Architectural Design II - Caleb McGilvray
AMELIA EARHART
Amelia Earhart was not just a pilot, she was a leader and a symbol of freedom for women. She inspired people through what she did and what she said. This collage was the first step in our project and is made to understand our clients. The most important aspect that I got from my research of Amelia Earhart was how she began straight and narrow in her studies of nursing during the war, but then found her passion of flying and branched out, becoming her true self.
The next step in design was to create a building or space to memorialize our client. I created what is basically a shape of a plane in the sky. As the Sun moves overhead through the day, the shadow of the plane will move from left to right and disappear into the water on the East side of my site at the end of the day. The ramp and the wavy stairs on the East side is supposed to symbolize a plane taking off. The walkway at the beginning is like the plane speeding up, and the stairs are like when the plane first lifts off the ground: bumpy and a quick gain in altitude. With the trees in the middle of the site, they provide a visual reference that makes it obvious how high you are getting as you walk up the stairs. There is a space to walk under the shape of the plane, and it is made so that visitors will be looking out over all the landscape and area around. This represents Amelia Earhart because it is supposed to cause an adrenaline rush and encourage people to be brave. She stood for freedom and choices, so this memorial is designed to let people feel free in the sky.
The location that I chose to put my site is in South Gate, CA. This was the obvious choice because South Gate is the place where Amelia Earhart learned to fly, but nobody knows about it. The airfield that she learned at was destroyed years ago and there is not even a sign to show that this city was important in the life of Amelia Earhart. I felt that it was important to put South Gate back on the map and give credit where credit is due. Specifically, my site is located on the Eastern side of South Gate, in an open dirt area north of a park.
Through my site analysis, I learned about the area surrounding my site and what pros and cons it provides. Due to the LA River being directly West of my site, there is a good view that way and not a lot of noise. There is also an already existing parking area that is perfect no matter where I place my buildings within my site. The Sun path is obviously needed to have the shadow of the place in my memorial move and disappear into the water like Amelia Earhart did. The buildings to the East also provide a natural barrier to any other noise or harsh desert winds from the East.
Concept 1
The first concept that I came up with focuses on levels and the height of different areas in my foundation. Each concept will consist of an educational space to inform the public about my client, an action space designed to carry on my clients mission, a memory space to display artifacts or documents from my client's life, a fellowship residence to house researchers or visitors to my site, and a service space where the workers are able to keep up the rest of the foundation.
The buildings that I created for this model are basically stacked on top of each other. The three rectangular buildings are the memory, educational, and action spaces. The action space is open to the outside to inspire freedom and encourage visitors to think freely. The memory space is the lowest building and is partially underwater, where a replica of Amelia Earhart's plane crash will be placed. The education space acts as a transition between the memory and action spaces and is simply constructed to provide information about Amelia Earhart. The service space and fellowship residence are kept apart from the other buildings for privacy reasons.
Concept 2
This concept is similar in mission as the first concept but accomplishes it differently. The fellowship residence gets its own area in the upper part of the site to be as secluded as possible. The rest of the spaces are all congregated together in differently shaped buildings. The service space gets its own end of the arch on the east side. The memory space and education space are combined on the other side of the arch. The arch itself serves as the action space for this design.
The education and memory spaces on the west end of the arch form a half sphere type shape. The service space on the other side is simple on purpose because it is really just for practical use. The fellowship residence is also very simple and made to be sleek. The focus for this concept was more on the way the buildings interacted with the site and less on the buildings themselves.
Concept 3
My third and final concept is designed to keep the memorial as the highest point on the site. When you are walking around at the top of the memorial I want people to be able to see in all directions and not have their view blocked by other buildings. The service space and fellowship residence are again paired for privacy reasons. The education, memory, and action spaces are groups on the other side of the memorial. The two buildings on each side of the memorial are designed to kind of frame the memorial and direct people's eyes to the water and end of the memorial.
The buildings for this concept are made to be pretty similar in order to emphasize the memorial. Each building has an open air end that looks out onto the water. The open end in the northern building is part of the action space, which is makes the space more inspirational. The open end of the other building is part of the fellowship residence so the people staying their have a nice view and good airflow.
Final Design
The next step in our design process was to decide on a final idea to continue with. Based on reviews and advice, I decided to combine and modify my concepts number 1 and 2. I kept a circular residence idea that was off to the side of the rest of the buildings, but for actual foundation I tried to keep the idea of stacked rooms.
Basically, you would walk down the stairs to the underground area, which begins with the entry area. South of the entry area is a private area for the workers of the foundations, which includes bathrooms, storage, hangout, and living quarters. After going through the entry/reception area, you go through the memory hanger, which is a place to display Amelia Earhart's "plane wreckage" and other objects from her life. This part of the foundation is actually underwater, and some circular windows along the top of the hanger allow for natural light to enter. Next up is the education building, which is basically a set of stairs surrounded by walls. Within this building will be hanging planes and displays to educate people on Amelia Earhart's life. The stairs lead up to the action space, which is an area for different activities to take place. Basically, this room will be constantly changing, one week, it could be dedicated to music and have a stage, while the next week it could be a basketball gym to relate to the athletes.
The residence that I landed on was almost exactly like this design, however I cut off the top left fourth of the bottom floor because it was too much unneeded space. You enter into the living area and have the kitchen downstairs towards the back of the building. There is office and dining space in the Southwestern part of the first floor. On the second floor is the bedroom, bathroom, and storage closet. This design is simple but functional for the researchers that will need a place to stay when they visit my foundation.
The final part of the process was to put everything together into a site plan and model. I first started with drawing my site plan, which included the layout of my foundation buildings and memorial, surrounding buildings, landscape. walkways, parking lot, etc. After deciding on how my site would be laid out, I had to model it using 3D printed buildings and laser cut ground.
These are the final sheets from my Revit models.