Parti Precedent - Elizabeth Widaski

The architectural parti is the soul of the design or, as Colin Rowe would say, the “lens that organizes the facts.” Similar to a thesis in an essay, the parti shows the spatial relationships in a design, organizing the program, site, context, and form into one main concept.

For my parti precedent, I chose the Danish National Maritime Museum which is a completed project in Denmark by BIG. This project caught my eye because of its uniqueness and simplicity. In tackling the project, BIG had to integrate the historical aspects of not only the region, but also the actual site, given that they were building within an old dry dock, with the task of making the museum a recognizable independent institution in the midst of the area becoming a cultural center for the city. The historical and structural integrity of the dry dock was preserved and is used as an open air display for the museum and gathering area for the community. BIG organizes the elements by emphasizing circulation and the negative space created by the two shapes of the museum and dry dock. The voids created within the dry dock create both visual interest and are functional as natural light pours into the space below the museum and pathways are created on top of the museum, within the museum, and below it simply from the form of it and its spatial relationship to the dry dock.

In order to translate this below ground idea into my parti for Southown, I focused on the ideal circulation through the site in relationship to the context and using form to create a definition of spaces from the positive and negative areas within the site. Because historical significance of the site is not a factor for us as is what in the BIG project, where it defined the space in that project, I had to find a way to define it within our site, which also has more complexity because it is three sites woven together by a connecting passageway. For me, the passage became a main organizing element to my parti similar to how the circulation on top, through, and below the museum became an organizing element to the Danish National Maritime Museum. For me, it is important, just as in the BIG project, to tie our site together with the artistic and cultural atmosphere in the Southtown community and create a place for unity and gathering within the surrounding neighborhoods.

Because of this particular project by BIG, I have a new perspective on how to organize the spatial relationship and composition of a non-traditional site and have seen how the design of both the positive and negative space of the project are equally important in creating the desired environment of the site.