n1For Monday, November 12th's class, please add comments to another team's second midterm design page.

• What are the strongest aspects of the design?

• How could the weaker areas be improved?

• What information is missing?

Also, add your answers to the questions below:

1)  What lessons learned do you take away from Friday's review?

•  Type answers to 1) her and include your name

• I thought this second review was really insightful and informative. Saying this, I learned that our site plan still needs a bit of help. Since I haven't really worked with Chris and Nick too much on the overall plan, I going to become more involved with the planning of the site. Also, because of some miscommunication or stupidness on my part, some elevations were missing in our presentation. Next time I will make sure to look at all the information given to me to put together. -Matt

• Our site looks good and we had a reviewer comment on how we have tucked all the way to the corner and since we have gone to that extreme we now have some elbow room to massage the final kinks out of the over all plan. Some ideas that she mentioned were to stagger our high density housing and slide  our high density housing apart. On the common house the reviewers encouraged me to look at how I am addressing the other sides of the common house with as much as attentiveness as I paid to the south and east sides.-Caitlin
• In our project, there are four complexes (not including duplexes).  Within the complex, there is a struggle between public and private.  In the compact complex, it is difficult to make private yet, to create unity between housing.  However, from the review I realized the issue of privacy is critical more than unity. -Peter Yoon
• Our group was fortunate enough to have a return reviewer from the first midterm who could see our progress, and give suggestions accordingly. She commented on how our site plan had condensed but now could be loosened up. We have room to separate our housing complexes and develop the in-between places. It was also suggested we look at the edges of our buildings and try to develop them better/more. Another thought relating to parking was to restrict parking to the north. - Colony
• We seemed to run out of time for a really good discussion about al aspects of our project from our in-class reviewers.  It might be good to run down our main topics and discuss what we want to get out fo the review so taht we could pose directed questons so that all work gets good feedback.  Visually, some things needed to be bigger and some more careful graphic attention needed to be paid to the presentaiton overall.  -Sam   

2) What questions do we still need to answer so that we'll have strong projects at the final?

• Type answers to 2) here and include your name

• I think that Kirk comments were very true in that most of the groups still need to address what exactly is going to happen with water on the site.-Matt

• The benefits of the sustainable aspects we are implementing in to our projects.-Caitlin
• I belive we should have a careful thougt over the transition.  Since, each person worked on their indivudal building, I believe the transition between buildings are lacking.There should be a gradual transition between buildings.  For example instead of just implementing the complex next to common house, how can we make the transtional path experiential to the residence. -Peter Yoon
• As mentioned above specific elements of sustainablity need to be worked into our projects. Now that we are developing the details i think we will be able to do this, where as before the elements were general ideas. Also, how can our group projects become unified? Working in groups makes our final presentations harder to put together. - Colony
• Looking at how the building work together will be important to really bring this project together.  Deciding on key stuctural systems, how materials are used and spatial conventions would really help unify the buildig site.  Constantly going back and forth in terms of how the buildings relate to the site and touching on how they perform  in terms of daylight, circulation, spatial configuration and energy would be a great thing to have and be able to present by the end of the term. -Sam

3) Are there site and program specific ideas that everyone's scheme should incorporate?

•  Type answers to 3) here and include your name

• One of the reviewers commented on our site plan that there wasn't really a gradient from public to private within the community. I think this applies to everyone's schemes; some more than others.-Matt

• The market feature is addressed differently through out the groups, some fully aware and exploring potential all the way to not acknowledged at all. I think that based on what Debbie said that the review, we should rethink our ideas behind it. -Caitlin
• From the review from the street team, Ben Rippe mentioned about the node.  In the site plan from the street team, there was a place where six paths meet all together.  He mentioned how that place is critical.  It should be develop more that instead of just being a place where random paths meet, it sould create an opportunity for people to make a pause.  All groups should consider the node in the transitional path. -Peter Yoon

• I was more wondering about how to address the Fields' home. Should we leave it up to them or do what we like? Also, i was wondering about the concept of entrances to dwellings on to a kitchen. Is this a critical concept of co-housing developments? -Colony

• I think each team does this differently but making the community connect with the common house and, for that matter, those shared oudoor spaces, is critical.  These shared spaces are one of the things that makes co-housing unique and special.   Also, addressing energy issues , even if things are not sized, would be good to consider and incorporate visually.  -Sam