We decided to divide our building into four 'sections' (main/public, education, bathrooms, and research) and ensured these sections would be clearly visible in plan, as well as in all other drawings and eventually in the form of the building. Each 'section' serves a different function. Most visitors would enter the building via the main block, the most public section, which is one large open room containing exhibition space and the café. To the right is the 'education' section. Both the lab and the lecture room were expected to be used by students as well as for educating visiting elementary and high school classes. It was eventually decided that having the lecture room open to the exhibition space wasn't as important as originally thought, especially since the exhibition space could be expanded into the café area when necessary. Directly to the left of the public section is a changing/locker area and bathrooms. This section was given direct access to the outside in order that skiers and hikers need not trudge though the entire building to use the facilities or change clothing. At the left end of the bulding is the research section, which housed a library, offices, a staff kitchenette, and storage space for the exhibition, as well as the mechanical room. Future expansion for the RASC offices would easily extend from this end of the building, continuing the same series of forms already defined. To the north of the building is the outdoor theatre and to the south is a large terrace, both accessible by movable glass walls in fair weather. The one change I would make in the plan would be to move the potentially noisy mechanical space into the bathroom block, which would also put it in a more central (and therefore more efficient) position in the building.
Plan, Morgan Arboretum Conservation Centre.
