On Family: Design Brigade Week 6
How can we design a beautiful, exterior intervention that promotes safety and wellbeing for community residents, visitors, and staff in the time of COVID-19?
Student Team: Ivy Li, Yushan Jiang, Janelle Schmidt, Huy Truong, Vicky Wu, Sasha Zwiebel, Alex Mingda Zhang
A project co-sponsored by the Yale Center for Collaborative Arts and Media and Atelier Cho Thompson.
Building off encouraging feedback from mentors last week, this week we continued working on developing the exercise trail and the resting and gathering pods, culminating in a client review on Friday with The Towers. As in the previous week, we split into two project groups, with Ivy, Sasha, and Alex working on the trail, and Janelle, Huy, Vicky and Yushan working on various designs for the pods.
Clarifying Design Language
At the beginning of the week, we realized that while working in two project groups allowed us to tackle a wider range of designs, our designs lacked cohesion and a unified design language. Although we had previously brainstormed key design goals, agreeing on words such as “beautiful”, “welcoming”, and “timeless” to describe our solutions, we needed to understand more specifically how this would manifest in form and visual language.
Over a long Zoom brainstorming session, we converged on three main design elements and a mood board that would serve as the reference for the rest of the weeks’ designs.
- Clear geometry. Using compositions with squares and circles, clean lines, and standardized building elements such as lumber.
- Contextual. Fitting with the existing site conditions, incorporating the step motif already present throughout The Towers architecture, and contrasting the heavy brutalism of the architecture with lightness.
- Refined. Elegant, but not luxury, using a neutral palette with colored accents when necessary to maintain a timelessness while also not losing interest in the design.
In one sentence: We aim to encourage safe exercising and gathering by using clear geometry to make a contextual and refined intervention.
Trail Progress
With our design language defined, we focused on creating a system of wayfinding signs and symbols for the trail. We wanted to propose a set of ground markings that would serve as direction markers for movement as well as distance markers for COVID-19. Consistent with our goal for a refined design, we decided that rather than propose large or frequent markings all along the path, we would instead incorporate distance markers at set intervals similar to those on a track field. Showing the amount of distance walked would not only provide a useful piece of information for residents but as extra motivation for exercising on the trail.
In addition to ground markings, we designed a series of free-standing signs and formats for a mural at the entrance of The Towers. Beyond providing practical information and creating visual interest along the trail, our goal is to incorporate the trail into a greater narrative theme at The Towers told through the signs and the mural. Some potential thematic options we explored include New Haven history, resident stories, and art.
Pods Progress
The pods group focused this week primarily on shading, seating, and partitions. For each of these, we designed both lower and higher cost solutions. One challenge we faced was creating a shading structure that was synchronous with our design language, while also being mindful of the site and how the shading could either be supported by or obstruct existing structures. For our shade solution, we gravitated towards arches as a form that could be used for covering 1–2 chairs, and for our lower-cost shade.
For seating, we proposed existing chair models that would be retrofitted with fabric for additional comfort and an add-on table for the armrests that could be used for eating, playing card games, etc. Additional ideas we had for partitions include a screw-in partition for benches and a folding screen partition for the entrance.
Feedback and Next Steps
On Friday, we presented our ideas to administrators and the CEO at The Towers. Moving forward, our focus narrowed:
- Trail markings and signage. Our client was very enthusiastic about creating a trail around The Towers and mentioned that they will be receiving new signs for the campus. In the upcoming week, we will be updating our designs to be consistent with The Towers’ existing branding and graphics.
- The Towers history narrative. Our clients were enthusiastic about weaving a narrative about The Towers along the trail and brought up an archive that we hope to conduct research from and use to provide site-specific context.
- Shading options. Because our client mentioned existing tables and chair sets and newly ordered benches for outdoor spaces, our focus will primarily be outdoor shading options.
- Guidebook and COVID-19 signage. One area that we did not focus on as much in Phase 1 of Design Brigade was the creation of a COVID-19 guidebook for Towers administration, and a system of signage that residents can use to keep safe. In Phase 2, this project will take higher priority especially as The Towers begins its programming again.
- Budget. Now knowing our ballpark budget for our project, we are shifting our focus to lower-cost materials and implementation.
Our next four weeks will be fine-tuning our existing designs, researching manufacturers, budgeting, and creating a concrete plan for implementation. Because many of our project-wide decisions have been made already, we are hoping to spend less time iterating and more time communicating with The Towers about final designs.
