Retro-Fitting
The place I am redesigning is Dublin, Ireland-Marino Green. It is a residential area with a small commons area in the middle. It is a nicely enclosed area that has beautiful greenery. It also contains a lot of space for its residents. It is a very dry place in the sense of entertainment and business. It is just residential and for any block I feel that there should be at least something other than residential living. It needs more local shops and entertainment and along with this they will be needing more space. I also feel that if they had gardens it would be more sustainable.
I decided to calculate the area by imagining this space as a big quarter circle minus a little quarter circle. Br represents the bigger radius and Lr represents the little radius.
Br=890 ft.
A=πr^2 A=π890^2 A=π792,100 A=2,488,455.54 ft.^2
A/4=622,113.89 ft.^2
Lr=215 ft.
A=πr^2 A=π215^2 A=π46,225 A=145,220.12 ft.^2
A/4=36,305.03 ft.^2
622,113.89-36,305.03=585,808.86 ft.^2
Total Area=585,808.86 ft.^2
Redesigning Ideas
- Dig underground for parking and storage spots for the houses above
- Take down all the houses on the inner area of the block
- Put a pond in place of the street that goes around the inside of the block
- Redesign the inner island for local shops and entertainment
- Set up gardens in place of the garages above ground
Orange=Entertainment, Shopping, and Community Buildings Red=Residential Buildings Blue=Pond White=Interactive Sculpture Areas and Public Vendor Placement
When it came to parking I was thinking of Lower Wacker Drive in Chicago because it was built to ease traffic up in the city. My thought was that while it eases traffic it also creates more space above and that’s what really caught my attention. From this I decided to build an underground parking lot along with storage units so that I could have more to space to work with above ground. Another city I was think of was Meadow Lake in New York, which is basically a long pond in the residential area of Queens. Now, Meadow Lake is a lot bigger than one block so I needed to shrink it down to fit nicely in my block. Once I knew I wanted a pond I needed to decide how and where to place it. Since I was building an underground parking lot I decided to replace the above street in the block with the pond.
My new space relates to transportation because I have created a parking area underneath for vehicles while at the same giving more area above for pedestrians to do as they please. For housing I have redesigned the single family homes into town houses and have put up little shops in the center of the block. For infrastructure I have built two walkways for pedestrians to enter from the side and created bridges on the same paths in order to create more access points for the center plaza. When it comes services I have put solar panels on the tops of the townhouses and have connected water basins to the gutters for garden usage.
Volume of Cylindrical Building: πr^2*h π37.5^2*250 π1,406.25*250 π351,562.5 V=1,104,466.17 ft.^3
Volume of Triangular Prism Building: area of base*h (1/2*b*h)*l (1/2*75*75)*150 2,812.5*150 V=421,875 ft.^3
Throughout this project I encountered one main issue and that was scaling. By scaling I mean making it so that my model is approximately to scale of the actual block. It was fine at first, all I had to do was figure out the measurements and angles of the actual block, but when I applied those measurements to cardboard something was definitely off. After fixing that issue by replacing and fitting pieces in I had to deal with the actual buildings on top of the block. Since I didn't know the actual height of the buildings I had wing it and guess what the right size would be. Now, a side issue was time and there wasn't much I could do there because unfortunately that is one dimension that we can't control. All I could do was work as much as I could. What I learned from this is to be extremely organized with your work and to always be cautious of time. For scaling I think I just have to be aware of what I do and to keep the thought in mind that sometimes you just gotta wing it. What I would do differently is just plan ahead and to work whenever I can sooner than later.
If I won a laser cutter with this project the first thing I would do is bask in the glory for a minute or two and then immediately call my STEAM teachers saying that our school finally has a laser cutter. For quite a while my school has been building a new maker lab and we have been trying to find a laser cutter to put in this new lab. The labs purpose is to serve our school's students and help them to better understand the connection between what they are learning and the outside world. Having this laser printer we could teach students new skills to better their and the world's future. We already are having a class that is dealing with different CNC cutters and we have talked about a laser cutter, but we don't have the budget to buy a laser cutter. Here is the link to my school's website, were you can see for yourself what our mission is and what we offer. I hope that you understand our need for this fantastic tool and we would be honored to have one. Thank you for looking at my project, which wouldn't be possible without the resources of my school.