Garden Avenue

Winter Term 2010

2010-01-05T19:51:00.001-08:00

Happy New Year! We are looking forward to a productive term and the completion of this project.

We made a lot of progress during fall term. We were able to finish pouring and installing all of the pavers, complete initial planting, build a concrete gutter and custom metal grate that prevent stormwater overflows at the site and portions of the steel ribbon are almost done and ready for installation.

There are still several ways for people to get involved and we would love to have help this term. Projects that need volunteers include: fabricating, painting and installing the red steel ribbon along the bench; bike rack installation; luminaire and bamboo planter fabrication and installation; address lettering fabrication and more!

Please contact us if you would like to help!

Site from the north.

Concrete gutter and metal grate.

Site from the south.

Welcome to Fall 2009!

2009-10-02T17:56:00.000-07:00

Welcome back everyone!

We have an exciting fall planned. It will be great to see this project as it continues to evolve. There are opportunities to help with luminaire and bamboo barrel design and fabrication, address lettering, landscaping, fence and bench construction and paver production.

Work continued over the summer and we've now completed most of the structural elements.

Please see upcoming events for ways you can get involved!

Retaining Walls

2009-05-11T22:48:00.000-07:00

A team re-built the retaining walls on the site on Saturday. The walls were removed to make room for the footings. They are now back in place.

Footings

2009-04-30T22:42:00.000-07:00

We poured all of our footings for our trellis and fence posts today. It was fast-paced work, but in the end all of the footings are aligned and look great.

Demo Day

2009-04-26T22:36:00.000-07:00

Big day on the site yesterday. With EWEB's generous donations of time and equipment, we removed a large amount of concrete and asphalt to make way for a more pleasant ground surface. The area will be filled in with pavers, planting beds and pea gravel.

Open House

2009-04-15T22:21:00.000-07:00

In preparation for tomorrow's open house at HIV Alliance, we set up our trellis mock-up at the site. It was exciting to see a full scale portion of our design in its context. Please stop by the open house tomorrow between 4-6 p.m.

Welcome Back!

2009-04-03T11:35:00.000-07:00

Hi all,

I hope you had a great spring break, and are as excited as I am to get the construction started. That being said, we have a lot to do. Erik submitted our drawings for permits on Tuesday, so we should be hearing back from the city soon! Here is what we have planned so far.

HOPES conference is this saturday; they will be making some of the pavers
Gardening Party! We will be meeting this sunday at 10-2 on site to weed, transplant prune, and whatever else we can to make the North Garden look beautiful. If you can come for the whole time, that would be great. Or if you just want to stop by for a bit. If anyone has tools (shovels, pruning shears, etc...) that they can bring, that would be great.
Weekly Team Meatings: Since we don't have an official designBridge studio this term, we will be holding our weekly team meetings in LA 278. They will still be on Mondays from 5-6. For those of us in the tech-build class, we may stay longer to prep for tuesday class.
EWEB: They want to start demo either the weekend of the 18th or 25th (of April). This will depend on the door remodel, which HIV Alliance has secured donations for.

Just like last term, if you are not in the tech build class, it does not mean you can't be a part of the project. The construction should be a lot of fun and a great learning experience, so if you are still interested in helping out, we would love to see you back. If you have friends who are interested, let them know too! We have a lot of work to do, but it is going to be a lot of fun. Hope to see you all sunday and at the Team Meeting on monday!

Have a great weekend,

Garden Avenue team

Final Presentation Pictures pt. 2

2009-03-14T18:51:00.001-07:00

Hi again,

Here are the pictures of the construction, transportation, display and deconstruction of our final presentation. We constructed the entire structure in the db shop, dismantled it, loaded it on Sylvan's car, transported it to Lawrence, carried it upstairs to LA 206, reassembled it, reviewed, took it apart again, and now it is sitting in our studio. The process took a whole day plus some prep work, and was a lot of fun. Hopefully we will be able to put it back up somewhere so everyone can come see it.

Construction in the shop

Transportation - that is one sexy spoiler!

