Program Statement

The stigma that has been cast upon these infrastructures is that they disconnect landscapes, constricting sight and movement while being a thing for movement. As there is already a subconsciously inscribe understanding attach to these infrastructures, a sensible implementation should run along the grains of what is prior understandings in order to formulate the proper functions deemed necessary. Specifically as these infrastructure coincides with the notion of movement and connectivity, than it is such that movement and connectivity must be fluent throughout the design; in fact, it must be the concept for design. Positioning the design within the foundation of preexisting beliefs, will furthermore allow for such a design to read into the landscape without becoming an intrusive object that is instead alienated into disregarded existence.

In realizing a proper spatial intervention that will bring clarity to the senses that define our mental image of place, the elicited experiential sense produced by the propose design will root from the experiences made to exist by the presence of vehicular infrastructure. The condition of experiencing space as a linear sequential reveal of landscape and architecture will act as the existing mode of experience to give cause to the formal and spatial quality of the propose design. Within the mechanical experience of driving, what the architecture will attempt to do is interject a piece of humanity against the hollow experience induced by driving. The moment of perceptual juxtaposition will act as the window of which place is defined; reintroducing place as something to be distinguished, to be explored on a tangible level in order that the quality of movement may be punctuated and define. Thus the design looks to create a phenomenal interruption between specific points of movement, in order to realign the senses of the experiencing self back to the physical plane. In order to provide for these experiential awakening, the position for the architecture within the existing condition road experience will be to; organize points of reference, punctuate movement and travel to allow one’s acknowledgement of spatial distinction, and embrace the isolation to unravel a network of knowing.

(1) Design Objective One: Organizing Points for Reference

As the current traveled environment bounded by vast body of water does not lend to a clear means of differentiating space, the experience must rely on other factors of orientation such as movement and active visual perception. Of movement, road alignment generates the motion of the person, in which drama may be released in sharp turns, kinks, or sudden sheering off. Seeing that the current state of the driven bridge is given as an even continual path, movement will not be as much of a factor to the design as one’s active visual perception. Of the visual perception, a play with scale and distance within the length of the road may act to help the person negotiate the position of him or herself within the bridge. Organization may be issued with points of reference in which progress and distance may become measurable to the perceiver. Consistently planting these points of reference within the traveled road will differentiate the path, adding successive parts of distinction in which a sense of moving forward and journey transgressed is made recognizable to the person experiencing the space. During which, the self may be able to orient themselves within the given environment, visually scanning and locating the space’s principle feature and discovering their own position in relation to them. Also including are the opportunity of placing important landmarks of which comes into conjunction, to give a powerful sense of being “on line.” These landmarks will furthermore offer a sense of goal and represent one’s traveled journey while also signifying civilization from the distance.

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(2) Design Objective Two: Punctuating and Defining Movement

Currently, the bounding body of water bridges the landmass of separate county’s together, of which the experienced separation allow’s one to understand the departure of one county only to enter into another. Gradual slopes and approaching landmass gives a sense of reveal and entry, while the space in between offers one an opportunity to linger and float within the lines. As the interstate transitions from body of water to city context, a “steady gathering of building mass and density around the car” occurs at the grace of the road, reinserting the person back into the experience of knowing, of which the realignment of senses is brought back into place. The gradual pace of one’s travel however offers little for one’s orientation, causing the experience to sometimes become unnoticed. As a result the architecture aims to intervene in a manner of exposing these underlying edge and border condition that have been establish for quantitative intent, to allow them to be read in a qualitative manner as to reinsert distinctive qualities back into the driving experience. As an ideal background, the architecture will act as a readable platform in the landscape, transcribing the qualities of the old grounds and emerging them as new information. These layers, identified as what Edward White calls portals, will create apertures that may channel our vision into urban place, orchestrating the unfolding of our view, and of which place, we determine our next move. The layer of information overlaid over existing site context will allow one to read and identify place, in turn enriching one’s overall sense of place.

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Design Objective Three: Embracing the Isolation, Creating a Network of Knowing

Momentary isolation on the bridge allows one to break from intent, emotion, and ideas, directing and often enhancing one’s knowledge of place through a different perceptual filter. In such cases, an experience absent of the essential human qualities creates an impulse to search these qualities out. The spatial happening sculpted out and inserted within the beneath voids of the bridge will allow for the moment of isolation to linger between the edge of the cities, of which these voids become physical networks of seeing, knowing, searching, and understanding. As one is brought into a new aperture of seeing, objects in the distance are met with new meanings, of which cities seen as clusters of protruding orthogonal forms, becomes symbolic references. These spatial happenings will occur as isolated pedestrian spaces brought to the midpoint of the bridge, between the bordering edges of Hillsborough and Pinellas County and will become accessible through paths and boats.

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