GARRETT ZUBLER Drexel University, B.Arch degree, Class of 2017
Thesis Year of College
Fall 2016, Research
Classes: Thesis I
Thesis: My project was to master plan and design a Major League Baseball stadium for the Oakland Athletics.
The fall term was primarily used to gather research about the site, city, and relevant precedents. About halfway through the term the research was used to begin master planning the site.
Winter 2017, Mid Review
Classes: Thesis II
Thesis: After a short critique at the end of fall term, design was quickly done to prepare for a mid-review, two weeks into the winter term. At this end of fall my stadium was very traditional and I wanted to instead create a modern look. I drew inspiration from the many bridges in the area and was influenced by buildings with large cantilevers. By the mid-term the design sought to incorporate many large cantilevers around the ballpark. However, the design still needed a lot of development and refinement. It was noted in the critique that my site plan was still a little disjointed and needed some revisions.
Winter 2017, Technical Review
Classes: Thesis II
Thesis: I continued the winter term by revising my site plan. After several weeks of iteration, the site plan had been redeveloped to square up many of the buildings and create user experiences 360 degrees outside of the stadium. The building development for this term focused around structure and MEP systems. The cantilevered parts of the stadium become structurally grounded, while also retaining large open spans. MEP calculations were also done to determine the amount of solar power that could be generated on site and amount of rain water that could be collected for reuse. The end of the term concluded with the finalizing of building massing, but materials still needed to be developed.
Spring 2017, Final Review
Classes: Thesis III
Thesis: An ongoing focus for this term was putting materials onto the building. This helped finalize the building's appearance as well as helped shape user experiences around the ballpark. As materials were placed into views, some design elements were refined to increase the use and activities for users at the stadium. One major focus for the project was entry sequences. A number of entries were looked at including pedestrian access from the adjacent park, fans arriving via the train, approaching by boat, and by car. These sequences led to the placement of paths and trees in parks, open spaces for tailgating, and pedestrian only bridges and streets. The final sequence of renderings showed a fans journey from boat, to tailgating area, sequence through the home plate entry, access to the upper deck, multiple activity zones of the upper deck fan zone/ beer garden, and finally to seats in right field.
