Thursday, April 10, 2008

Spring: Meetings; Models; and the Most Amazing Material Board Ever.


Its going to be 70 in the City today which means it is finally spring! The sun feels soooo good - well - at least it did for that 15 min walk to studio. And now, from inside the studio, it looks like it feels really good. ;) Still - this is one of the best times to be in the city: its so nice out right now. We're in that sweet spot before the horror of the real summer sets in but after the gross-ness of rainy winter is over. The best.



We had a meeting with everybody this afternoon at 2. Architects, Clients and all the rest. On the agenda was a general update on where were at, and specific discussions of money, filing, construction, materials and other nuts and bolts-y stuff. Hopefully we will get some decisions made early next week and get enough information for us to begin the filing process for this project by wed or thurs. At least, thats the hope. We also have to really keep the PV funding and paperwork moving forward other wise that part isn't gonna happen. Its so hard to keep so many things moving at the same time. Sheesh.

It also happened to be open house day at Parsons so there were a bunch of prospective students hanging about. I'm sure that they were simply thrilled to sit in on a meeting about scheduling, budgeting and filing. hmmm.

Andrew, Tory, Johnny and Cary.

Johnny, presenting the latest changes to the scheme.

Tory doin' the same.


The model came out awesome and was a great tool to explain how the project has changed since the last time we got to see Stephen and Anne. The Kitchen is a lot different, so is the north part and in general - everything has just been made a lot more real.




West Garden, I'm really into what they have come up with here - I think it would be really beautiful.

Makeout corner! Err . . . I mean, the Moss Wall and Shade Garden.

Last night Star and I put together the most kick-butt Materials board ever - I'll admit that I was prepared to just cut some chunks of things, mount them to a board and call it a day. She seemed to have other ideas however. So we ended up with this super fun, semi-mock-up, sort-of-material-study that we mounted on the wall in the presentation room. It reads as a section through the entire project, with the West garden on the left, then the greenhouse, the kitchen, the east garden and the moss wall on the far right. We mocked up some of the greenhouse mullions (sort of) which are going to made of Ipe wood structure with aluminum and polycarbonate panels. There are also dichroic fins which run perpendicular to the poly carb panels and will project colors onto the panels during the day as the sun moves through the day.


The West garden will be a mix of vegetables and flowering plants (Tulips! It is spring after all) with Cedar slatting over expanded metal mesh forming the base of the planters. The greenhouse uses Ipe framing (its fireproof) and both milky and clear polycarb panels with dichroic accents. The kitchen will have walls of a very transparent perforated metal, cedar flooring (not so sure about that one myself - Cedar is wicked soft) and Paperstone countertops - probably a dark gray or earth toned color - not one of the reds or blues. The East garden uses lower, native grass plantings and the Ipe for benches and slatting over the Expanded Metal again, and at the far right are a couple of samples of the moss Solveig and Meg are looking at. I know - I know. Best. Material Board. Ever. I couldn't agree more. ;) Heck - there is even gravel and cast concrete paver samples in there! Next time though, we'll try and clock in somewhere under 7 hours for a total construction time and then we'll really have something.

You can see the dichroic sample here (the purple square sticking out of the Ipe strip) - its gonna be super cool. I have no doubts at all.



Presenting the materials - they seemed happy about everything, its a pretty reduced palette - all earth tones so far. Maybe some neon green would spice this project up a little bit . . .

Really? You hot-glued that to the wall? Really? Hmmm . . . I think we need to re-asses our decision making process here. We also need to buy some white paint and some rollers.

No comments: