Cross Florida Greenway Field Station

Year: Fall 2012

Place: University of Florida

Studio Critic: Stephen Bender

The project is a Field Station developed in a damaged site; the borrow pit from the construction of Eureka Dam. This site is out of balance. What i do with the landscape and the the architecture is to reclaim/repair the site. Biological Field Stations often become communities of people with shared educational backgrounds and expectations. Especially when they function as a remote “campus”, collegial relationships of the residents can be enhanced through some facilitation of social interactions. A fully developed field station performs nearly all the functions of a campus on reduced scale. That Field Stations can encourage social interactions should be recognized in these designs. This field station unlike many,  has a cultural component adjoined to the more traditional scientific one; it is an arts center. Recognize also that it is a “stop along the way” for Greenway trail visitors, a day trip destination for school groups and a retreat facility for academic groups (not always scientists!).

The primary components of this field station fall into three divisions: research and studio facilities, residence facilities and educational facilities.

It is a long abandoned industrial site in the middle of a State Forest and along the Greenway. There is almost 100 feet of elevation change from the scrub oak and longleaf pine crowned top to the swamp oak, cypress and palmetto filled wetlands below. The cutting of the ridge during excavation has exposed the section of soil that lie beneath the area. Very little grows in these soils. Years of erosion have scarred the slope with miniature canyons. As a result, in this project, i preserve part of the erosion area and intervene the other part of the site, i design a new landscape, it changes the topo and top soil, plants with variety of trees, form a new lake, add a walk path across the site. The field station located across these two areas to provide a great chance for people to experience the dramatic tectonic change in this site. Consider the program, the topsoil of the erosion area can not resist massive construction, so most of programs are constructed in the human intervention area which has a 30 feet elevation change. Gallery and library as two public space horizontally connect and organize all the program, when people enter the entrance hall, they can walk along the stairway and bridge or dwelling in each rooms, florida sunlight, greenery, erosion, waterfall, lake, all of the landscape are presented in front of their eyes.