Final boards project 1

My final drawings for the polar bear center

I couldn't get my board layout to load so here are the individual drawings on my board. All in all I enjoyed this project. It was interesting learning about Churchill and looking at all of the beautiful pictures of the location. I wish for my final presentation I had included more of the details and random things I thought about with my center early on in the project. This was the first project I've used sketchup and revit for, so hopefully for the next project I'll struggle a little less figuring out how to make things look the way I want them to.

East Elevation

North Elevation

Exterior Perspective

Section facing north, shows the thick gravel pad and thermo-piles used for permafrost

Section facing west. Shows (from left to right) gift shop, bathrooms, exhibit space

South Elevation

West Elevation

General Site Plan, my site is the little thing popping out at the northeast side of the peninsula

Structural diagram of how my columns and beams intersect

Section of beam and the waterproofing/insulation

Post and beam + insulation and decking

Vertical siding diagram

Hoping this is more final

I've cut out a lot of the windows I had going previously to make the views less overwhelming and excessive. Still haven't decided what to do with the remaining window wall shown. I also added some visible structural beams to emphasize the materiality of the center, as well as vary the space, and make it more responsive to its surroundings. Also varied the roof for my exhibition space, hoping to make it more interesting and maybe reflect the northern lights? Might be pushing it too far.

Some stuff I should've posted awhile ago but forgot I had

This is a sketch model I made at the same time as my parti. It's very general, I used it to brainstorm what I wanted my center to do, which is to enclose, reach out to and embrace nature and its surroundings.

This is a model of the Canadian Museum for Human Rights in Winnipeg that is currently under construction. It was inspired by Canada's natural scenery (trees, ice, northern lights) and utilizes views as a prime part of the experience. I like a lot of things about this structure and think the ideas behind it are really similar to my own design intentions. I particularly like how the building interacts with the landscape and reaches out to its surroundings in a really interesting way. Plus it's pretty.

Snow sculpture process

What the wax model looks like so far.

We liked this idea best after everything because of the contrast between heavy and light, rough and smooth, positive and negative, light and shadows, etc. I hope this represents those well anyways.

More ideas.

One of the ideas we started with and built off of. We liked the idea of shadows and reflecting positive and negative space, but realized there we better ways to do this.

We wanted to represent the idea of contrast.

More process thinking

This is my original spacial layout idea, thinking about which spaces relate to each other best and gauging the relative sizes of each space. From here I rearranged to basically the plan I have now, which is much more responsive to the site and my parti concept.

Quick brainstorming sketches for windows, roof slopes, and materials

More window brainstorming sketches. I really want to capture the idea of reaching out and interacting with the environment, so here I'm thinking about windows popping out of walls, accentuating the sloping roofs with a more 'opening up' emphasis, etc. Wood panels of various sizes will be used to give a more natural appeal.

Perspective sketch showing how the building could curve and reach out towards bay.

After seeing my sketchup model, I definitely see that I am going overboard with windows and views and want to find another way to do this. Here I have less windows, but they are popping out into little cubby/bench-like spaces in the walls so people can come up and look out, interacting with the building as well. I am also brainstorming ways to get the 'reaching out' idea across with extended roof planes? Still brainstorming.

Sketch up