Forest Park Monument

TIMELINE: 8 Weeks

MEDIUMS USED: Foam Core, Bristol Paper, Metal Rods, Adobe Photoshop

CONSTRAINTS: Measure hill incline, design must originate from simple geometrical patterns, must be accessible from more than one side.

ABOUT THE DESIGN PROCESS: The project was divided in three phases. The site understanding, the geometry creation, and the monument design phase. Understanding the site was relatively easy for me. Having lived in St. Louis for more than 7 years at the time, I was very familiar with Art Hill. In fact, Art Hill was a big part of my life growing up in St. Louis. As such, I wanted to pay respect to the hill and create a design that complemented it rather than stood out, allowing for the creation of additional space, without taking away the beauty of the site. Our teachers challenged us to find the incline slope and to create a model based on that topography. We realized we could use long sticks and string to accurately measure the slope, as the rope and sticks were standardized. 

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After gaining an understanding of the topography, we went back to our classroom to work on our models separately. After many attempts folding paper in simple geometries such as triangles, pentagrams, hexagrams, and circles, I realized that the most useful shape for such a task was a rectangle. After a couple rounds of ideation, I settled on a square because of the geometric pattern it could create. As demonstrated in the "Study Models" slideshow, I took Bristol paper, drew a grid on it, and began cutting at random. A couple pieces of paper later, I realized that a certain variation of the cuts would result in shapes extruding both upwards and downwards from the paper. Immediately I attempted to replicate the shapes that would fit my project most. For example, by cutting three squares in a row, and leaving a square attached to the left or right of the last  square would create a 3D cube that can be used as a private nook to read, or sit. Furthermore, a simple two squares in a row with a square attached to either left or right of one of them resulted in a space that offered protection from the elements and privacy only on half the sides, creating interesting dynamics when located next to other, 2 sided squares. After gaining comfort with a couple patterns, I began working on the last phase of my project.

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The concept I came up with was to extend the central statue's manmade and rigid structure into the "void" overlooking the fountain. The structure would be held up with stainless steel beams firmly placed on the hillside. I also wanted the long geometry to feel like a slab of stone laid flat above the hill. The material would match the statue's rock base. The concept was to create a grid an d study what the spaces necessary were for comfortable interweaving between the geometries without feeling claustrophobic. As a result, the majority of shapes are located underneath the slab. The location also serves to invite people to approach the structure from both above, as well as below. Some geometries would extend downward in a stairway patter, creating nooks to sit on, while also allowing people to use them to climb. Toward the edges of the "slab', the geometries concentrate on showcasing the site, rather than facing inwards, which is what the central geometries do. The central geometries serve to create an atmosphere around those who sit there. There are sits that are below the ground so that, when seated, an average height 25 year old's body would be completely below floor level except for the torso. Such a geometry is always accompanied by an identical one that either faces the other pod directly, or indirectly for those who wish to not have eye to eye conversations but rather more casual ones. By allowing the geometry to take place mainly underneath, the monument does not stray from the flowing yet directional geometry of the hill. When observed from above, the structure's horizon point is the same as the entire Art Hill field.