rachel weller portfolio spring 2015
DESCRIPTION
ÂTRANSCRIPT
Port
folio
Rach
el W
elle
r
Table of Contents04 / Neighborhood of Miller Beach16 / Somewhere, Somethings20 / Old Earle Vocational School24 / Big Rapids Bike and Pedestrian Plan
Neighborhood Design of Miller BeachClass: Arch 341 Project Length: 3 Months This project consisted of three parts: urban design, community marker, and building design. With each project we explored on more and more of a micro scale both in terms of design extents and in terms of size of group. The first project, the urban design, was completed in a group of 12 students, the next project was completed in groups of 3 or 4 and the final project, a building design, was completed in pairs.
- September 2013
04
Urban Plan
Miller Beach is a small commu-nity in coastal Indiana. Our task was to create an new urban design that represented the town’s artistic roots and is more conducive to the growing ecological driven commu-nity. Our design relied heavily the main street of town. We created all of our major infrastructure around this main ‘spine’. The street itself is shrunk to one way going north for vehicle tragic. This allowed us to create ample pedestrian and bike access while having signage for cars.
We identified six major building types that we found, through pres-idents, were missing in the Miller Beach community. They included a train station, a market, a hotel, an artist live-work community, a museum, and a marina. As a large group we decided the location of these spaces then we broke off into pairs to design these spaces.
With: Xinwen Zhang, Patrick Vokaty, Will Owen, Janette Szestowicki, Thomas Geoghegan, Mingshan Fang, Xuechen Wang, John Derkach, Zhehan Yang, Sha Wei, and Ben Strasser
Studio Professor: John DeSalvo
Neighborhood MarkerWith: Will Owen, Janette Szestowicki, and Thomas Geoghegan
Studio Professor: John DeSalvo
We named our design Steel Wings. The idea behind the form itself is to evoke flight and the steel indus-try in a sort of contradiction. The lightness of flight along with the weight of the history of steel in Gary and Miller Beach Area.
The final design utilized dyed cloth to represent rusted I beams. The beams have a single viewing portal to facilitate a specific view through the beams. In reality there would be two of these markers. One placed at the beginning point of town and one at the end point near the beach. The marker at the start of town points its viewing portal to the historic church. The one on the beach points toward the steel mills that hugely impacted Gary and Miller Beach’s history.
We presented this our urban design and neighborhood markers at a SOFA exhibit at Navy Pier in November 2013.
Hotel Design:PreliminaryWith: Xinwen Zhang
Studio Professor: John DeSalvo
My partner, Xinwen, and I decided to tackle the hotel design. We locat-ed it near the beach and interacted with the marina located directly on the water. We quickly realized that height was important in the design both to create a landmark and to facilitate views for the residents.
Hotel Design:Final DocumentationWith: Xinwen Zhang
Our final design came from the idea of the interaction between temporary space and permanent space. The upper sections hold the hotel rooms and are the represen-tation of the permanent space. The lower section houses the cafe, pool, and bar spaces. These are the tem-porary spaces.
Guest Rooms
Restaurant, Swimming Pool
Coffee House
Lobby
SomeWhere, SomethingsClass: Arch 545 Project Length: 3 Months Somewhere, Somethings is a studio build around placemaking. The studio
was broken up into two u/nits, physical and digital. The physical portion
had us create street games to play in a specific place in the City of Chicago..
The digital asked us to create a game for the City of Chicago.
- December 2014
16
Street Game: Inferno With: Amadeo Valoria
Studio Professor: Thomas Kearns
The task for this assignment was to create a street game like what children would play that is localized to a specific place in the city of Chicago. My partner and I chose the Cloud Gate, colloquially known as the Bean, to set our game.
The game uses the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice as a storyline of sorts.
We created gameplay, objectives, game manual and equipment. Each person or group in my studio createda a street game and we had a day of playing games in the city.
