Oakland Airport and the end of year two
Finally finished up second year, and the Oakland Airport project. For the last half of the quarter we zoomed in to a smaller scale of work, concentrating on only five jetways and a portion of the support core. The initial circulation and program studies were heavily interested in developing a skeletal sort of architecture drawing from examples in nature. The airport's circulation core, and support program such as shopping, dining and restrooms nested within a central spine, branching out to connect to the jetways.
Since the beginning, a series of linework diagrams informed the design process. The plan became a layering of slabs, structure and systems, with each part complementing the next. On a macro scale, the linework flow is linear down the length of the building, but at a detail level the plan starts to work laterally with flows fingering out from spine.
The project was developed primarily through polygon modeling in Maya, with a couple scripts being used to automatically generate the secondary structural system based off surface isoparms. Looking back, it would have been nice to use some of the animation tools a bit more. The process was always initiated through 2D drawings which meant a greater degree of control over the linework and plan, but perhaps animation could have introduced some nice sectional variation and a smoother flow between surfaces.
