Post Mid Crit changes

My approach to integrating my project into the site was to terrace the natural slope of the land using the tombs to retain the excess dirt. I continued to develop my concept of compression and expansion to conceptualize the way people deal with death. The compression expresses the feelings of depression and the grieving process, while the expansion expresses how someone eventually accepts the reality of death and begins to celebrate the life of the deceased. This concept was derived from the drawdel study I did of the existing site condition near the stairs. Below are the plans of the current schematic design.

I had my Mid Crit this week with three guest critics. They had very interesting suggestions about how to advance my project. The major concerns were how I connect my addition to the existing site and that the forms seemed awkward, especially since I was using rigid lines and one curve retaining wall around the hill. The suggestions I received during the crit were very helpful in developing my scheme. I was told to look at some of Miralles and Penos' other projects and evaluate how they reached their forms to develop my design in relation to my concept. I also need to scale down my project because it seemed to have very large spaces where circulation was not delineated.

 This plan is the overall form that I derieved from the wire frame drawing of my drawdel, I am going to observe other precendents to try and develop the form of the addition.

This paper drawdel is showing how the cemetery will start to create multiple levels but I want to make it so you cant see the whole entire cemetery in one view at the top. I may create a 3 foot wall (top of the tomb wall holding back the land youre standing on) this way you can look over and see the whole site at once. I feel that is important since the original design was not meant to be seen in its totality in single spot.