Lights On!

Below is a rather lengthy series of photos, but I kind of wanted to include a tiny bit of what I do when I am not at studio. I am the Technical Director or Fargo's First Assembly Church, where I oversee all the lighting, audio recording, video production and media functions of this huge facility. Aka.. it is a giant toy box for me! These are pictures of our sanctuary/stage and worship band during one of our worship nights where I spend hours designing the lights and cues for these high energy concerts! For all of us architecture kids, here are some facts: the sanctuary seats 2,700 people, and the main sanctuary itself is 28,000 square feet with a 3,850 square foot stage, its awesome to see when all the lights and media get rolling for a service or concert. The whole building totals about 43 thousand square feet. Thats just a bit about my life when I am not at my desk in studio. 

 

Cotton, Cotton and Cotton

Hi Everyone!

I don't know if there has been cotton coming out of our ears or details! This project has become more of a detail oriented project than we had expected, but I would rather have it that way any day. We kind of bulldozed through the space planning and structural planning phases, but absolutely did not forsake function and good use of space during it. The floor plan really did just naturally develop from a few first sketches and loose outline ideas. I used those two dozen plan sketches, and three dozen other sketches of sections, elevations and perspectives and complied a design into Revit about 4 weeks ago. Once I had the entire building done along with Cassie's help she was then given the file to start adding the architectural detailing such as the cedar wood slat skin, finalizing the curtain walls and the bold-curved-mullions of the atrium spaces.

Recently, I have been working at putting lighting and finished floors and ceilings into the digital model as Cassie has been doing the detail work on the curved mullions in the 6 atrium spaces. Before friday we hope to have all the lights, mullions and furniture in the model. To date we have probably created about 30 renderings that mark our progress and material choices along the way.

Thanks for being interested and reading this as Cassie and I continue to have fun and design the Cotton Research and Community Engagement center.

Matt and Cassie

Another view of the North East corner showing the library and lab space behind, and the side door on the right which leads to the administrative area and break room. This door is for the employees to access their patio off of the break room. 

This is a night rendering of the North East side, showing the library on the left and one of the offices illuminated on the right. Also in this view is the in progress atrium space which leads to the educational wing.

One of the original renderings of the north facade of the building. Note the horizontal wood slats that surround the building. These are a outer layer and skin that is mounted to the exterior curtain wall which sits behind this shielded wall. There have been several great night renderings which we will post soon, where the interior night light glows through the slats and creates this luminescent soft glow.

Main floor (ground) floor plan or the Cotton Research Facility, this is a sprawling single story complex which is divided into three main areas; (clockwise) on the left is the main harvesting and storing areas, note the large store rooms, docks, locker rooms and southern green house. Then in the middle, there is the laboratory space with easy access to the store rooms, locker rooms and public viewing offered from the main lobby and gallery space. Above that, is the main gallery space where the marketing offices are located on the left side, and on the upper right side the administrative offices, additional restrooms, employee break room, and the research library. Lastly, on the bottom right is the educational wing, with three classrooms and conference rooms and a meeting room complete with storage space and prep kitchen.

North side main entrance to the Cotton Research building. This material will be steal however in this rendering it has been done out of another material to capture the aesthetic of it.

This is an interior night rendering of our administrative offices area. This area can be seen on the floor plan in the upper North West corner.

The above image is the small city of Stoneville, Mississippi. The large green section on the upper right side is the site for the Cotton Research and Community Engagement Center.

This is a window detail of the Cotton Research and Community engagement Center, a designed for Stoneville, Mississippi.  This detail is to be constructed out of steel and filled in with glass, used for all the main atriums and gathering spaces in the building. The rest of the facade is a simple, organic wood slat siding. The scale of this actual detail is 30' tall and 12' wide. This template was designed using AutoCad and ready to be laser cut.