i feel like a cog for using the terminology but perhaps there is some insight into structuring an argument by which the priniciples in the previous post can be put towards the goals enumerated in this article [pdf].
re: goals of universal design
The first step in developing universal design guidelines is to identify critical success factors (CSFs) that play a key role in any planning and assessment of facilities. CSFs are analyzed according to five major phases of facility planning: Strategic planning, acquisition or lease of real estate, base building planning, interior planning, and maintenance and operation. Each CSF is followed by the description of its objective, the needs of users, and three levels of criteria that include exemplars to achieve the CSF objective.
some thoughts on strategic planning:
• as a public institution/venture, to address and accommodate the population of one of the most heterogeneous cities in the world
• to present a unifying collective setting that allows for equal qualitative occupation and use value in regard to sensory capabilities, accessibility, and cultural background while allowing the individual manifestations and aberrations of these characteristics to shine (be registered/made productive) through and contribute back to the collective
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some thoughts on acquistion of real estate:
• access: tram, ferry?, it is an island so foot traffic may be from main transit points of island residents, car access is questionable, there appears to be a bridge from the east? length of island? max distance of travel? any cabs/shuttles on island? request recon (mm?)
• environmental: mostly undeveloped, but not raw landscape. potentially lower pollution concentrations due to river breezes? any nearby local amenities? strong cultural and historical framework on the island, previous public health facility on the site. powerful literary atmospheric associations (romantic, lugubrious, nautical).
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some thoughts on base building planning:
• access to entrances: based on how distant the access points are, entrance aprons could be extended to engage debarkation points (tram, possible inclusion of a ferry terminal). is a parking lot provided for onsite in the program? is there public parking on the island, how distant? entrances and remote aprons should be communicative, identifiable, and directional. site itself is relatively flat so accessibility to the facility proper should not cause difficulty.
• access to floors: stairways(?), elevators, ramps, and corridors. vertical circulation elements should be bundled or deployed in such a way that use of particular type does not speak to differences of ability or cause population of building to be drawn apart or preferred. wayfinding and zoning of building should have clear relationship to areas of movement and should be integral to the experience at a base level.
• space standards: a unilateral standard should be adopted for usability of spaces, bathrooms, workstations, theater areas, corridors. also, provisions should be made for overlooked spatially based uses of the building such as access to views (both interior and exterior), and qualitative experiences such as tactile access to materials. where unilateral solutions can not be adopted, provision should be made for an undifferentiable localized tapestry of solutions.
• flexibility & adaptability: accommodation of fluctuating legal requirements on space, natural light, mechanical systems, and accessibility. avoid solutions that overcomplicate transitions between levels including basing building dimensions on minimum ramps slopes, tight dedicated circulation zones, and egregious surplus of floor levels. this is not about flexibility that is focused on the ability to change any space into any other space (grace lau) (e.g. an auditorium into an office suite… in 3 moves). dispersion of mutably programmed spaces throughout the building can provide for movement of spatially analogous programs to be quickly relocated for accessibility reasons.
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some thoughts on interior planning:
• sign planning: in addition to signage, a communicative architecture that addresses all senses should be cultivated. multisensory ideograms.
• access to offices: office spaces should not only all be accessible, but distributed in the complex to serve a panoply of potential accessibility, sensory, programmatic, and psychological issues. these should be integrated in the overall flow of movement and the communicative structure of the building.
• space standards: see above re: workstations. idea of the localized tapestry of solutions could be applied here as a distribution approach for programs, such as business support, media spaces, and super-public amenities.
• enivronmental planning: because it is impossible to make provisions for all environmental factors (light, temperature, sound, airflow) to address all needs at every point in the building, a diversity of general conditions should exist that can then be tempered at the individual level by occupants, whether long term or transitory.
• materials: materials use should be sustainable where possible but should also promote at a larger scale an outlook of sustainability in the lifecycle of the building and the resources it consumes. materials should also strongly contribute to environmental planning and signage/communication strategies discussed above.
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some thoughts on maintenance and operation:
• although not super interesting to me, it would be nice to develop a more integral and programmatically apropos solution for “personal assistance and services,” perhaps something related to the theatrical department, a mime wing?, a storytelling project? or perhaps something more fluctuating relating to communication between workers that is spearheaded by the fine arts department, haiku memo week, communicative installations, etc.
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some thoughts on acquistion of real estate:
Access:
there is auto access from the east side, queens, only; i reckon that that many manhattanites will disrelish the idea of either driving themselves or paying cab fare to across to queens, then back across to roosevelt. Those who insist on driving – or being driven – might be those who never ride public transit to begin with.
I did not notice many cabs on the island; maybe there are more up in the residential areas of the island, but i doubt that it is lucrative spot for hacks. There is mta bus service around the island.
The cable-car/sky-bucket does not seem to be a practical form of transport for most visitors; it does deposit you on on the southern end of the island, but the manhattan end of the line is on the upper east side, requiring a long, inconvenient trip for most manhattanites just to get to the cable car station. I suspect that anyone taking the cable car will be doing it for the novelty only, which might also be the reason for visiting the island in the first place. I didn’t take it b/c i was not willing to shell out the $2; mm can probably attest to the tight view and speed of the journey.
