This semester, a team of nine students would participate in this brand-new project in Kiawah island under the guidance of Professor David Pastre. The team consists of six grad students and three undergrad students. All of us are pretty interested in this design-build project and looking forward to the new start.
At the beginning of the class, Professor Pastre introduced the project and site briefly and then we quickly set out as two separated squads from the studio. After two squads spent 20 minutes driving from cigar factory to the Kiawah Island, we finally arrived in the clubhouse at the Kiawah River and were welcomed by three gentlemen who were in charge of the management and the development of the whole Kiawah River estate. At the clubhouse, we were given a presentation of the planning of Kiawah River Area. We could see from the watercolor drawings that some guest cabins, swimming club, wedding chapel and dock for boat landing would be built in this 2000 arces area apart from some village houses.
After the presentation, we were invited to tour around the area and see the site where we are going to design and build our farmstead project this semester. As it is shown in the map that we have seen previously, the site is located in a open grassland at the entrance area of the development. It’s pretty close to the roadside so people would have easier access to see or get to this future farmstead from different places.
At the same time all of us were pretty much enjoying the natural scenery of the Kiawah River area. It is where human and animals would home together in harmony.
After saying goodbye to the Kiawah River, we drove to Freshfield village, which could be regarded as the commercial center of Kiawah Island. We could image that the future prospect of the commercial area of kiawah river, guess it should be similar but smaller in scale than the Freshfield village. Then we drove to a farmstead where some of us got some fresh vegetables and sweet peaches. After that, we headed for the project that the students from 2017 fall semester have done at Medway Park, which is a pavillion where people in the community could wash vegetables or relax and chill. Here, we had better understanding of what our studio project. Looking forward to seeing our farmstead in few months!