Re-Construction in Lawrence

Beautiful Display

Dramatic lighting to set the mood

Oooooooh

Final Presentation

2009-03-14T18:34:00.000-07:00

Hi all,

For those of you who could not make it to our final review, it went really well. We got a lot of great feedback, and have a lot to consider before moving on. Here are the final renderings of the project done in Revit. I will post pictures of the full scale mock up and final presentation as soon as I can get them off my camera. Great work team!

North Gate looking south

Trellis from front door

South Gate looking North

Barrel Pictures

2009-02-20T12:49:00.001-08:00

Hi all,

Here are some pictures of the plasma cut barrels. These illustrate what we can do to integrate lighting, create interesting focal points, make the barrels not look like barrels, etc... As you can see, we can do pretty much any pattern/design on them. Right now, most of us are leaning towards the vertical stripes, but are still working on what form they will take. Special thanks to Erik...these look amazing!

Construction Documents

2009-02-11T16:09:00.000-08:00

Hi All,

Here is a preliminary list of drawings that we're planning to include in our Construction Documents.

Existing Site Plan & Elevations
Existing Site Sections
Demolition Plan
Proposed Site Plan & Elevations
Proposed Landscape Plan
Enlarged Plan of Covered Structure
Planting Plans
Permeable Paver Plan
Electric Plan

Details:
Columns meeting the ground
Fence - column connections
Column meeting the ground
Column - beam connection
Beam - purlin connection
Purlin - roof connection
Bench construction
Bench support
Ribbon connections
Bike racks
Barrels
Gutter
Permeable paver section
Light fixture details

2009-02-09T17:21:00.001-08:00

Hi all,

We made a fairly substantial change to our design involving the shape of the path. We were struggling with getting people into the building without needing signs. After discussing several schemes, we decided on this one.

View from Garden Ave entrance

View from parking lot entrance

Birds view

At this point, all of our work is shifting towards construction drawing development. We are shooting for 50% by this coming monday. That means that we are no longer making large changes to the overall design. That does not mean that there will be no design changes, but that they will be small, regarding details. We are still trying to iron out the exact form of the bench, but should have it pretty close by wednesday. We need help producing construction drawings. Our primary resource is going to be AutoCAD. If you are comfortable with the program, that is great. If you are new to it, do not let it deter you. Most of us are new to it too. If you have time to help, contact one of us or stop by the studio anytime. Thanks! Good luck with midterms.

New Model Pics

2009-02-05T13:54:00.001-08:00

Here are some pictures of the most recent model - 1" = 1'-0" mock up of one idea for the covered seating area. Edwin is working on another and we will get pics up as soon as he is done. Jessie made a model of a bench where the back is another red ribbon, and the width of the bench undulates. Our current thinking is to incorporate that idea into this scheme.

The issue of tables also came up. We are kind of split on how to handle that issue. We (most of us) know we do not want the red band to be cut, and would prefer that it stay in one plane to keep it more simple. In our meeting with Jefrey yesterday, he said if the scheme lends itself to it, having a bench in one spot would be nice. We do not want to add tables if it makes the scheme more complicated, and only if they are beautiful, simple and functional. And of course tie into the overall scheme. The also need to be fixed.

In addition, we have been trying to figure out ground materials and how the garden space and covered seating area relate to each other. If you have any ideas, please let us know.

Garden Ave

Wednesday/Thursday Update

2009-01-22T15:41:00.000-08:00

Hi Everyone

Studio on wednesday was spent finalizing drawings and building our model to present to the HIV Alliance board. It will be great to get feedback from the board, so we can move on to design development. Jessie, Erika, Edwin and Shannon will be presenting this evening at 5:40. Tomorrow we will go over what was said, and make whatever changes are necessary. As usual, you are all welcome to stop by the studio whenever you can. Here are some pictures of the finished model:

Preparing for Thursday Board Meeting

2009-01-20T11:57:00.000-08:00

We had a productive meeting yesterday afternoon. We continued to explore the woven wall idea and we will present a refined version of this idea to the client at their Thursday board meeting. We marked out the seating area with tape in the hallway outside of our studio. It's still there if anyone would like to come get a feel for the size of the covered seating.

