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Portuding Grids

Course

GSD Core Studio 3

Date

2018 Fall

Instructor

John May

Site

New Haven, US

Design Concept: 
An expansion of the headquarters, is located on the knoll west of the original administration building. The exterior of the building is based on the original curtain wall, modified to meet current energy conservation requirements.

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Perspective

To avoid the psychological problem of people working in an annex, it was determined that the addition should have a center of its own; and that center became an enclosed garden, around which the open-workstation office space is arranged. The resulting garden, which is sixty feet wide, slopes down one level from the main entry to connect to the cafeteria at the lower level and serves as a relief space for the transition between work and meal. The rocks that form the surface of the garden came from Iron Mountain in Michigan and are appropriate to the environment created by the exposed, weathered steel building. The barn-like, skylighted roof of the central courtyard helps to give the illusion of greater height and more volume.

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Elevations

Both the cafeteria and office spaces are completely open to the central garden. This acts as an absorber of extraneous ambient noise so that the working environment is remarkably quiet.The ceilings are polished aluminum slats that, reflecting the greenery of both the outside and inside court, pick up the dappling light in a kind of diffused glitter and help to extend the landscape atmosphere into the work space.

Both the cafeteria and office spaces are completely open to the central garden. This acts as an absorber of extraneous ambient noise so that the working environment is remarkably quiet.The ceilings are polished aluminum slats that, reflecting the greenery of both the outside and inside court, pick up the dappling light in a kind of diffused glitter and help to extend the landscape atmosphere into the work space.

While the repetitive floor plates are penetrated by these boxes, containing regular offices, organized as a field of landscape of offices as a continuous interior. The winter garden in John Deere turns into a field of hidden boxes. When people approach the building, they first see the repetitive glass curtain wall which wraps the entire building, and further discover that there are white solid boxes hidden inside, which also becomes several indicators for people to explore the building.
 

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