Infinite sketches and new inspirations

Here are the sketches which I meant to post last week. Since Lisa was sick and we were not able to meet up and make some design decisions before studio on Thursday, I found myself sketching endlessly. I started out with digrammatic plan sketches but then realized that the base the the top of the building will have to be somewhat different in order to fit in all the program. An extrusion of curvilinear bands of classrooms would not give us enough common space in which to place the gym, auditorium, administrative centers, etc. I noticed that the Guggenheim in New York has a different base and top and they blend together just fine. As long as the two halves don't read as separate halves and use the same language, I think we should be fine.

As I was thinking about this, I came across the Dolphinarium and Wellness Center (MER) on big.dk. It reminded me of our first hollowed out terracing model. It got me thinking...What if our classrooms were offset, stacked bands which surrounded some larger piece of common program (i.e. the gym). The auditorium and the gym could definitely be placed behind and under the classrooms, while the more social programmatic elements could be in the common space between the hills of classrooms.We are currently working on Rhino models.

(Dolphinarium and Wellness Center, big.dk)

(Our model from the first review)