We are now working on a set of drawings for Wed. that we'll scan and lay out for our board presentation. During Wednesday's studio, we'll start to build a 1/4" model of our latest scheme. If anyone is interested in helping to build the model please come by between 1-5 p.m. on Wednesday. Or stop by any other time if you want to see what we're up to.

2009-01-16T17:00:00.000-08:00

woven fence

south entrance

2009-01-16T16:47:00.000-08:00

Hey all, here are posts for the day. We are working more on the structure for the covered area, the benches within, vegetation, and water catchment. Check it out and feel free to comment!

covered structure: cantileaver w/ tension cable.

West Elevation of woven fence

ribbon pulling out to form seating

woven wall idea 2

First Team Meeting!

2009-01-12T19:42:00.000-08:00

Over the weekend, we built a 1/4" site model so that we can begin modeling our ideas at a larger scale.

In studio today, we took a field trip to BRING where we bought 4 recycled steel drums to experiment with. We also brought some bamboo into studio so we can get a feel for its height and shape.

Our first team meeting was held today. We spent the majority of the time exploring new design ideas. To avoid bamboo overload, we discussed the idea of limiting the use of bamboo to the barrels and details, such as door handles or railings or other small elements. We talked about using a "woven" pattern for the roof and walls of the covered area. This woven element would wrap around the edges of the building and might include an accent strip of lighting, color, vertical garden or other unusual material.

Schedule:

Tues., 1/13: At 10 a.m. tomorrow, we'll start working on a model of our next round of schematic design. Please come by Pacific 218 if you'd like to help!

Fri., 1/16: We plan to have a full set of schematic design drawings for Friday. If you'd like to work on these, please let us know.

Fri., 1/23: We need to have a revised set of schematic drawings and models by this date. We'll keep you posted on how you can help.

Within the next week, we also hope to start experimenting with materials. We want to see what we can make from the barrels. Once we have a time and place established, we'll post it here.

What Did the Client Think About Our Initial Designs?

2009-01-12T16:52:00.000-08:00

Here's a list of the feedback we received from the client during our first schematic review at the end of fall term.

They liked:
Soft instead of hard
Plants that soften metal
Recycled barrels
Barrels that don't look like barrels
Light cans in barrels
Different and pretty pavers
Can art with light
Bamboo
Number address instead of the name HIV Alliance out front
Archway
Delineating edges
Framed views that you can't quite walk through
Quilt aspect
10' x 10' covered seating area
Moving people away from the entrance
Bike racks closer to the entrance, specifically in the corner by the front door

The disliked:
Metal frames all over the site
Too many moveable pieces
Corrugated metal roofing if used too extensively because it would get hot in summer

Week 1

2009-01-09T15:23:00.000-08:00

Afternoon all.We've had a busy week in studio and are diving deeper into schematic design. Our assignment for today was to build 5 models that departed from our three schemes we presented to the client.We built two models thinking about rhythm and wrapping, two models expressing the bamboo barrels, and one model furthering patchwork. See photos.

After discussion, we are moving forward by collecting materials and building a 1/2 inch site model. Using bamboo and the barrels in a variety of ways have come to the forefront.

Schedule:
sunday 1/11 10am- meeting to learn how to set up cad files for the laser cutter, cutting the model, building the model

monday 1pm- gathering barrels from Bring Recycling

monday- 5pm Pacific 218- Team Meeting bring ideas about how barrels and bamboo can be used in creative ways- benches, tables, luminaires, etc.

friday 1/16 - cutting barrels and testing possibilities.

all are welcome, anytime!

Welcome Back

2009-01-06T09:38:00.000-08:00

Hello Garden Avenue Team,

Happy New Year! I hope that everyone is having a good first week of classes.

We are starting another term of design work on our project for the HIV Alliance. Our first studio meeting was yesterday and we are already making forward progress.

We would like everyone who is interested to remain involved in this project. If you would like to keep working on this project (and we hope you do), please join us at our weekly team meetings. We will continue to hold these meetings Mondays between 5-6 p.m. in the dB studio in Pacific 218. Our first team meeting will be Monday, January 12th.

Hope to see all of you next week or sooner. Everyone is always welcome to stop by our studio at anytime to see what we are working on and provide input and feedback.

Erika