAL CENTER

Due to modes of Segregation established in the past, the city of Bryan as an urban area has developed and expanded without remedying the issue of Spatial Exclusion of minority groups. As a result, there has been much ignorance surrounding such cultural presence throughout the city’s history. Implementing a Cultural Center presents an alternative to the status quo by educating and connecting the community at large.

CHARACTERISTICS OF SITE-

Interconnection through an interactive site that acts as a hub of both education and community involvement for di erent groups to learn and interact with each other. Various scenic locations of multiple scales are placed across the site in relation with the main structures.

MATERIALS-

Audiences

TYPOLOGY-

Cultural center- The Cultural Centre is a new building and institution typology developed during the post-war European welfare state governance, where culture was regarded as a social instrument with the same standing as sanitation or education. Sequential network of spaces-

Cultural center- Gallery/ Educational spaces, terraces

Convention center- Indoor presentation space/ Meeting rooms / Auditorium

Outdoor interactive landscape- sculptures, memorials, gardens, observation tower, parking space, ground conditions (textured pavement, gravel) Systems of circulation- tunneling/ bridge systems that serve to weave and stitch together the di erent areas both within the site and its surroundings

Folding Diagram

This investigation following the strategies of fold and pattern had the intent of composing a series of surfaces which become both structure and ground conditions. The notion of scenic sprawl and promenade through a main thoroughfare and branching paths can be established. The patterns serve to differentiate the paths in their elevations spaces, in their general use, essentially a type of zoning defining system.

As a folding strategy the, “rule of thirds” allows elements within a composition to potentially appear more harmonious, balanced, and follow a system of distribution that coincide with a number of geometrically determined points. This method of folding triangular geometries was a result of our investigation into patterns, where we developed a composition that would take into consideration the use of undulations as surfaces to dictate both ground conditions of our site and influence building geometry. The structures themsleves, experience a seemless act of continuity through the manipulation of surfaces.

The Site Plan and Site Axonometric drawings help to show the exact location of each piece of program on the whole site, and the spatial relationships between them. They also give a futher glimpse into the materiality (being zinc plating, wood,steel, and concrete) and formal nature of the proposal, being derived from a series of precedent projects we sought to emulate. The form however was based on a framework of the two strategies “pattern and fold” shown in the previous diagram.

In addition to the macro scale, each piece of program had its own floorplan and included context. These last drawings include floorplans but also two sections which serves to display the unique volumetric properties of the proposal as a result of its folding strategy.