There is one subway stop, on the F line; it is a line that runs from down town manhattan to queens; anyone north of 42nd street in manhattan, will have to take a roundabout trip, changing lines once or twice. Once they make it to the f, the trip across is quick. The walk from the subway station to the edge of the southpoint development is lengthier than a call to t-mobile to have your servce restored after you neglect to pay your bill on time.
to me, access to a museum/cultural center is tied to class; the same class issues which govern who visits moma for $20 and who has $27.50 for a ticket to von hagen’s ‘body worlds’
environmental:
i did not travel north of the subway station; south of that point, there are no amenities for the visitor at all. The space from the subway to south point is filled with the ‘hospital’/prison. I don’t think anyone will be coming to south roosevelt to spend the day, thinking they will break off some herbal pizza or burritos on the way to the museum; mm mentioned to me that there was a dearth of commercial/service establishments in the residential area of r’velt, and the ones which do exist are not particularly interesting or attractive. In other words, i don’t think that the typical urban experience of stepping out for the day, taking a coffee, visiting a museum or theater, then grabbing lunch at a local eatery will be common.
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some thoughts on base building planning:
I will state outright my distaste for the flexibility of spaces as determined by moving parts (curtains, partitions, scrims) – see failed sci3mil proposal for evidence of this. I wonder if the issues of circulation you mention can be used in place of wheeled partition walls or folding chairs to determine conditional use of a space. rather, depending on approach or configuration of entries, spaces or zones can be ordered to fill programme of the day or season?
rather than moving parts, i favour the placement of various elements which are ignored during one purpose but can become focal point of another programme. for example, a large hunk of glowing hot iron is used as a pulpit when deactivated, but once fired up forces folks to cluster in margins of space, allowing for smaller programmes, such as bookbinding seminars. smell and sound may function similarly.
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some thoughts on interior planning:
presuming that most visitors would be from nyc, most of them would be unable to practice any lessons learned from blatant use of ‘eco-materials’ or something, as they are mostly renters while the owners are in arrested developments. For all intents and purposes, southpoint is already ‘ruined’. Considering that any construction material will have to be brought from off shore, perhaps issues of efficiency of transport (energy/space) will be as primary as durability and self-sustainability of structures.
I believe the opportunities of Flow of river and wind is highly interesting w/ regards to energy concerns. the sunlight received will be greater than that for many (most?) spots in manhattan, but solar cells don’t seem as cool as underwater turbines or damming/funneling the east river.
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some thoughts on strategic planning:
encourage short term occupation by the inhabitants of r’velt by providing not only zones of official ‘cultural’ value, but also of more everyday uses that might otherwise require trips off-island or to technically and extramundanely insufficient local zones.
encourage long term (daily) occupation by inhabitants of other islands and mainland by providing not only events and objects which exist only on island, but also space(s) for extended use which are comfortable and novel if not unique for the region.
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your real estate assessment coupled with your strategic planning leads me to believe that some sort of pragmatic outpost might be a valuable addition to the program, the ferry depot had been mentioned in the blurb and i find that interesting in relation to the other aquatic features you mentioned, here i might suggest some other components along your lines of thinking: cinema, rock skipping basin, absolute bagels, solarium, rope drying plaza (or some other functional sun-related space), produce market, the queens/manhattan astrolabe, james turrell commissioned space, trader joes, stunt kite run (dedicated to nonika mascarenhas), southpoint figurehead, fireworks amphitheater, bring back the delacorte fountain as a biproduct of the river turbines, community recombinative masonry moraine.
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to me, access to a museum/cultural center is tied to class.
i may have misread, or perhaps there was very little information regarding this (or anything), but it looked like this art center was supposed to be more open to the community, hopefully not as classist. i would hosey the project be more about openness, community ownership, and giving people their place. i began thinking about the offering up of space to the people in relation to principle one in the universal design guidelines. i see this place as somewhere that people from all over the city can come in and feel like they will be able to recognize places that are theirs. i think this can be done in ways that the program is manifested architecturally, such as a theater that is all boxes, or studios that have something like a locker-room that is a contained individual workstation where supplies are stored that can be ‘hot desked’ but gives the user a ‘place.’ there could maybe be things that are less architectural and more about events, such neighborhood art shows, or hosting community or school theater events. there was very little in the brief about what the actual role of this place was to be so i think it would be good for us to carve out a clear agenda for ourselves.
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I believe the opportunities of Flow of river and wind is highly interesting w/ regards to energy concerns.
do you know whether the current of the east river is very strong? i had some interest in using buouys as orientation devices and points for triangulating locations in the movement to and around the facility. perhaps these can be related to hydrological functions such as power generation, roosevelt flotilla guidance, or rock skipping.
the sunlight received will be greater than that for many (most?) spots in manhattan.
i think that is very interesting. being the southern tip of the island, being undeveloped, and having a decent range of sunlight (definitely in the morning and on until the sun drops behind manhattan), this could be billed as the sunniest spot in the city. what can we do with that (if we agree that solar cells are queer)? tb or scurvy solarium?
