Prelimenary Sketches

As promised, here are my preliminary sketches of the new model of the Circus Maximus. This first page was my first concept sketch of the Circus Maximus. I wanted it to have an open center, much like the stadiums we have now. Although this "culture" of ours is underwater, I wanted this Circus to be open. The back story here is that we would build the Circus inside a membranous sphere which would keep the water out, allow natural sunlight in, and (miraculously) expel abundant amounts of heat (actually... even today that is somewhat possible by using special glass. They did it in the One Bryant Park skyscraper by Fox Architects... why do I know this? Hmm...). I also wanted the stadium to be elliptical, and round. Whenver I think of underwater I think smooth edges, rounded corners, and a nice flow of movement, so I wanted this stadium to have the same connotations. Ironic, I wanted a nice flowing stadium which would house fights, races, gambling, and other "sharp" events. The second sketch on this paper (if we're going clockwise) is my idea for one of the entrances (or perhaps the big entrance?) to this stadium. IT was to be oval and large so one could see the second ring of the stadium (bricks, stones, columns, arches, etc). I also wanted to have gigantic statues on either side of the entrace as you can see in my sketch. I did this guy with a roman gladiator helmet, but a neptune trident. I was thinking maybe doing Neptune by himself on either side, but I thought that might be too "under-watery-little-mermaid-theme".

This second piece of paper shows some sketches I did for the upper, outer rim of the stadium. I did some of these quick sketches while thinking about UC's rec center and the Birds Nest in Beijing. I was partial to the idea of the first ring of the stadium being completely made of some sort of futuristic, light spectrum bending glass, and then support them with steel beams running cross ways through it. However, I brought myself back to reality by reminding myself that I would eventually have to build this thing and my model making skills are that of a bad high school art student. Still, in my mind it looked fantastic. On this page you'll also see a cross section of the stadium. You'll notice that it is goes underground as well. The idea was to have the above superstructure floors be seating only and the substructure floors hold the shopping and food and gambling districts. In the beginning I thought we'd have 6 floors, but it ended up being 8 (5 seating, 3 floors below). The other sketches around the two main ones were ideas of how I was going to present this information. I thought I'd do a big foam board of sketches, cross sections, and elevation drawings to match the model I would be making. In the end, it just came down to two drawings I projected on the screen and the model.

Here is my final prelimenary sketch for this new Circus Maximus. The way the stadium would be set up would be as rings. The outer most being the shell, the second being the concourse, and the third being the actual stadium floor and seating. While I was brainstorming and sketching this new Circus I must admit I was having illusions of grandeur. Cast stones, arches snaking around the entire second ring, corinthian columns, unlimited ceilings. One of these illusions was to have part of the second ring (the concourse) have an open walkway to the first ring on the second floor and above. It wasn't impossible, but I forget to draw lines in places. That's what happens when I don't pay attention to what I'm doing, I don't draw exactly what I'm seeing. It's like typing and you leave out three words because in your mind they're there, but your hands forget to put them in .

So there you have it, my prelimenary sketches. For my next post I will put up my final part of the presnetation (aka model pictures and sketches) as well as reflect on how we did as a group and how the other group's presenations went as well. Ciao.