It’s the connection that matters.
There will always be many insides and one very big outside, but it’s the connection that makes an architectural experience memorable.
And, okay, there are also some in-betweens and there is also outer space. But I would like to focus on the connections.
Connections between inside and outside, connections to community, connections to history, connections to landscape, connections to the city.
In Minneapolis, there are three locations I will be exploring - 2 near the riverfront and one on the southern edge of the central business district in downtown Minneapolis.
The Mississippi River is a strong geographical element in the Twin Cities - sometimes considered a connector and sometimes a barrier. There is a rich history surrounding the river and great opportunity in redeveloping some of the land near the river.
My 2 river-based sites are:
1) a parking lot 3 blocks from the west bank, at the intersection of Hennepin and Washington Avenues.
2) Boom Island Park, a public park that has great potential to serve as a connector to the central city from the east bank.
My third site is Peavey Plaza, at the intersection of Nicollet Mall and 11th Street. I became intrigued with this site during my Urban Design class in Semester 1. This is a neighborhood and community connector, and with a new addition planned at
adjacent Orchestra Hall there is an opportunity to bring something uniquely “Minneapolis” to this site.
adjacent Orchestra Hall there is an opportunity to bring something uniquely “Minneapolis” to this site.
When working on connections, it's really important to be clear about what is being connected and the way in which space/architecture works to mediate these connections between things. Ideally, it is great to have connections that operate with simultaneity as you suggest (inside & outside, community, history, landscape, city) but as you begin your analysis (after this documentation) - it will be really important that you clearly show how these connections are created and made. In particular, focusing on the spatial possibility. Similar to your documentation, which needs to be augmented to document at several scales, the subsequent analysis should similarly operate at many scales - not just one in order to create a depth of understanding and study which will allow the ideas to come to fruition and more importantly, allow for the translation and synthesis towards a cohesive thesis idea.
ReplyDeleteMary - the concept of connections and inside/outside seem to hold similar qualities taken from a different perspective. It is nice to turn something around and look at it differently!
ReplyDeleteWhy is it the connection that makes it memorable?
ReplyDelete