Royal Crescent Visitors Centre

The Royal CrescentVisitors Centre

Justin Frank

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5

1. Kitchen Area2.Shop Area3. Lecture Theatre4. Storage5. Chair Storage

Site AnalysisWhilst visiting the site, it became apparent that there was three main aspects that would influence the design of my building.

Recording the patterns of pedestrian movement, it became apparent that nearly all people who wanted to visit the Royal Crescent walked onto the lawn to view it, wether coming from Brock Street or Royal Victoria Park. This means the building could become the passage between street level and park.

The site is located close to the corner of crossroads, and could complete the 4th corner. However, it should also follow the density of the built up areas, which decreases with distance from the corner in all three dimensions.

Some of the major difficulties and opportunities of the site are the views that it provides. Primarily, the Visitors Centre must of course faciltate views onto the Royal Crescent, however Victoria Park and views over Bath are of course also important.

Perhaps more importantly than views out are the views the buiilding will block. The Visitors Centre must of course not command the views onto the park or the Crescent from passing pedestrians.

Other aspects taken into consideration were the sunpath and of course the relations to the Georgian architecture of the surrounding buildings.

PrecedentsGiants Causeway Visitor Centre

Architects: Heneghan & Peng ArchitectsLocation: Antrim, Northern Ireland, UK

The Giants Causeway Visitors Centre is designed to be-come invisible from the sea, so as not to spoil the view for the visitors at the Giants Causeway. This was achieved by half burying it in the ground. The facade of the build-ing is also an interpretation of the giants causeway itself.

Norwegian Wild Reindeer Centre Pavilion

Architects: Snøhetta Oslo ASLocation: Hjerkinn, Dovre Municipality, Norway

The small pavilion is situated in a spectacular landscape, and is intende to give visitors panoramic views across the region. The modern building is not afraid of the way it sits in the landscape, and is distinctly modern whilst also respondin to the local area, The frame is made in raw steel resembling the iron found in the local bedrock.

Design DevelopmentCafe

Shop

Lecture

Theatre

Kitchen

Display Area

StorageToilets

Wanting to create an almost invisible glass box at street level, I ran into problems that the design would need shear walls for bracing. The solution was to instead put in lots of columns. These columns would be randomly placed and rather slender, so anyone looking through the building would only have to take a step to the side to see what the columns were obscur-ing. By making the columns oval and rotating them varying amounts, they appear to have different sizes, similar to the way the columns in the Crescent appear to be different sizes due to perspective. Looking from the crescent, my building also has trees behind it, and the columns could be seen as adding to this small “forest”.

Height of Georgian Basements

Height of Georgian

ground floor

I used the 1:500 model to make an abstract study. Only cre-ating the solid structure and ignoring glazing and roof, the model informed me as to how the building would re-ally look from street level. In the end however, I used 3D models to influence my design process more accurately.

“Free” Spaces

“Permanent” Spaces

Display Space

The randomly spaced columns can be used to accomodate the displays, with cables spanning between columns holding up dis-plays. This creates a highly modular system that can be adapted to the different dis-plays that will be exhibited.

Randomly Arranged

Enclosed“Rooms”

Determined“Route”

The stairs are at the cen-tre of the building, and are the main means of circu-lation. They are designed so that standing at the feet of them, the shape focuses the view onto the entrance of No1, however, the more you go up them, the more the view opens out. The same thing hap-pens going down, with a view of Victoria Park.

The materials I chose for my building are brushed aluminium for the col-umns, drystone walled slate for the walls, and dark grey concrete for the floors.

These materials are all grey colours, harmonising with one and other.

The slate was chosen to make the building feel more permanent, as though it is made of the hill that has been cut into.

The aluminium was cho-sen becasue it is a light coloured metal, which re-flects the colours around it.

STRUCTURE

ENCLOSURE

Although the building goes outside the prescribed area, it is only the afe area that does so, which is meant to become an extension of the grass. surrounding this is only glass, therefore I feel the building does not seem larger than the site,

2012-13 2nd Yr PROJECT 2 - VISITOR CENTRE SELF ASSESSMENT

Year Two Design Studio – AR20017 – Semester One

Project 2: Visitor Centre (Self Assessment) Feedback Sheet 2012-13 Design Report final submission date: 15:00 Thursday 8th November 2012

STUDENT NAME

The criteria by which the VISITOR CENTRE project will be assessed are:

On completion of each project each student must: 1. demonstrate the ability to employ appropriate means and conventions of architectural representation (to include the 1:500 model). 2. demonstrate the ability to analyse context and use this analysis to inform their design. 3. demonstrate the ability to meet the requirements of a given brief.

The following categories give an indication of the standard reached. Of course not every ILO fits neatly into a particular section. This is why sometimes one or more sections may be circled. This means the ILO is border-line between the two.

1. Demonstrate the ability to employ appropriate means and conventions of architectural representation (to include the 1:500 model) Outstanding Excellent Good Competent Adequate Fail at this stage No submission

Comments

2. Demonstrate the ability to analyse context and use this analysis to inform their design Outstanding Excellent Good Competent Adequate Fail at this stage No submission

Comments

3. Demonstrate the ability to meet the requirements of a given brief Outstanding Excellent Good Competent Adequate Fail at this stage No submission

Comments

OVERALL MARK

Justin Frank

Whilst my model is relatively weak, it was only intended in my eyes as a study. I think the other parts of my presentation are quite strong, with little improvements being applicable to my plans and sections. My perspectives show how the scheme is intended to work in my opinion.

67%

I feel that the analysis that I made resulted in a strong design, re-sponding to context that was subtle, whilst not compromising. Al-though I had problems displaying my analysis diagramatically, the response was not affected by this.

My presentation of work is definitely an area that still needs improv-ing, but I feel apart from this I have answered the brief. My response was one led by site analysis, whilst being a distinctly modern addi-tion, which is as I intended.