Ferne McGregor Architecture

The final project of Design Resolution 1 was a culmination of all the previous skills and knowledge gathered throughout the year, challenging students once more to design for both a new typology and a new type of site. Unlike the previous two design projects, this project’s site was in Cotteridge park, an expansive green space located near Bournville, prompting students to make a deliberate choice as to where to design their project. The brief itself, as the name of the project suggests, tasked students with designing a co-working community centre based around either education, arts, leisure or culture. Students were encouraged to visit the site multiple times, gathering as much data as possible to present as a wide range of site analysis, such as climate information, building uses and soundscapes. During the early stages of the project, students split up into four separate ‘units’ based on their function of choice, and worked together to create a large model of the site which could be used by students to aid in the presentation of their site analysis and design work – I worked together with a small group of students to construct and place the many trees across the entire site, representing the many forested areas and trees lining the edges of the site.

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Through my initial research into the site, I identified a lack of arts-based facilities in the local area, hence why I decided to design a building which combined private studios, gallery spaces, and a large classroom-like studio space. From my initial research into the site, I narrowed my options down to two particular areas as potential sites for my design – one located on the west side of the park, close to the main car park and nearby housing, whist the other sat atop a hill to the south-east of the site, close to an alternative entrance to the site and a nearby railway. Through further site visits and comparisons of the two sites in regards to visibility, noise, and proximity to other park facilities, among other factors, I decided to use the south-east site for my design as it appeared to be used less often by park-goers and would therefore be less disruptive to the way in which people used the park – in fact, it would increase the amount of people visiting this area of the park. The location atop a hill also allowed for excellent views across this section of the park without disrupting said views as much as a more central position within the park had the potential to. At this point, I had also begun to consider the various users of my building - the design was aimed at a wide variety of users, including school children, art students, and retired people, and consideration was also needed for the staff members who would be running the facilities, so I created a number of profiles for speculative clients in order to note the various requirements for my building in terms of things such as accessibility and facilities provided. I also created a storyboard mapping out a speculative journey onto the site, based on my own experience of arriving by bus and walking through the park to the site on the other side.

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During the main design phase, I began by looking into various precedent studies in order to see how other designers had addressed a number of factors present in my site, such as the sloping hill and the attention needed for lighting the spaces. This research factored into my design process as I began sketching and roughly modelling concept ideas for the building – I wanted to limit the building to a single storey in order to limit disruption to the site and prevent interrupting views across the site. One particular site strategy map allowed me to consider letting the daylighting qualities of the site dictate the placement of various spaces and facilities within the site – placing studio spaces to the north for more consistent natural daylight, for example, whilst placing administrative spaces where they would be sheltered by trees to the south-west of the site, or the main reception space to the well-lit south of the site. The resulting shape from this exercise also formed a sort of courtyard space between the reception, gallery and private studio spaces. Through the use of rough models and section drawings, I was able to address the position of my building on the sloping site by staggering the floor plan downwards and creating a split-level gallery space at the centre of the building. A lot of iterative testing was done regarding the shape of the feature window in the main studio/gallery space, with the intention to create a shape which mimicked the curve of the natural landscape and offered a panoramic view across the park. I made the decision to clad the building in vertical green and brown timber in order to mimic the surrounding trees, once again with the intention of creating a more subtle building that did not distract from the surrounding landscape. The implementation of a green roof meant that the building did not disrupt any aerial views of the park, maintaining the image of an expansive green space. In terms of structure, I decided to use a steel structure in order to obtain an appearance of lightness, for example in the wrap-around feature window, whilst still being able to support the weight of the green roof and span large enough areas that the interior would not be too disrupted by columns.

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The final outputs of the project included a rendered section drawing and a sectional model to represent the relationship between the split-level plan and the landscape it sat within, alongside the usual set of orthographic drawings and visuals. In terms of the overall design, I think my proposal was successful in sensitively addressing the site, justified by my research into the site and an understanding of the way in which the park is used. However, there are several areas that I believe could be improved upon in hindsight. Beyond the quality of certain models and drawings, I believe that I didn’t fully realise the design of the courtyard, which was neglected in order to focus primarily on the interior of the building, despite this area having the potential to become another key aspect of the project. Having since learned a lot about masterplanning and landscape design, I know that the site surrounding the building was not considered to the fullest, and given the opportunity to revisit the project, I would be able to greatly improve this side of the design.