Generative Components

THIN _____________THICK

These are circulation diagrams. I'm creating textures based on the geometric forces on-site in order to develop the primary circulatory system that the secondary and tertiary will grow from (think of the earlier site analysis where the primary circulation is black like the streets and is totally public day/night...)

The site is flat!

Yes it's true, the site is flat as a pancake. I'll talk about this more once I have the images of the physical models, however if one take the analogy of the swimmer it may be easier to understand why this is so significant to my circulatory approach to the the site.

The swimmer wants to move the fastest through the water with the least resistance and therefore least work. As a competitive swimmer myself since age six, I know that the swimmer's primary strategy is to maintain a horizontal form in the water in which the mid-line of the body is parallel to the surface of the water, while the legs and arms displace water to propel the body. In plan this is not dissimilar to the "gravity point" of circulation on the north section of the site, and in section there is a kind of efficient circulation formed that maintains this horizon, while secondary and tertiary circulatory systems may be above/below grade.

(The bubble diagram shows program in terms of circulation with the resistance shown as gradients) The drawings show the site with the vectors projected onto it.

Site Geometry and Massing

From left to right:
1) Floating mass condition on site (bath house) as well as the back which fills in the circulation public space adjusts to the geometries of the site
2) Three types of adjustment: gravitational point, boundary mimicry, mediation between trajectories
3) The existing mass stays.

The diagrams on the right of the board represent a parallel thought that will be developed further. It occurred to me that the program of the pool is analogous to the boundary and flows that I discovered in the site. The competition pool has a primary function as a fair playing field, meaning that the turbulence and resistance is equal in all lanes so that the resistance on swimmer A = R on swimmer B. In order to create this, several boundaries and buffers are created (in order of scale): lane lines, buffer lanes (2), perimeter gutter, perimeter pool wall, drains, filters. The pool program is also interesting because while the pool is a neutral and permeable zone the envelope of the pool (walls/roof) must be sealed to resist air/water so as to minimize evaporation.

The zoom in process continues...these diagrams highlight the massing and resulting thickness/thinness in relation to resistance/permeability on the individual blocks using a system of gradients.

Conditions: subway / packing the edge / porous edge / floating solid / private condition (shared between multiple buildings) / air shaft (private condition within single building)

Site Typology

I began to analyze the geometry of the site context. The site is situated in an active urban fabric in which three grids collide and the grids have a fragmented quality that is knit back together resulting in a knot condition. What does this mean and why is is significant? It's not a question of what came first (the grid, the dynamic geometries of the site boundaries, or the boundary of land/water...) I'm analyzing it as a complex system of modular containment that is constantly balancing forces. For example one force is that every block wants to have to pairs of parallel edges, however in the process of knitting together the fragmented grid there are new trajectories that mediate between boundaries. The diagram in the top left shows gradients based on solid/void relationships. The streets are public and open, they bleed into the blocks through crevices, at times they are completely resisted resulting in a private void condition within the block, and other times the streets seem to flood the block resulting in an open/public space. The large tree diagram (bottom right) analyzes the cropped sample of urban fabric as block geometry types, in which the edge conditions are vectors.

My initial site analysis was centered around the current uses of the site, and the effects the new zoning and development of the waterfront could potentially have over the way the site is/should be used. The current uses I saw as a kind of 'emergent program' in the barren block. As a parallel scheme to the development of program on site I hope to knit together the green space of the waterfront development with the inland green space of the McCarrren Park Pool complex.