trees

2,200 Holes and Counting…

Over the last couple of weeks, the Horseshoe Hub Courtyard team has continued to fabricate the screens in the shop, and are nearly done! After working on the shorter eight-foot screens, the team moved on to working on the nine-foot screens that are above the stage and near the main entrance, as well as 18-foot screens and corners. Thanks to the jigs that were fabricated, a small assembly line was created to facilitate making the screens as equally as possible. 

This past week the team finished cutting and perforating all the steel tubes for the footings, walkway strut, and wall plates and started welding the tabs to the wall plates. Also, a huge shoutout to Zane and Cassandra from Blackshop Birmingham for donating the laser-cut plates that make-up most of the walkway, they saved the team weeks worth of work!  

In other exciting news, the team took a trip this past Monday to Hunter Trees LLC and tagged the trees for the courtyard! Thirteen beautiful single trunk, Natchez Crepe Myrtles, which will be planted on site shortly after the screens are up.

Week 69

East facing elevation shows 18′ screens that slip past balcony datum line to separate the two elements. We are also working through options for the “porch” on the Southern portion of the site, we are interested in using lights or a dropped ceiling to lower the scale.

We finally modeled our most recent design! This past week we shifted from plans, sections and SketchUp to a physical model, so we could charette through the tree and furniture placement.

Stepping out of the waiting room looking towards the active space and porch.

Part of figuring out the tree layout is understanding how it shapes the north end, as another entrance to the courtyard as well as what it gives back to the street since it is the most public area of the design. 

Stay tuned as we work through the different options for the railing (not featured in model at the moment) and its interaction with the screens!