This project was the main assignment of my architectural design studio course of my Fall 2015 semester. Throughout the course, we investigated the site (you can see my site analysis book as another project of mine), train stations in general, what good design solutions for the site were, and park/landscaping for the site.

 

My design focused on the two axes of the site: That of Park Drive and the train tracks. I wanted my building to mesh the two together, connecting the road with the station and vice versa. We had a given program for the site that we could edit, so my program included a cafe, lounge, office space, and the station area itself. 

 

Another big aspect of my site was connecting the indoors with the outdoors. Since people want to wait for the train protected from the elements, I put the station inside, but to still connect it to nature and allow for nice views, I added a lot of windows and brought outdoor, planted elements indoors. 

 

My park design for the site was also something that took a lot of consideration. The exisiting site had a lot of problems between the organization of pedestrian and vehicular access, because pedestrian walkways were so far out of the way that people ended up just walking in vehicle zones, which then messed up vehicular movement. My solution to the problem was to eliminate the parking on this side of the lot, since another section of parking lot still exists, and there's an extensive and mostly unused parking garage in landmark. As for the pedestrians ignoring a designated path, I created a patchwork of grass, path and fountain, giving pedestrians a lot of customization in forming their favorite path from point to point.

 

Another part of this project that was important to me was the name of the train station. The station we were working on was the Fenway Greenline stop of the MBTA. Most people assume Fenway referred to the park, but after some research of mine, I found it actually referred to a road that used to be nearby. So, I renamed the station Landmark Center, because it adds a better level of sophistication to the site and building, and connected the station to things more in the area, like business offices, local restaurants and shopping, rather than sports. However, Landmark is a well known building, that can easily be connected back to Fenway for those using the stop for the Red Sox.

 

It was important to me to make a strong visual presentation for my final review, which you can see below. I ran into some time constraints, but given those constraints, I feel proud of my end result. Some things I would do better if given more time would be more work on the park design, making it more real and visual, creating a better window typology, and giving myself more time to render the images. I opted to hand-color my model, made in revit, because I like the feel of a hand-colored image rather than something done completely digitally. However, this many drawings needs a lot of time to complete, and I just didn't have that much time to devote to coloring. The model, too could have used some more time.

the images below are of my final model

the rest of my images are all process work leading to my final. The below image was very initial research of the area in the form of a mind map.

This was an initial sketch of what I wanted the front of my building to look like, including materials and park elements

The below images was our first 'major' review of the project. I had a much earlier version of my design here, but this is where it became clear to me that I should hand render my drawings with markers because I did it very nicely.

The below is a basic structure model of an earlier design's footprint

Below is a older model focusing on the entrance

This was a detail model of the entrance model, showing my column structure's unique format. I wanted my columns, rather than being big and bulky, to be separated into skinnier columns that, when held together, hold the same load as one big column. This added a more airy quality to the space and more visability between columns; This also connected the outdoors with the indoors.

Below is a basic site model of the existing landmark center, the basic look of the park, and the building placement.