with that in mind, I am part of a small team in charge of increasing the facilities and program of a small children's orphanage in Tijuana, Mexico. after a first visit to the site, the team and I sat down with the clients to establish a program and found that the most pressing needs were to create more dormitory rooms as well as office, storage, and study spaces for the kids.
looking at the site, there are a few major issues that will pose high consideration for the design. the first, and most obvious, being the slope of the site. the north wall of the site runs 70' long, and the NE corner to the SW corner has a +25' slope increase.
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| We are designing from the wall (left) to the existing roof line (right) |
other site elements that will effect the design are the water runoff problems and existing retaining wall/water reclamation container. although utilizing this water reclamation element would be a nice touch to the design, the structure of the container has definitely eroded away to inadequacy. however, the incorporation of a future water reclamation feature in the design is most certainly not out of the question.
during this first visit, we were also told that the orphanage had come in contact with a group in Los Angeles that could make this project even more of a reality due to their resources and history of success. as a small team, we always had visions of the project being realized but understood that a minimal budget would be a key factor to our overall design. because of this, we were going to design on a smaller part of the site in order to decrease the size of a foundation + retaining wall and leave the rest of the site for future development later.
today, however, was an amazing day because we finally met this group from L.A., and realized what they are all about. basically, they are a group of talented individuals with many different skill sets (marketing, engineering, architecture, etc.) that locate orphanage projects and create viable options for program enhancement + future growth and expansion. the main man in charge is part of a group called Change Fire , which is a huge factor in acquiring the services of talented individuals to actually get the project built once it is fully designed. he has also recruited the talents of other individuals that have access to materials, donations, engineering expertise, material research, etc. there is only one architect in this team and he is not taking taking all the design responsibility of the project which means that my small team will be in charge of the design of this new facility! this is very exciting because this project will be more than an idea put on paper as it will also be built and lived in!
for the meeting today, I built a site model in order to communicate some design possibilities based on budgetary limits as well as our early site analysis and thought process. I presented a low, medium, and high budget constraint massing in order to show the basic size of the facility depending on a given foundation + retaining wall system. in simple terms, the larger we have to make a retaining wall or foundation the greater the cost of the project. decrease the foundation + retaining wall = increase the size of overall programmatic elements (dorm rooms, storage, office space, study areas).
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| Original site with no added program. |
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| Lowest budget massing |
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| Medium budget massing |
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| Greatest budget massing |
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| Option 2 of limited budget = go vertical with small foundation |
we are taking a lot of different considerations into this design and have come to a pretty solid understanding that the project will get built in phases. as far as what these phases will entail, that is yet to be determined. however, we have a preliminary idea of how the phases could take form:
Phase 1: Clean up of site + preparation for building
Phase 2: Construction of initial building form and program + landscaping of site
Phase 3: More primary construction + hard-scaping of site + vision of future growth to build a school
a lot of what is critical in this project is our ability to obtain funds to build it. we are going to be putting together a packet of initial cost estimates + general building massing + all the phases for future design and will be giving this to our marketing partners to start getting funding for the project as well as feedback on greater design needs, changes, etc. once we understand the budget we are working with we will be able to move forward in the design and start to manipulate the form and function of the building.
we are hoping to start Phase 1 of the construction as soon as possible in order to get the site prepared and ready to go and want Phase 2 to get underway sometime this summer. again, time will be dictated on the funds we can get along with the satisfaction of the overall design.
in the end, no matter what budget is given or time it takes to develop the project, my only goal is to do all that I can to help make the orphanages' vision come true and improve the lives of these kids by providing the necessary amenities to grow and learn as a healthy individual.
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