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do you know whether the current of the east river is very strong? …
if i am not mistaken, the east ‘river’ is not really a river at all, but rather a straight which connects long island sound with new york bay; it would just be part of the bay, if not for long island pinching it into its narrow ‘river’ form. I ranted about this to mm several times, finally vindicated when a friend of hers who works for river keeper or something backed me up. i believe the current changes directions with the tide; if so, it would serve both the interests of turning tidal turbines as well as shifting buoys with an ebb and flow, following the occupation by visitors, rather than tugging them to an unchanging destination.
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i may have misread, or perhaps there was very little information regarding this (or anything), but it looked like this art center was supposed to be more open to the community, hopefully not as classist.
upon reading my post, i realized that my notion was not clearly described. I don’t think that the programme of the centre is particularly classist, but, rather, the issue lies with the abilities of the populace to visit the place. it seems like traveling to the island will take either more time or more money (or both) than visiting a museum or centre on mainland manhattan or brooklyn. I am not certain that many moms will wrangle 3 to 5 kids for a 4 hour trip or spring for cab fare to the island if magic johnson theatre is only 2 blocks away. Granted, a true desire to visit a museum, with its amenities being more in demand than a multiplex, will cause one to overcome these obstacles; what can ‘we’ bring to the point that will give them the will power to make the effort for the visit? how was moma’s vistation rate altered by its move to queens, with consideration given to the novelty of seeing its temporary quarters? How has moma’s patronage changed since raising the ticket price to $20, with consideration given to the visits just to peep the new facilities?
Due to the suggestions above, i am interested in looking into the possibilities for the movement of massive numbers of occupants simultaneously, for long-term (storage locker) or day use occupation, and for connecting the island with a number of or points along the shores of the other boroughs (how much can a draw-footbridge cost anyway?)
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this could be billed as the sunniest spot in the city. what can we do with that (if we agree that solar cells are queer)? tb or scurvy solarium?
i guess solar cells are alright, but i don’t think that this little point is most effective when used for that purpose. it would make more sense to blanket deserts like staten island or central park with the cells. how else can the sun be billed? a ‘meet’ market like the christopher st pier mm took me to? modeled on the paris beach (seine)? a vitamin-d-atorium?
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i had suggested the cinema as a possible amenity for inhabitants of roosevelt island that they might usually leave the island for. the stunt kite place, the turrell space, or the rock skipping place were suggestions for things that would draw from the other bouroughs. perhaps the facility itself would be the draw but i get the feeling this is less a ‘museum’ than a functioning art center. perhaps the fact that it actually contains studios as well could differentiate it from your typical chelsea gallery by conflating the act with the product, studios could be galleries, there are even apartments here, you could have things like those people who locked themselves in a gallery for so many months and had to write a novel whilst captive. i think the ferry or flotilla might be more feasible than a drawbridge? maybe we could do this again. at any rate, i think the grouping of functions, that could be clustered around ‘cultural’ practices, should occupy or range from: pragmatic, programmatic (given), and fantastic.
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do people swim in the east river?
i like the health aspect of the solarium and the vitaman-d-atorium, it resonates with the history of the island as a recuperative enclave.
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i had suggested the cinema as a possible amenity for inhabitants of roosevelt island that they might usually leave the island for. the stunt kite place, the turrell space, or the rock skipping place were suggestions for things that would draw from the other bouroughs. perhaps the facility itself would be the draw…
i wonder if i am too worried about the ease with which people from off-r’velt make it to the centre; it seems that having a use for full-time r’villers is the primary concern. having the louis kahn memorial would have guaranteed outside visitors, but they seem to have no interest in pursuing such a feature on their island. perhaps, along the lines of your turrell work (will we design that, too?), there may be an ‘unassigned’ space which is landscape or installation most of the time, but events are able to take place, such as the lighting of the xmas/kwanza/eid pyres, visit by bono, spencer tunick shoot.
if this is the case, then perhaps fanciful constructs to lift school buses across the river are not necessary. i am interested in your ideas mentioned in design-rapid-fire in which thread of circulation pull, bundle, and knot, but do not wind around a particular spindle at southpoint, but instead mesh and intertwine, sending links back up the island and even into the water, perhaps supporting a temporary/seasonal transportation device
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that should be:
“it seems that having a use for full-time r’villers is the primary concern…”
…for rivaa or enya or rioc or whomever is sponsoring this gig.
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i am interested in your ideas mentioned in design-rapid-fire in which thread of circulation pull, bundle, and knot, but do not wind around a particular spindle at southpoint, but instead mesh and intertwine, sending links back up the island and even into the water.
where’d i say that?
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where’d i say that?
um, i guess you said ‘circluation’ and ‘bundle(?)’ and i envisioned the rest of this shite upon reading them.
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13h27m58
29.Sep.2005