Cones, cones, cones

Throughout the week, Lisa and I have been developing our idea of "cones." Each "cone" is one of four small schools. The cones hold program specific to those individual schools. At the bottom level, the basement, the cones start off as overlapping circles. The overlaps are areas of common space. As the circles shift and get smaller higher up in the building,we will bridge the gaps between the schools. These spaces between the circles or "cones" become the common and shared space. Therefore, the higher up you are in the building, the more open common space there is. It becomes more open, social, and public. The center space acts as an inverted cone, starting off small at the bottom and getting bigger at the top.


When we discussed these ideas with Karl, two references came to mind: the Guggenheim in New York by FLW and the Mercedes Benz Museum in Stuttgart, Germany, by UNStudio. Both were helpful references.

(Guggenheim, New York, NY)

(Diagrams of Merecedes Benz Museum, Stuttgart, Germany)

(Section of Merecedes Benz Museum, Stuttgart, Germany)

(Exterior photo of Merecedes Benz Museum, Stuttgart, Germany)

(http://www.unstudio.com/nl/unstudio/projects/country/0/739/3110/mercedes-benz-museum#img1)

After our desk crit with Karl today, he went down to the BT Lab with us and helped us work through some problems and methods in DP. He showed us how we could pursue our cone idea using parameters, which we were having trouble figuring out. I asked him to explain how we could begin to "bridge those gaps" between the cones; he kindly showed us the "connect curve" command which would allow us to begin to play with varying levels in section. We all became pretty excited and enthusiastic when thinking about all the possibilities. After discussing our new skill set, me and Lisa decided that we are going to come up with some variations for Saturday and then synthesize our ideas into one model and proceed from there.