It seems as though I am on track at the moment and I am satisfied with my progress at this current point in time.
The first spoils of summer:: a new site grid.
The merging of the macro and the micro have finally given me a result that works (at least for now). A 5'4" square grid was overlayed on the site and placed so that a north/south grid line is aligned with the axis of mirroring (the twin line between the two houses). The east/west lines play a game with the existing walls, aligning with the northern most wall of the bay window and then moving south from there. This gives me a nice relationship at the back of the site, with the column line sitting 3'6" back from south wall, creating a perfect amount of space for a corridor (an inhabitable joint between the old and the new).
The site grid was derived from the modular unit of 16" because of my desired relationship between the new construction and the old construction, with the joist spacing in the old house being 16" on center. This embedded relationship allows the courtyard floor to have a pattern based on the joist spacing, with 2" bars of metal (bronze?) to be placed at 16" on center and infilled with a ceramic tile (exact tile size still to be determined). Because of the modularity between the floor and the column grid, all columns that meet the courtyard floor fall onto a tile and not a 2" bar, allowing the tile to be replaced with a concrete footing to transfer the load of the column to the earth.
The columns themselves do not fall on every crossing of this site grid. In the studio addition (south) they are placed at 5'4" east/west and 10'8" north/south creating a 2:1 proportioned bay. As the building moves west, the grid skips north to accommodate the kiln. In the residence, the columns are not completely worked out, but I am looking at the advantages of a set of 3 columns supporting one beam assembly (10'8" and then 5'4" column spacing) versus one 16' bay with 2 columns on either end.
More summer spoils to follow...
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