This week we brainstormed our building programming and started conceptualizing our program layout.

Team 7 will be looking at a structural reuse of the Morton Salt site, which is a former industrial site on the near northwest side of the city that’s roughly bordered by Elston Ave to the west, the Chicago River and Goose Island to the east, North Ave to the north, and Division St to the south. See below.

This site will give us a number of unique features to play with, including access to the site from the River or from Goose Island, and several buildings with large open space on the inside and tall ceilings.

After brainstorming some potential building programming in small groups, we moved into bubble diagrams. This is an exercise often used by architects to conceptualize programming spaces within a building or site, without limiting their thinking to physical shapes or sizes. For instance, in a building like a gym or athletic facility, you’ll probably want bathrooms within the locker room facilities and both of those should be near the pool. For that situation, a bubble representing the bathroom would probably be fully within the locker room bubble, and then the locker room bubble may overlap a little with the pool area. This activity helped us visualize what spaces should be adjacent and what spaces don’t necessarily depend on other parts of the building or site.

Below is an example of a bubble diagram for a mixed-use complex.

Next week, groups will present their bubble diagrams, and then we will be splitting up into discipline groups (finally!).