We had a chance to see and comment on Alex DeBirk's $5,000,000 Dream Center in an earlier post. This morning, Alex Debirk sent a realistic trimmed down design for a center that might be built within the expected budget of around $2.5 million.
Alex's notes on the design
I have come up with a basic design that is almost within budget, but it requires the following caveats:An area for our Starlab Planetarium is one problem I see with this proposal. Remember, a field trip encompasses one one hour in a space science class, 30 minutes in our Starlab Planetarium and 1hr 45 min in a simulation.
Required budget: $2.6 millionSimulator space is priced at $175/sq ft.Non-simulator space is priced at $125/sq ft.The total square footage of the building is 18,155, with 5,930 sq. ft of simulator space, and 12225 sq ft of non-simulator space.It should allow four classes to attend field trips per day, and provide enough room for overnight camps. I'm not sure the Assembly area would be large enough to house a cafeteria and allow for extended summer camps, but I was stretched to the max as it was.Note that the outer walls of the curved hallways have portholes that look into a starry background. This is optional. If it is removed, the square footage of the building falls to the around point where it can be built for $2.5 million based on price per square foot. Also note that the circles inside the large simulators denote turntable doors. Also note that this design is ADA compliant as far as I know, and requires no elevators or anything like that.Let me know what you think.
This design allows up to 33 students in a class and four classes per day. We need to find a way to boost that to 37 in a class to meet the needs of some of the school district's larger classes.
Your comments are welcome. You may comment at the bottom of this post in the comments section.
Your Comments and Questions
Josh B. wrote:
Hi Mr.Williamson,I was just reading about your suggestions on the new center, and I just thought of 2 more...1. What if we had a Borg Cube ship, just for missions? (In my opinion, it would be small,)
2. It would be awesome if you could take and elevator to the shuttle bayAnyways, thank you for your time.
Allie T wrote
Annonomous wroteThe new dream center ideas are great! I think we should have a gift shop and more ships and every thing the council has said, except for the no overnighters.They should stay, they were the best!The hallways should look futuristic like the ships. At the school it wasn't as cool to be thrown from a starship into a school in the middle of a mission. And with the hallways, something that really bothered me about the away missions in the school was the windows! A lot of the away missions are on other ships, and when you can see the sun shining on a playground outside, it makes it pretty obvious that you aren't in space. So i don't think we should have windows in the hallways at the new center. And if we do, we should have cool window covers that look maybe like keypads or something. We can't forget the nooks and crannys for the staff and campers to hide in while shotting each other. And it would be cool if they're was secret passages and stuff in the walls for the staff to hide in.
Staff Member 14 wroteOnly problem i see with the laser tag is that sometimes the "aliens" are supposed to take over the bridge and that might become more difficult if its lazer tag because there is usually more crew than "aliens"
Four questions...Some Silly Staff wrote
1. Where exactly is this new space center going to be? We don't know that yet.
2. When do you think it will be finished and we can go back to work? Sorry but we don't know that either.
3. By no overnighters, do you mean camps, or just plain old overnighters? Both. The decision must still be made.
4. What do you think, Mr. Williamson, about maybe no overnighters? Overnight Camps are a large source of income. The School District would be required to give the Space Center a yearly budget if the camp program were discontinued.
When is the big district meeting? Is it the 28? or today on the 27?
Also, staff and campers should come to it right? And if we should what time should we be there? The meeting is open only to those on the committee.
18 comments:
1. I like that this building isn't exactly square. I also like the idea posted on yesterday's post for each flight director to have some input on the design of their ship so each ship is different.
2. As for the field trip requirements, couldn't you accommodate ~37-48 students using all 7 simulators while a second class of ~37-40 is in the science class and Starlab? Could you make your Starlab presentation 15 minutes longer so both parts of the field trip take 1hr45min? What about setting up the Starlab in the assembly area- or did you want a separate place to set it up?
3. What are the pros to discontinuing overnight camps? Why would you discontinue them, especially if they're good moneymakers? A lot of kids would miss them.
4. Although I love the idea of having 7 total simulators (including USS Galileo), if you need more space for other things, you ought to be able to forgo one small simulator in favor of something else- like the Starlab.
5. Also, in light of some other comments from yesterday's post, shouldn't you/are you able to spread the ships out more, so you don't have to worry about different ships being able to hear one other?
