Continuing on with our project for the Conservency of the Sea Islands, we are now about a quarter of the way through with our small group design phase. It’s been an exciting time to design and collaborate with my classmates and friends. Each group has its own concept to focus on which hit some of the highlights from our individual review with the clients last Friday. My group is focused on a design which includes multple smaller sweet grass basket stands.
To begin, we met to discuss some conceptual goals and ideas that we thought would be important to include in our design. These included accessibility, views to nature, sweet grass basket stands’ functionality for makers, and incorporating an informal gathering space. After that, we split up for about half an hour to do some individual designs. We then came back together to share ideas and begin collaborating on combining key design concepts we thought were successful.
Pictured Above: Sketches from our site design charet
We decided to pursue a design which placed our project under the dense tree canopy of the site and sat on a boardwalk system. This could minimize the built footprint of the project to the points where the boardwalk’s supports would touch down. A minimal touch to the landscape seemed to align with the Conservency’s emphasis on impacting the natural land as little as possible. Placing it in this zone of the size would also allow the experience of walking within the sweetgrass and ultimately up onto our boardwalk to be an immersive one.
During studio David made sure to emphasize the importance of thinking about scale and feasibility at this stage. He demonstrated some good points of reference in the studio which could give a sense of scale.
Pictured Above: David measuring the ceiling
After doing a collaborative site design charet, we got the proposed site layout drawn out and ready to receive stand designs. As we move into the rest of the week and into next week, we will be designing what the actual stands will look like and how they will interact with the designed site.
Pictured Above: Our site plan as of today
After the design is worked out, we will be creating a 3D physical scale model of our design to present to the clients and stakeholders. With this in mind, we began looking at some past years’ models and drawing modeling inspiration.
Pictured Above: A model from last year’s cohort
To finish the day, we were surprised with some leftovers from a CDCC event. What a yummy way to end a successful day of designing!
Pictured Above: Valentine’s Day spread from today’s CDCC event