On Saturday my group went to the Farmers Market in Marion Square to analyze the site with the dense pedestrian traffic that this market brings every week. It was helpful for us to experience how the site is used during this weekly event and how our project would be influenced by the amount of people that come. If you have not been to the Farmers Market you are missing out; it’s a great experience!
Today my group had a VERY productive brainstorming session. Caitlin and I went to Marion Square this morning to get exact measurements at the corner of King Street and Calhoun Street (the proposed site for our structure). John and Mike worked in the woodshop and came up with two mock up models for the columns.
The end result of a mound of trace paper was our final grid organization. Below I have attached the site plan that we will propose on Wednesday. As you can see it is a very structured grid. The grid very much reacts to the natural elements. One specific palm tree has been worked into the grid so it appears to complete one of the cubes. Another tree we have worked around to hopefully provide some shade within our structure. We also figured out how we plan to display the information in our structure. We knew we wanted something integrated into the system, nothing that looked like a banner or something tacked onto the columns. These are the square elements that imply the grid continues; these boxes will be shorter columns that will display the information about Bluesphere and the events throughout the Expo.
We plan to make our footing for each column out of textured concrete by making a form out of wood, which will leave behind a wood texture in the concrete much like you see below.
This concept had made great strides since the last review and I know we will present a solid and convincing proposal. I am very excited to see the progress and development made on the other 3 schemes! I think it should be a very exciting review day here in Charleston on Wednesday!