Dormitory and Student Center, Rutgers-Newark - year 3, project 1
Spring 2005 Critic - Eric Goldemberg
From the assigned program:
"Our site this semester is located in the vicinity of the NJSOA building. Currently a parking lot, this site is to be transformed into a student complex to house a student center and a dormitory building. In addition, this site is required to maintain some of its parking space without losing the potential of the open spaces between the future structures, to become public spaces to serve the students.
In this assignment you are asked to generate a design statement for the site as a whole to
include the following:
1. Outward - establishing relationship with the physical and programmatic environment surrounding the site:
a) Campus traffic and pedestrian circulation
b) Neighboring lots
c) Natural environment
d) Connection to other academic and infrastructural facilities
2. Inward – creating a conceptual scheme to house the required program
a) Relationship between the two main structures; student center and dormitories
b) Open space and its programming
c) Parking requirements
It is the studio emphasis that you develop your own housing concept using a student dormitory within a student complex as your case study. Nevertheless your work should be thought of beyond this specific studio project. It is expected that your work will reflect on mass housing and will generate a new and advanced way to live in neighboring with others."
My solution, from the presentation poster:
PROSPECT & REFUGE
Ramped paths guide students to dormitories, student center, or roof garden. Building acts as a campus spatial axis endcap and offers a sense of prospect and refuge.
"Conceived as a dormitory one would look forward to experiencing, and less of a "bedroom community," the varied programming includes a number of different studio sizes and exposures to natural light, while maintaining a consistent design aesthetic and incorporating repeated materials and shading devices to maximize cost efficiency. The massing of the design is broken up not only by the enclosed lawn and myriad ramps, but by "pulling" the building up from its incidence with the ground plane, as well as by inserting an open amphitheater into the middle of the main facade. This "eye" allows views from the pre-existing alabaster Bradley Hall down to the athletic field, and vice-versa. The subtle shift in section at each steel truss member makes for gentle transition of spaces - sloped surfaces which become recreational and assembly areas. The interior circulation proceeds along the middle, common level, and from there up and down through glass elevators, connected by half-level lounges to encourage visiting between dormitory residents."
Media - AutoCAD plans, sections, elevations. Digital model in Maya 6. Presentation board in Photoshop CS.
