I was tasked with designing architectural projects for a 120 acre lot in Slidell, Louisiana. Over the years this property has been a cattle ranch, a family compound, a farm, and is currently transitioning into a vacation destination, event center, and polo club. I was supposed to envision the future while preserving the land, for recreation activities to balance with nature and wildlife.I started the project by doing an extensive site analysis of the property. My site is separated into there sections with relaxation programming on the bottom, event programming in the center, and active programming on top.
The next task was to create our site design. The goal of the site design was use a mixture of digital tools to create a zeitgeist of the site. I was supposed to create an emotional response that expressds a vision for the site. My concept for this was to acknowledge and represent the history of land while peaking interest in the future plans for the site. The city-scape in the background is the skyline of New Orleans and the black and white men in the boat is from a historic image of a flood in the early 1900s in New Orleans. The pyramid is the site with beautiful landscape inside. The men from the historic photo are trying to reach the safe space of this getaway that will be the 120 acre site.
This event center is about the timeline of a celebration. it focused on the natural procession of events during a celebration and highlights the flow through water throughout the site.
These are some preliminary sketches in my sketchbook that express my ideation of my event center. I knew I wanted to play with topography and groundwork, so these diagrams show me working through those ideas.
The next step in the creation of my design was to create the overall site plan. Topography is the main element I am showing with this plan, where every line equal 2' of elevation change. The site plan also shows that the building is oriented towards the polo field for views.
This is a NorthEast view of the event center.
This is the men's changing room with cellar.