Wait, why is the space center committee debating if we can open during the move? Dont they all want the space center open? I thought that the district was the ones who were going to decide...
Also, if you do dicide to open during the transistion, how long will it be before staff and campers can come back?
I have four suggestion for this plan.
1. I think ideally it would be nice to have some more "flexible space" for away missions.
2. It would also be nice to add a 2nd story (or basement).
3. The idea of Matt L.'s on the joined engineer bay in GREAT.
4. One concern about the plan is the fact there are only two control rooms. This would be very crowded and loud.
What would be in the portholes into space?
If it is completely unchangeable and would be left alone than an image of space could be put into the porthole instead (similar to the Space Mountain images of space in black plastic). That would remove the need to have the extra room, but the porthole could still look into space.
As was mentioned before, many of the senior staff members will be gone when (if) the 3 still-safe simulators reopen. In that case, how will you fill the staff positions? Will you simply take the more experienced volunteers, or have a traditional "application and interview" system?
How much more income do you think will be earned by the ships we will have up and running in central soon? Or will that not have a large enough impact to affect the design? And also we could have smaller boxes outside the porthole instead of one giant one. That would save space and still have the same effect. Other than that, I love the design! Not nearly a Dream Center, but it will still work and should still be pretty cool!
It looks to me like this design is short 4 control room. one for each of the smaller ships. And I also feel like we're back in with very similar ships again. The bigger ships could be flipped around to look different, but with the smaller ships it might be a bit more difficult. Though I much prefer this design.
How much would it cost to create an add on to house the planetarium?
Also, how will the smaller ships load?
This seems to be designed a bit more to what the space center would need in the sense of space between the ships, except for the larger ships, that could be problematic. However, it does seem to grant more space to us, which is good.
First off I would like to say that I have really liked the past two plans, and that Alex's hard work on this is really great. Also I understand that these are extremely prelimanary designs; but I figured I'd give my thoughts anway. My first thought on this one is where would away missions be taken to? At Central we had the stage, the Kiva, and the cafeteria where many away missions were held. In this design I'm not really noticing a place, other than the assembly area where an away mission could really be held. I guess that the classrooms could easily be converted into away mission areas for overnighter, so that is a possibility. My second thought would be on the larger simulators, for away missions taking the bridge, you may want to have some sort of hidden entrance. The place that seemed logical to me was behind the dorm rooms on each simulator.
Anyway, this is probably a little too much for such a preliminary design, but those are my thoughts.
Thanks,
John Robe
1. Can we still run some of the simulators until we rebuild?
2. If not, can we still have the good bye party?
3. Can the staff help move the computers and props to the new space center, or mabey even help build some of the new simulators?
does the intire school need to be re-wierd? Or just the center? Becuase 700,000 seems a bit much for just 5 simulators.... The old galileo sold for only 2,000...
In my opinion, closing the camps would be a father tragic mistake. They are what makes the space center truly open to the public, and an accessible activity. They also, as you said, provide most of the center's income, and I'm pretty sure everything would run smoothly if the center continued to be self-sufficient, not needing a budget from the district. As you said every single over night camp, you promised the district you wouldn't ask them for money, and I personally think it's better for everyone if that promise is kept in place.
Well, the planetarium could potentially be in assembly room. I'm not sure that would work, with the table and Galileo being in there, but there's just an idea. I'm not quite sure what is keeping the number at 33, but if it's the simulators, then it would completely depend on how many stations we wanted in there. If the large ships are like the voyager, and the small ships are like the odyssey and pheonix, then even without the galileo you could take over 37. Maybe my thought patterns messed up, but those are just some ideas.
hey is the plantarium rainporof? cuz if it is thewn you could do it outside unless its cold
In details, both of the larger simulators look similar. Would any changes be made to create a variety between the two so that campers would have a different experience visually between them? What I found great about the simulators at central is that they were built and squeezed into the available space in the school so that each one offered something new and amazing. I know the outline for the center is still somewhat preliminary and might be changed. The plans do look amazing and I am excited for the new center.
So for the new design, were would briefing happen? There didn't look like there was enough space for many briefings if they were all at once.
Mr. Williamson,
I have been hearing lots of rumors that a few of the ships in Central will be reopening, is this true?
So, is some of the simulators open yet? If so, which? If not, when do you think they might? Frankly, I am very confused with all this commotion going on.
Are we removing the idea for having multiple floors? I think we would lose a lot by not having a basement...
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