HOPES 18 Conference - Design Charrette

What is HOPES? 

HOPES stands for Holistic Options for Planet Earth Sustainability. It is a program sponsored by the Ecological Design Center (EDC) of the University of Oregon within the School of Architecture & Allied Arts. As part of the purpose of the EDC, it seeks to educate and inspire University of Oregon design students to have an awareness and sensitivity to the matters of sustainability and the interdisciplinary expertise in sustainability. At the conference, I like many other students are exposed to many different  applications of sustainable design principles. During that year, the area of focus was "Dirt" and the applications of 'earth" products in addressing the various kinds of sustainability and ecological design challenges. 

DESIGN CHARRETTE: 

Excerpt from the Internet Archive copy of the HOPES conference schedule of events.
Friday Events

ASLA 48 Hour Design Charrette:
Earthship Education Center: “Thinking outside the box and covering it with dirt”
Lawrence Hall Rm. 206  12:00pm

Designing an outdoor educational center that incorporates buildings and landforms together to re-stimulate people’s connection to the natural world, is referred to as an Earthship.  Teams will choose a site that supports their design intentions and concept. Each team will be given a container to utilize in their site model.  Site model must use actual dirt within the container to create the landforms that the education center sits in. The design will effectively use dirt to shape the site and define the educational center; additional materials will be provided to create a model for the design concept. Interdisciplinary teams are strongly encouraged.

The project was to create an outdoor educational center that incorporates buildings and landforms together to re-stimulate people's connection to the natural world as indicated in the brief project description listed above at a location in Eugene. 

Team and Role:

As a result of a limited number of individuals in the design charrette, we formed into a single team of 4 individuals. Two of the students was in the Landscape Architecture program. One of the students was in the Ecological design program. With my background as a building designer, my role was largely in the building and structural design aspect of the project. 

Project team: 
Richard Balkins (Building Design)
Nanayma Glenn (Ecological Design and assistance in some of the work)
Two Landscape Architecture students from University of Oregon:                              Andrew Halpin & Jesse C. Denny

This image above is a Parti sketch diagram where we explored the design direction. These 'napkin sketch' diagrams are the seeds to the imagination and exploration and conceptual refinements of any kind of architectural project. This is representative of where you begin in a project and was so with this project. This is where we brainstormed how this project should look and appear. 

After several iterations in the design process and research, we prepared schematic level floor plans, a physical models, etc. such as represented by the following:

Schematic level Concept drawing of Basement level:

Schematic level Concept Drawing of Ground (First Floor) Level:

Schematic Level Concept Drawing of Second Floor level:

Schematic Level Concept Drawing of Third Floor Level:

Schematic Level Concept Drawing of Fourth Floor Level:

Physical model representation done by the landscape architecture students:

MORE INFORMATION: https://sites.google.com/site/...