The second project was much larger in scale than the first, with a building footprint of 4,000 square feet. It was a five week project, and I used AutoCAD Architecture for drafting and 3-D modeling, which I had very minor exposure to previous to this project. I plan to create more renderings of the building, as I didn't have much time to go in-depth with the rendering capabilities of AutoCAD.
The project was to design a residence for visiting Penn State scholars to stay in. The program included a gallery space, library, cafe, eight suites, lounge, and a seminar/lecture space. It also was required that the entire building and at least four suites be ADA-compliant for people with disabilities, but I managed to work all eight suites to being compliant without much trouble.
The site was very awkward because of how thin it was, so it was a challenge to avoid creating awkward spaces in such a narrow area.
Here are a few slides that I used in my presentation:
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| Site Plan |
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| I used the first, third, and roof plans in the upper right and carried them throughout the presentation to reference the section cuts to and to display where the interior renderings were shot from. |
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| A major feature that I centered my design around was the lightwells that each suite was included with. In plan, these are the clusters of four rectangles. You can see these in section, as they are the two clusters of multiple rectangles. Each lightwell serves as a small personal courtyard, and it is open to the sky. |
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| This section cut goes right through suite 3's lightwell. You can see it extends all the way through the building and is open to the sky. There is frosted glass preventing everyone else from looking into the space. |
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| View from the main entrance inward: you can see all the way up to the third floor through the gaps in the above hallways. The cafe is on the other side of the glass, and the wood flooring denotes the gallery space, which extends to the basement. |
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| This is a view down one of the corridors to suites 7 and 8 on the third floor, and you can see down to the first floor main entrance, which is where the previous rendering was shot from. |
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| This is looking at suite 1's lightwell. Since it is on the second floor and there is a suite above it, you can see the glass block floor of suite 5's lightwell in the ceiling here. The individual lightwells are separated by frosted glass for privacy and also this enhances the amount of light bouncing around there. |
I still want to do a few more renderings that explain these lightwells some more, but I'll put these up here for now. The next project will be four weeks, and that includes Thanksgiving break. It is a cafe and bookstore, and is a smaller-scale building than the scholar residence.
