This Monday was our trip to HKS in Dallas for our half-way critiques. It was nice to see a professional firm, and have them comment on our work.
Some of the things we heard in our critiques that we needed to work on were:
- To continue to refine our site plan and floor plans with special attention to the placement of our elevators and the organization of community spaces within our lobby area
- to more clearly demonstrate the connection between our clinic and the surrounding area and people
- and to refine our structural grid.
We defined our grid to the point that it works on all levels, and will begin to figure the approximate sizes of the columns.
In order to make our structural grid correct, we needed to size our plan back into a truely radial organization as it was orignially. This didn't change much with the inside space sizes aor positions. By trying to situate our elevators in different parts of the building, it eliminated eliminated our central core. This allowed for us to experiment with an atrium, which we decided to keep at the end of the week. Having the atrium go through to the roof, we had to move our upper floor rooms around. This is what we ended up with.
We will refine each floor a little more, adding our stacked bathrooms in the space we determined.
For the next week, we will begin to design the 8,000 square feet of the interior and begin applying real materials, glazing systems, and shading devices to the exterior of our building. We will also play with the design of the bustop and try to create a concrete site plan with a park area.
