Last week on Friday (1/17/25) Studio V held our first “client” presentation. Our presentation consisted of background history of the City of Charleston, History of Riverland Terrace, Site analysis/conditions, sizing of our project, local Charleston project precedents, and global project precedents. Since our presentation, Studio V has divided the 10 members into 3 groups (4, 3, 3) each equipped with the task of … you guessed it: project concepts/iterations!
Within my small design group we are focusing on exploring canvas/fabric as a building material within the design. Inspired by Erazo + Pugliese, these lightweight elements may provide an operable shading condition to help dim direct sunlight, while the non opaque shelter also allows for the casted shadows of tree foliage to play across the ceiling condition. Ideally this would help our structure provide an overhead shelter under the trees of our site all year round while keeping a visual connection/sensitive approach to the forest condition.
Another aspect of the project are ideas of built-in interoperability between uses of space. Stemming from some of the past Clemson projects that we visited as a studio on 1/17/25, a theme of castings with corresponding wooden “palette” surfaces allows for multi-functional uses of space within the limited area of the build. How can these ideas of multi-function find their way into our project? How would they serve our user group if implemented? Can you create a similar intuitive system without the need of casting concrete? These questions are to be explored!
As a studio we are currently separated from each other as we continue into our explorations of concepts and iterations due to Charleston actually having a snow day! Given this unique condition, I am excited to see what many more questions and rabbit holes unfold from each of the other small design groups, and if not being in proximity to one and another will yield vastly different concept ideas.