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client: Life University
employer: MSR Design (formerly MS&R, Ltd) Meyer, Scherer & Rockcastle
role: Project Architect | Designer | Master Planning & Rendering
year: 2006-07
renderings: mrlw
As a portion of the master plan for the campus – student housing was placed on the critical path for the regrowth of the campus. The master plan can be found here.
To that end, immediately following the completion of the capital campaign and brochure – we started in on developing the Phase I portion of the student housing.
Ultimately, the project was near realized as the university elected to go with a design/build/manage company for student housing.
My design layout/options for student units was however shared across the industry as a design example. Over a year after the project faded – I got cold-contacted from a good friend of mine in Chicago who asked me if I was the one that produced the drawings that he was looking at. I was.
Wouldn’t be the first or the last time where one of my projects or ideas was ‘recycled’.
Given the need for expanding the parking on site, and the adjacencies required for student housing & parking in the car-dependent Atlanta area – a site was selected for adding a parking garage that would have the least amount of impact on existing infrastructure.
After a number of parking count exercises, flood plain research, and a couple of passes on massing – we chose the potential site.
What I developed is a series of plan footprints, based on a 4-student layout & living spaces that allowed for stacking, while varying the foorprint and facade of the building itself.
We went thru a couple rounds of preliminary pricing, and the design ended up on a perpetual loop. A cost/SF was established, and we would work out options that would be below the target, but they were viewed as lacking something. We’d expand on the design to the point that it would exceed the budget – which sent the entire process back to the beginning.
I fully understand that the graphics of this and some of the other projects aren’t up to par to today’s standards. These models were ‘stick built’ using base AutoCAD 2006, rendered in 3D Studio, with entourage added in Photoshop 13 years ago. No BIM, no V-ray, and none of the tools available today.
I’ve got models that go back to 1999, built much the same way for project visualization purposes. Before the software and the industry caught up, its accuracy and designing in 3 dimensions has always been the way that my brain functions. From my first job as an AutoCAD detailer in a small mechanical engineering company to today – the process remains the same. Get it designed in a way that works for both production and presentation drawings.
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