Midterm Pin Up

          When I went to pin up my midterm, I tried to make the layout make sense as much as I could. I organized the documents in order of development. The first sheet explains my design thought that led to the building shape, the next is the site plan with my site shown, the next is the space allocation, then the floor plan, then the circulation plan, followed by 2 exterior perspectives and an exterior elevation, with 2 interior perspectives and an interior elevation last. To the right is my program document with my questionnaire below it. I encouraged people to write on the sheets, which I wrote on them a lot with things that I saw that I forgot or needed to change.

Midterm

Program Document

          Creating programs has always been a very important element in any of my designs because it allows me to find out all the information I need and have it in one document that I just reference to any time I need it. It helps me to organize my thoughts and even think about things that I might not normally, like the smell of the environment. Probably the hardest part about creating this program was filling out the Space Allocation section. It is usually difficult for me to think about what needs to go where and how much space it should take up so early on in the planning process. Finding the building code was probably one of the most useful because I learned some requirements that I would have never thought of. Finally, I think that filling out the concept section will help me the most in my design because it gives me an object that I can look back to for inspiration and it will help guide me with decision making.

Site Plan Studies

Wednesday, February 5, 2014

          During studio, we got the chance to take our site plans and draw over them with trash paper to try out different areas as our site and to see how the space allocation would be in connection with everything else. I tried to plan out almost every possible site location and see how convenient it was to the underpass, which I think is important to utilize and how close it is to the police station for safety. Through my studies, I found that it would probably be better to have the train station on the south side of the tracks because then you wouldn't have to worry about building a costly bridge over the train tracks or to have the platform on one side of the tracks and the station on the other. Although I am still open to looking more deeply into other possible sites, I believe that the most convenient would be to take over the building with the battery store because of its closeness to the police station and underpass, its possibilities of parking, and its location to the tracks.

Site Plan

Spring Garden St. & S. Aycock St. - Tate St. & W. Lee

          For class, we were to create an existing site plan of the potential areas where we could choose for our site to be. We were to include a north arrow, major roadways, pedestrian walking paths, fences, buildings, parking lots, the underpass, the railroad tracks, and existing landscaping. Creating this site plan, really helped me to study the locations of everything surrounding the possible sites. It also helps me to know the relative size and proportions of all of the buildings and helped me to memorize where everything is in relation to other areas. We were to create one 8.5" x 11" site plan, and also one that was 18" x 24". This was my first time really creating an existing site plan, and I found it quite fun and relaxing because it was just a matter of transferring information.

Gaylon Train Depot Visit

Friday, January 31, 2014

          Our class met at the Greensboro Galyon Transportation Center to have a tour around the train station, bus depot, and the Greyhound depot. While we were walking around the spaces, we were shown some areas that are restricted to general people in order to see how the building is connected and how they make things happen behind the scenes. We were also given plenty of factors to think of when designing our own train stations, and one of the ones that stood out to me most, was that this building is going to be around for 40 years or more, so the design will have to be timeless. The walk through the bus depot was very familiar to me because I used to ride the bus everywhere for a years, and would visit there daily, but I also learned more about the history and why they made some of the design decisions that they did. Walking though the Greyhound depot brought back some very fond memories of the first time my fiance and I met in that exact location. It was definitely a fun and learning experience getting to hear about all of the "accidents" that happened through the construction of the space and how they came to a good decision on how to fix it.

Train Station Main Hall

Train Station main waiting area

Train Station vestibule ceiling

Greensboro map on floor

Spiral staircase leading up to mechanical

Old train announcement board

Train Station floor plan

Old segregated are of Train Station

Greensboro Lincoln Financial Group buidling

Stairs and Escalator up to train platform

Lamp posts

Train tracks

Train platform overhang

Luggage trolleys

Heating and Cooling

Bus Depot

Exterior bus depot overhang

Greyhound depot

Train station floor plan

UNCG Train Station Possible Site Visits

Monday, January 27, 2014

          During class on Monday, our class took a walk around UNCG from the Gatewood Studio Arts Building, to the corn of Aycock Street and Lee Street, and back. On our walk, we stopped to look at different possible sites for our train station, and measured the outer most boundary, which is a UNCG commuter parking lot, and looked at the new Police Station being built right next to the new UNCG underpass.

UNCG Commuter Parking Lot

UNCG Watertower

Sarah H., Stephanie, Katie M., Paige, Alex, Kelsey, Cory, and Ashley

Gas Station

New UNCG Police Station under construction

New UNCG Underpass under construction

New Underpass had been delayed because of weather