Bus Shelter

It all started out for me with a simple site analysis. At first i wished I had the location on UNCG campus rather than the A&T location. However, after going there and seeing the campus and all the things they had going on, I was very happy to get the site I did. A&T has a great campus with so much to pull from when designing such an installation. A big lesson I learned with this project is to make sure you go way beyond anything you will possibly need with the site analysis. I had to go back a couple of times to get more information and it was a pain. Make a GOOD site analysis! Also double check that the information you gather is accurate, I found out midway through the project that my sun exposure diagram wasn't correct and it pretty much turned my project on it's head... not cool. So get lots of accurate data from the getgo and things go much smoother later on.

I began with my new favorite technique of using a very very large piece of paper and listing aspects and qualities of the design problem, things that needed to be addressed, bubble diagrams for adjacency and the like. This also is when I started working on the concept which became a little process of it's own. One of the fifth years was helping me with the concept and pretty much gave me an idea that fit so well I had no choice but to run with it. Though for integrity sake I couldn't use it directly; thus began the development of my concept alongside the bus shelter design itself. It started as a rainforest: the closer you are to the ground, the less sunlight permeates through the canopy. As you progress through vertical strata of protection, you get more and more exposure. Gradient of protection was a prominent idea in my design so this was highly appealing. Also the natural references fit well with the university's agricultural background. This concept morphed into a simple tree analogy; the closer to the trunk, the more shelter, moving the dynamic horizontal rather than vertical. After abstracting these basic ideas, as well as using input taken from personal interviews with A&T students I arrived at something I hadn't expected in the beginning but that I felt was highly appropriate for the location and project. My concept is to create an architecturally abstracted, man made tree limb incorporating the ideas of gradient and progression into the future. Below is my response to this concept.