Hellen Keller
Helen Keller was a strong and courageous woman. Her being blind and deaf at a young age made her life extremely hard. After learning her first word, "water", it opened a doorway to knowledge. She would continue to learn and she became a symbol for courage and hope worldwide. Her bravery led to awards like the Lions Humanitarian Award, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and the French Legion of Honor.
Memorial
With my memorial I wanted to give a short glimpse into Helen Keller's life. With Keller being blind and deaf she had to navigate through life with touch, taste, and smell. To take away sight, one of the most important senses, I made everything in the memorial dark where you could not see anything. To take away hearing, I will use anechoic chambers throughout the memorial. With Keller's early life being difficult and confusing, it reminded me of a maze so I added and simple snake-like path to represent her harsh childhood. As she learned her first word, she began to be engulfed in knowledge, making her life more clear to her. Her gaining knowledge was impactful and I wanted to portray that to people with adding a library. As her first word was water, I wanted to use that as a representation of knowledge. Originally I wanted the water to be a path and show a continuous loop that represent that anyone's life can change with knowledge.
This is the finished idea of the memorial. Two simple blocks overlapping, the first floor being the memorial and the second floor being the library. The snake-like pattern ended up having 9 turns with a gimmick that uses the flowing sound of water to guide you through the maze. I added a large open window in the library to represent freedom with knowledge.
Site Plan
My site is Radcliffe College and it is a women's liberal arts college in Cambridge University. This college is important to Helen Keller as this is the college she graduated from. This accomplishment would lead to more successes and feats where she made the impossible possible and became a figurehead of the blind.
Site Model
Concept Design
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This is one of my three concept designs. Here, I wanted to see how I could match my building to the surrounding architecture.
I played with many aspects of what a good study space would look and feel like. Here I created an outdoor area to give students a different atmosphere. I also utilized the roof shapes to add an extra room and I stuck with the original shape of my memorial. |
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This is my second concept design. Here I drew away from matching the surroundings and tried to use the full potential of my small site.
To use as much space as possible, I saw that stacking it on the outside build limit would ensure the best use of this space. I moved away from my memorial shape and instead, try to merge it into the building instead of keeping it separate. |
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This is the third and final concept design. This design is similar to the second one as it both attempts to try and fill the entire build limit.
The difference is that the fellowship residence is almost invisible and hidden. another difference is that the memorial is in the center of the building. The study rooms and open areas are also configured to make the open spaces larger and push the floor to the build limit as well. |
Schematic Design
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These are hand-drawn floor plans and a drafted model of my schematic design, stemming from the third concept. The concept design lacked a vision of a bigger-picture concept and did not have enough space to house all the necessary components for a functional building. With these errors in mind, I developed solutions to the errors.
Each floor represents a period in Helen Keller's lifetime. The first floor is simple to represent her early life. Her life was easy till she became blind, which is represented in the memorial. the second floor represents how she had to learn about the world, hence the study rooms and library. The third floor represents her getting to know many celebrities and people, hence the auditorium and cafe. The fourth represents her settling down, shown in the museum space and residence. |
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This a model of each of my floors
This is my model assembled
