Site Qualities

The site is an enclave in the campus. With it's own identity and bad connections to other campus elements the park is unable to indulge in to the active life around it. Surrounded by roads and disconnected by a wall of greenery the park isn't a inviting place.

On the inside the park has some good quality's. It has diverse vegetation, a nice view of open space and surrounding buildings and a good solar entrance. However, the most disruptive influences are sound, poor maintenance and the empty feeling.

(we should put pictures here)

Additional Information on Site Qualities

Research Validation

GPRS Analysis

Overlapping Mesh from GPRS

With the use of GPRS tracking devices, three different activities were mapped on the site. Open spaces, pathways, views and intimate spaces where marked on site. In the following images, the mesh created by each activity was overlapped to produce an overall effect of the use of the site. This research was inspired by Kevin Lynch's work on exploring and identifying urban spaces. The empirical research helps.....

Input > Output Actors <

Distinguished from the traditional designing methodology in which architects will dominate every part of the whole designing process by applying the up-down styling intervention and previous experiences, we try to apply a bottom-up design method to build up a connection between the building and the actors in which the persistent information input and output will be available.In brief, actors could input their own information and desires of different programs to our building, our building will output relevant data and possiblilities to them to meet their demands. The actors will have the ability to give feedback to the building again.As a result,an active loop of information exchange and interactivity between building and actors will be generated in the design strategy.

"The web of relationships in the index of the language allows for many different paths through the design process. This simplifies the designer's life, because the design process can start from any part of the problem that the designer understands, and work toward the unknown parts. At the same time, if the pattern language has worked well for many projects, there is reason to believe that even though the designer may not completely understand the design problems at first, the process will complete, and the resulting design will be usable."[1]

There is no single actor but a multitude of parameters and users. The design will work with multiple actors.

List of Actors

Client

Pattern Language

Our site analysis did not indicate a strong desire for investment from clients which we pursued. We propose to have our own start up business. The TU Delft career centre helps students with a business plan for multiple actors, we realised that there might be the need for multiple clients. That is why we decided to start our business, so that we can have a direct relationship with the actors on site.

Funding will be provided by Venture Capitalist wanting to invest in new and exciting projects. This will cover the initial start up capital needed for the project. Maintenance costs will be covered by income when the site is used for large functions by companies or individual who want to use the site as an exhibition space.

Following diagrams illustrate a process of exploring the definition of a client and the reason why we make relevant decisions.

Experts

Specialist will aid the design and construction process. We have identified 4 fields of specialization:

TU Delft Landscaping Department - Will assist in how to create a flourishing space &(Susanna Komossa - Public realm)

Gallery Owner - In de Kunst (Tijn Noordenbos), & additional individual artist

Ergonomics of Structure - Industrial Designer, Andre Taris

Hardware- Construction and fabrication methods

Software- Grasshopper + Rhino Support ; Roxana Palfi (still to confirm) ; Arduino + Firefly : Online Forums

Business Strategies- Yes Delft, Delft Design

Experts
    - An expert on the possibillities to let elements move.
    - An expert on the materials, how do people relate and interact with different materials
    - Landscape/public space expert, when do people enter and use a public space
    - Gallery owner to look in to the needs of a gallery
    - Artist,to look in to the needs of a gallery
    - Software experts
    - Students what do they need to be atracted
    - Locals what do they need to be atracted
    - Science centre, what do they need to use the intervention
    - YES Delft, about starting a business and writing a plan
    - TOP Delft, about how to attract people and make money out of it
    - Delft design, about how to attract people and make money out of it

Experiment

In this experiment we tried to see the interaction between an element and user. In the Orange Lecture hall we made several set ups which the users were able to adapt to the experiment to suite their demands.

The different set ups we tried were:

- The open set up like it always is. People can only sit next to each other.

- A diverse set up with different ways to group the benches, the different distances between the opposing benches were tested here. Testing intimate space.

- A complete random set up with all elements spread through the area.

- An obstructive set up, here people are not provided with a logical seating place.

- An uncomfortable set up, we only used the wooden blocks and moved the chairs to the side.

conclusions:

- People are willing to make a bigger effort to have a comfortable seat.

- It is nice to have a diverse arangement of spaces, caters for larger user group.

- People will sit close to their point of interest (lecture, other person, nearest bench on approach, etc).

- People will adapt their use to the given situation.

- People only change elements when it necessary.

- When a object seems heavy or when people feel exposed or embarrassed, they give up early in trying to adapt the seating arrangement.

Readings

Christopher Alexander, Pattern Language

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pattern_language

Tchumi vs. OMA

http://architecturalassociation.ie/pdf/BM_13.pdf#page=53

Urban Landscapes

http://www.rali.boku.ac.at/fileadmin/_/H85/H852/X_LArch_3_2009_090531_xlarch_all.pdf#page=132

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