New_Ideas' Account

Something I wondered about in the massing model of from the development section - are there windows in other parts of the building? You obviously have a wonderful glass wall on the entry side, but it looked like maybe you have too much glass there and not enough in other parts of the building?

It certainly is fun to look down on these spaces (as I like to do from the track in the gym I use), but my biggest concern about the final design is the decision to put most of the functional spaces below ground in order to achieve that effect. Keep in mind that this means that every piece of equipment has to be taken down to that level, and all the people participating have to go up and down on a daily basis. It is more common to find facilities like this where most of the gym space is on the ground level, and then its the track and some other support spaces that are upstairs that allow you to look down on the courts. I think you would get an even greater advantage from your interest in the use of glass if more of the everyday use of the space happened on the main level. Maybe you could keep the pool on the lower level and keep more of thy gym on the main level? Although that reminds me of another practical concern. I think you aware that it is hard to control temperature and the smell of chlorine from the pool, so it needs to be in its own contained space. Anyway, overall, I think this is a very strong project, good process, and a very nice building.

Love the big glass wall. You probably need a bit more of a vestibule so the cold air doesn't come right into the lobby, and from this view, it looks like the structure of the building is not quite worked out. You are indicating what look like structural beams sitting on top of the glass wall, so there would be another beam running the opposite direction picking up the weight from those beams and transferring it to your two main structural columns.

Great view. I really like the way the trophy display is not really separate room, but instead they can float so that they can be used to sub-divide the lobby space. That's great because there are times when a big lobby is important, especially when a game is getting out, but there are other times when that feels like wasted space, so this idea really helps with that.

I'll put all my "develop" comments here. First it would help to see a bit more about your process between the bubble diagram and the form model. It feels a bit like fast forwarding so I am not sure where the form comes from - how did you decide which way the big glass wall should face, and how does this overall design fit within the context of the site - where do I park and approach the building from for example.
I like the conceptual that you talked about with the clay models. Triumph is probably to vague of a concept, so its probably difficult to turn that into a good design response, but what worked for you I thought was the more specific idea that in many athletic pursuits, the individual is not as important as how the parts come together to make up the whole. I can see that clearly in the way you developed the idea for the glass curtain wall. It is also in this phase that I would like to to connect me all the way back to your research so you can point out decisions that you made during the development phase that were specifically influenced by your great research phase. I am guessing there are examples, so you should tell us more about that.

I'll put all my "brainstorming" comments here. This work is also strong, although I would probably classify it mostly as collecting information. Knowing where the sun is and drawing the existing floor plan is really part of gathering information. This is connected to my comment about "analysis" in the previous step. As you gather information, drawing some conclusions about that information is where the creative "brainstorming" process comes into play. So if sun angles are important and you know from your case studies that light is important to you - then brainstorming might tell you more specifically where you have shadow problems, where your glass should be located, and if it is getting too much sun sometimes, where you might need to shade parts of the new glass sometimes. Again, good work here in this section, I would just say based on the images you are giving us, you don't seem to be generating design directions yet.

I'll just put all of my "collect information" comments here. This is really great. This is an advanced level of research to determine the scope of the design challenges an opportunities. I am impressed with the depth of work that is illustrated by the links. Unfortunately, two of the slides are not showing up for me, so I am missing some of the information, but based on what I can see, I'll give you credit for that. Remember in your summary to give us more of a summary - what actually did you discover? What are the real strengths and weaknesses of the current facility? That is not coming through for me as much. Data is a really powerful thing that can influence design, but remember that the analysis of that data is actually your first creative step in the process. Great case studies.

I really appreciate your emphasis on input from users in order to actually define what the design challenges are. As a person looking at your project all at once at the end, I think you could give us a bit more of a clue about what the shortcomings of the existing facility are in this overview. If you wrote this overview before you did the surveys, they that would be more difficult to do, but I am looking at everything as a package at the end, so I could use a bit more of a clue about that here in the overview.

I really like the openness of the spaces and the attention to natural light. I would like to see more development of your concept of triumph and how you accomplished that architecturally. Also, a floor plan view would be help so the view could see your final assessment of the circulation and layout of the space. I am an interior designer and space planning is an integral part of design so I am interested to see how the spaces were laid out based off of your research and study of adjacencies.

In addition, your renderings are very nice and detailed. You can tell that you spent a lot of time on them. Great job!

I think this a great feedback and very accurate. It would be helpful to see pictures of the current space so we can see how you were planning to integrate the two in the phase of design. What was your design response to the question of how you will join the old with the new in a harmonious way? Develop that a little bit so that the jurors can see the problem solving steps you took between here and the final design phase. This building is very modern and has an interesting use of planes.