On the seventh day...

Much has happened between, but now it is time for a much needed update.

The Cirque training centre has given me much difficulty. Initially, I began with the idea of using words to guide my design process. Cirque defines itself with three; dexterity, grace and daring.

I tried to create a form that encapsulated all of this by designing something that gave visitors a feeling of floating, or bringing them to another plane that they couldn't be on otherwise.

That led me to this:

Forms hovering above the ground, with the idea of ascension present in most of the early schemes. However, the bulkiness of the program, such as the height of the training spaces made it feel much less graceful and dexterous than I intended. And so, I scrapped it.

Then I read. Rick Joy is an architect from Tucson, Arizona who seems to be getting some attention these days. His semi-recent book, desert works, has a foreword by Steven Holl, and an introduction by Juhani Pallasmaa, which is where I have found my new inspiration.

Pallasmaa writes about the desert in a way that made me think of it as something other than just sand and rock.

"The immense emptiness of desert landscapes such as the African and Australian Sand deserts or the all white expanses of snow above the Polar Circle, radiating a strange appeal and emotional power. These settings erase the traces of man and evoke an experience of timelessness. The total absence of vegetation exposes the naked skin of the earth and turns the landscape into a tactile and muscular experience. Landscape becomes an extension of the human skin.

...

It is probably the sublime vastness and the sense of a divine void that has attracted these artists. The desert floor provides the tabula rasa for creative work that breaks from the confined and conditioned spaces of cities and museums. It gives a new context to the endeavours and products of modern man. A rusting carcass of a car appears brutal in a setting of lush greenery, but appears a fragile memento of human vulnerability and the vanity of human effort under the desert sun."

This has inspired me to think of the flat landscape as something much more than a spot to 'place' the building, but to think of the ground as something that will become a part of the building.

But what form will it take? How will it be fully resolved? Stay tuned.

Creating Space

So it's been a while since I posted a blog, and have FINALLY decided to put up some of the stuff I've been developing for P4... To start this project, I first toggled around with the program, and figured that the most important aspect of the Cirque training facility is ultimately the training facilities and the need to keep them as functional as possible (no gimmicks in the way).

I first laid out some design principles

1. Combine Programs
2. Transparency where possible
3. All under one roof
4. Stay above grade where possible

The idea of a central common space with movable seating areas usable in both directions allows for the viewing of either the large training facility or the pool made for more areas to view makeshift performances in either facility. This also follows the first principle of 'combining programs'. (As seen in that tiny section on the right of the picture below).

Also seen here is a perspective of a section of the pool area with 'tree' columns to reach up to the roof. Instead of placing the outdoor auditorium in a seperate area outside the building skin, I decided to place it ON the large training facility creating a roof performance space with possible an opening roof system (think skydome). I also wanted to place the cafeteria on the upper levels as a nice end point in order to create a place that would allow for interection between staff, crew and visitors that would also be a great viewing point to see the entire facility (again think of the wolfgang puck restaurant at the springs preserve).

After setting the general space allocations, I then proceded to create the skin based on site and program perimeters. The space is meant to be one space with connections to multiple program in order to create continuity and also build visual dialogue between the various functional spaces. Though not all you see below will actually be solid cladding, this is the form for the moment until the rest ofthe sub-programming like the entrance and loading docks and parking are properly intergrated.