Open space design

As mentioned in an earlier post, the site that I have chosen is approximately 25 miles from downtown Cincinnati and the surrounding area is home to a large middle to middle-upper class community.  The commuter parking lot is currently at the southwest corner of a large parking lot that King's Island Amusement Park uses.  I laid the site out in sketchup and there is NOTHING there.  No shelter, no trees..there is only a single light pole in the area and a set of traffic lights on the adjacent main throughfare.  Otherwise the site is a completely blank slate of asphalt and a little grass.

You can tell where the bus pickup is because of the location of the handicap parking spaces.  Have you ever seen handicap spaces without a building?  Those spaces are the only indicator that this area has a function beyond a parking lot...why are these handicap spaces here?  What is access needed for?

In approaching the site, I first am considering design within the drosscape and how buildings exist within open or empty landscapes.  Likewise, how can a building or space effectively create a meaning space on a site that has no true contextual surroundings.  As you will see in later posts detailing the intervention, the connections must be far reaching and the building in a sense must be able to individually define the site.

A single building within an endless or vast landscape can enhance the feeling of isolation.  Without other buildings to relate to or even landscape forms, buildings feel lonely and inaccessible.  The barn in a field has a majestic, historical quality to it as we hold a certain sentimentality for a landscape such as this.  But replace the barn with a Home Depot or Kmart and what do you have?  What is that relationship?  How can architecture make the isolated building experience better?  More accessible?

Monumental buildings often stand alone and act as a destination.  Is it the function, the history, the cultural meaning that makes these buildings desirable?  Unlike the barn in the field, the monumental typically is surrounded by a procession of space and form.  Here, large processional paths lead to an elevated platform, supporting the building.  A grand identifiable entrance is provided, centered on the building and landscape plaza.  This approach solves the issue of isolation by dominating the site, and creating a grand and overly garish presentation.  It imposes it's precense on you and commands your attention.

The urban drosscape as created by American big box retail and commercial buildings.  This scene is repeated thousands of times in thousands of towns.  Why does this arrangement fail to address isolated buildings successfully?  Each front building facade is oriented to the street with expansive areas between each building.  Just as if you sat next to a person and looked straight ahead, and not at them, this is a closed off and cold relationship.  The car and parking space also drives this method of design.  there is no pedestrian access.  The sequence and procession of the user expereinced is reduced to the climate controlled car ride, followed by a brief dash across asphalt to a rectilinear conditioned space.

In looking for ways to make isolated buildings more approachable, accessable and integral to our community, it helps to look at some ways that "empty" space is addressed.  "The Gates" installment in Central park by Christo and Jeanne-Claude embody the marking of space along a path.  The running/walking path alone is a two dimnsional form that follows the landscape.  By adding the sails, the path becomes three dimensional.  It is as if a corridor or space which we can be contained within has been created.  this is successful because the expanse of park around the path provides enough space so that the path does not feel constrained.  How can the marking of path and access be used to better approach and enter isolated buildings?