Will it stand? 06/20/2011
 
This project has many responsibilities. One of these is that it must stand.

The structure must stand as a physical element in the landscape. A place that is functional and structural. A place for grooving on a stormy summer night and for working hard on a chilly fall morning. On the other hand this project must stand for all that the Burton Street Community encompasses. It must stand for JUSTICE, not only social, but environmental. It will stand as a physical reminder of what was and what will be. Someone has a vision, now it must be sold and embraced by the rest.

The design process stage we are currently in: We know what we want this thing to look like, now can we make it actually happen? With the guidance of Edward Medlock, a local structural engineer we have SUBMITTED CONSTRUCTION DOCUMENTS and are awaiting a building permit from the city. Yes, after many late nights and early mornings (or not so early mornings for those who were so sleepy that the alarms were of no use) the drawings were submitted for review on Thursday, June 16. Now, in the meantime we make ourselves useful!

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One of the many iterations that were drawn on the board this week.
The busy week of June 6th was full of quick decisions. Because of our short timeline and great expectations the design was manipulated, adapted, and tweaked this past week. We shifted the structure, banged our heads against the table about joints and enjoyed the nightlife on College Street from the window seat of the Design Center. We explored schemes and pushed ourselves to find a way to make our concepts STRUCTURAL. Unlike most projects that you work on in a educational atmosphere, this thing is getting built! We can not stop at drawing pretty lines on trace paper or making models in sketch-up...we are in the phase of figuring out spans, connections, tension and compression. Another crucial portion of this project is the skin. We must understand the skeleton of the structure as well as the function, material, and image of the outer layers. Because of the spirit of the garden, the skin is going to be funky and interesting (and a work in progress for the artist)!

Monday-Thursday was full of discussion, revision, and decision. Friday, we visited DeWayne at the garden with a 1/2" scale model, a sketch-up model and some sections describing the latest scheme. The team built to scale connections of some of our joints. They are sitting in the design center, waiting for you to come by and see them! Site plans, sections, elevations, and floor plans, and sketch-up models were our assignments over the weekend so that we could meet with Edward Medlock, Structural Engineer with Medlock & Associates Engineering, PA on Monday morning.


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One of the joints built on site.
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Baby Steps. 06/13/2011
 
Our week with Natalie came to an end. We were thankful for all of her insight and were thrilled to have her helping us. Every one of us learned a lot and explored lots of ideas. We were ready to see how our developments went over with Luke. And we would never forget the importance of the endangered hemlock tree!
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After chatting with Dr. Betsalel, our team worked along with Gabe Landes and Natalie Pollard to examine our site plan and proposed building site. After discovering a few details that clearly needed to be rearranged on our base map we rallied together to finalize and consolidate our site plan.

Then we had the task of individually formulating and investigating the relationship of our pavilion schemes to the natural conditions that will interact with it. Some of the attitudes and stances that we must understand are:
-the effect of sun and shade in the space during different times of day and different times of the year
-use of daylighting to minimize the need for electrical lights
-how rain water is collected, channeled, and disposed of
-location and relationship of the composting toilet
-how the space sits on and meets the ground
-use of earth/natural building materials in the project
-integration of vegetation/plantings into the building to assist with heating/cooling/aesthetics

We delivered our drawings, schemes, and newest information to Luke when he returned from Nyrobi!
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Well, the learning process continues and the energy is intensifying in the Design Center. Meanwhile, there is a lot of blog catching up to do.

So, where we left off...Dr. Ken Betsalel, professor at UNC-Asheville visited us so that we could learn about the spoken history project that his students worked on in the Burton Street Community. The project is titled "If There is Ever a Dire Need" The Uses of Story in Building Community, Civic Education in Community Service Learning. Students focused on the community members and regarded them as story holders rather than stakeholders. Dr. Betsalel provided us with a lot of insight into the history of the Burton Street Community and encouraged us (and others) to be aware of history. He warned of gentrification and the deconstruction of social networks. Dr. Betsalel pointed out that we needed to keep people the subject of their environment and in line with the mission of the Asheville Design Center...learn what the community needs and wants. You can check out the work of Dr. Betsalel and his students at http://www.restoryingcommunity.com/

keywords: tactile. inspirational. equality. plurality. urban renewal. distrust. social landscape. urban renewal. target. relationship. translator. listener. communication. methos. storyholders. polos. politicos. subjective context. smart building. consequences. poetry. pose. mosaics. journal. collage. globalization. extraction. connection. symbols. integrity. dwell. deconstruction. access. resources. unity.
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This week has been focused on inventory and analysis of the site and materials.

During the inventory phase of the week we were sorting and organizing DeWayne's collection of materials that may be viewed as trash by some. Not to these eyes! We also recognized some natural systems and context relationships.

Analysis is taking the inventory and then determining what is important about it. In this phase we finalized our base map, highlighted some materials that we can use for the structure, and determining how we can work harmoniously with the ground and sky to accomplish our goals.

Finally, while scavenging for salvaged, recycled, and FREE materials we were simultaneously working on locating our structure on the site (orientation, sq. footage, etc). Do you know of a good place for materials in the Asheville area?!? We are looking for donations and cheap prices of materials to be used structurally and/or aesthetically.

    Keywords:
.going with the flow. water. orientation. moving. transition. compression. tension. walls. storage.view blocker. obstacles. opportunities. highlight. private to public. native. context.particularness. resilient. relief. utilitarian. practical. HEMLOCK TREE. reminder. boundary. convey. legibility. tangible. signage. dominance. balance. dead space. activate. buffer.

Chris Joyell, exec. director at the Asheville Design Center spoke to us about ADC's romance with the Burton Street Community and how their relationship has grown over the years. Tremendous efforts by both leaders in the Burton Street Community and ADC (as well as many other organizations) have proven that community involvement and engagement can transform a surviving community into a thriving place of activity and life!
   
    Keywords:
.trust. cohesion. implementation. needs. me
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The fast paced nature of this course demands that we are working diligently daily. So, what have we been doing?

Assignment 1: Focus on a section of the dynamic Burton Street Peace Garden and reflect. Record your initial reactions to the space (materiality, circulation, activity). How can we capture the genus loci of the site in our future designs?

    Key words from the assignment:
.thriving. sustaining. educational. playful. symbiotic. permanence. temporary. seasonal. ephemeral. structure. collage. bold. permeable. contained chaos. internal organs. movement. overlook. alive art. nuts and bolts. wholes and halves. man-made. natural. human. cycle. circulation. dichotomy. conflict. integrated. moments. gathering space. pausing. private. public. filter. rhythm.

Assignment 2: Develop a scheme for the pavilion based on initial reflections. Quick and loose models harness gut reactions and do not limit possibilities. Manipulation required.

    Key words:
.open and enclosed. light and shadow. lines and planes. heavy and soft. regular and irregular. movement and sequence. intersection and overlap. outside and inside. push and pull.
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Getting Started! 05/26/2011
 
The energy in the Asheville Design Center is pumping as we build our collective genius! After not even a week as a team we have made tremendous progress and have meshed almost seamlessly!! Flip flopping between working in our studio space at the Design Center to working on site at the Peace Garden we are well on our way to a productive summer.

This blog will be kept updated with ideas, progress, precedents, brainstorms, etc so we can have a comprehensive recollection of what's going on. This is also a platform for outside ideas...so SPILL!

Enjoy.
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