polish consulate

our third year design project was to design a polish consulate in the taymills conservation area of dundee. the project started as group work to masterplan a run down taymills area of dundee. during the masterplan stage as a group we had to address matters of increasing density, traffic, listed buildings, demolishing building, acknowledging the existing buildings of historical mills and a contemporary mosque, changing levels, site access and the sites relation to the rest of the city. as a group we had to decide on a few locations that we thought were appropriate for a proposed polish consulate.

the brief for the polish consulate was complex as it involved a lot of spaces with different degrees of size and public access. we also had to recognise that the building required some security measures. included in the brief was a cafe, a multi purpose venue, a shop, an exhibition space, an education suite as well as offices ranging from the private consulates' office to the small advice offices.

site plan

to help organise my building i decided to arrange the plan around courtyard. creating the courtyard made navigation around the building easy. defined by the brick columns while the vertical circulation was contained in core blocks.i wanted to keep the courtyard clear of 'clutter' but i also wanted vertical circulation to be easily accessed. i created two 'circulation cores' that would also accommodate toilets and storage. creating the cores gave structure to my plan and also resolved issues of fire regulations.

i had decided that my structure would be load bearing brick. drawing and building small models, like above, helped me simplify the structure and the plan simultaneously.

section

above is a section through the building and its external spaces. from the section you can see the hierarchy of spaces; void, circulation, important spaces and small spaces. the important spaces shown below is a meeting room on the left and the multi purpose venue is on the bottom right. the concept for creating a hierarchy of spaces was inspired by alvar aalto's säynätsalo town hall, shown below.

section and diagram of alvar aalto's säynätsalo town hall

below are a couple of perspective drawings showing the small public square at the front of the consulate and the elevation of the consulate looking up the street.

front and street perspectives

another part of the brief was to design a consulate chapel. i had decided that the consulate chapel would be placed in the middle of a large public space as to create two smaller spaces the were more appropriate in size. below is a section of my final design for my chapel. i followed the same concept as my consulate of creating a hierarchy of spaces. i wanted the ceiling low above the seated area so it felt quite intimate and the ceiling above the alter higher to distinguish that as an imprtant space. this idea continued tomy intermediate bottom right. below is my final design.

chapel