Section moving Forward Section moving Backward
Old Earle Vocational SchoolClass: Arch 546 Project Length: 2 Months
This studio’s task was to create a produce and incentivize safety and economic stability in the West Englewood neighborhood in Chicago. My group’s specific task was to create a vocational school based on the site of
an old elementary school.
- December 2014
20
Old Earle
Old Earle Vocational school was created using the shell of the original elementary school. A shop space was added to the east and a large greenhouse was added to the south.
With: Ekta Wali and Karl Strasser
Studio Professor: Thomas Brock
1_EXISTING CONDITIONS The building’s site orientation, its proximity to the park, and the nearby CTA Green Line depict site movement.
2_DEMOLITION/REHAB The building’s site orientation, its proximity to the park, and the nearby CTA Green Line depict site movement.
3_SITE AXIS The building’s site orientation, its proximity to the park, and the nearby CTA Green Line depict site movement.
4_CIRCULATION HUB The building’s site orientation, its proximity to the park, and the nearby CTA Green Line depict site movement.
5_MOVEMENT/PROGRAM The building’s site orientation, its proximity to the park, and the nearby CTA Green Line depict site movement.
6_PROGRAM PLACEMENT The building’s site orientation, its proximity to the park, and the nearby CTA Green Line depict site movement.
7_BUILDING COMPONENTS The building’s site orientation, its proximity to the park, and the nearby CTA Green Line depict site movement.
8_EXISTING INFILTRATION The building’s site orientation, its proximity to the park, and the nearby CTA Green Line depict site movement.
Big Rapids Bike and Pedestrian PlanClass: Arch 441 Project Length: 2 Months
This project was a class project to create a bike and pedestrian plan for the city of Big Rapids, MI. The ten of us created a 128 page document that we presented to the Big Rapids City Council. This project was an effort to create more dialogue between Ferris State University and the city it resides in through the use of the architecture program’s “Small Town Studio.”
- November 2012
24
The City of Big Rapids lacked any kind infrastructure for cyclists and pedestrians. As part of the “Small Town Studio” we were charged in creating a bike and pedestrian plan. This was also compiled into an hour long presentation that we gave to the Big Rapids City Council at a town meeting. They have adopted our plan into an official Bike and Pedestrian plan for the City of Big Rapids.
To create the 128 Page Big Rapids Bike and Pedestrian plan we had to analyze what the make up of Big Rapids was and how it worked. This consisted of research done by each student. We each created a map based on Kevin Lynch’s five elements of cities: districts, edges, paths, nodes, and landmarks. Through extensive first hand observations I identified what each of those were in Big Rapids. This, along with surveys to locals, helped inform our Bike and Pedestrian Plan.
We created a detailed Bike Loop system that needed specific information. To create detailed maps, including street width, sidewalk conditions, sidewalk width, and on-street parking, each district was given to a team of two. Each team walked every street and marked down the necessary information. My district included half of the downtown area and Ferris State’s interaction with town.
District
Edge
Path
Node
Landmark
My major writing contribution was the chapter of the book on Implementation. That included how it was going to be completed, funding, what types of paths are needed, time line, and phasing.
As part of the book each of us created a solution to a specific design problem. These were all compiled in the appendix of our book. I focused on the lack of Connectivity between Ferris State’s campus and Downtown Big Rapids.
The design utilized two Roundabouts that showcase the important areas of the street. One is located at the entrance to Ferris State University’s Campus while the other is in front of the public library.
Safety Parking is created to replace the current parallel parking. Not only are they safer to drivers and pedestrians, they also narrow the street, which make the area more walkable. The parking is staggered on either side of the street to create chicanes. Chicanes slow traffic and are another ingredient for a walkable city.
ORIGINS DESTIONATIONS
1 - MILE DIAMETER2 - MILE DIAMETER
PHASE 1PHASE 2PHASE 3
LOOPNON LOOP
rachel weller [email protected] 231-457-3900