Degree Project Final

I finished up my final design studio in December and ultimately finished graduate school which is crazy. My final design added onto the side of the existing brick building, adding additional square footage and providing a new face of the building, opening it up to the street and public space. 

 

Above is the approach through the public plaza area, which is probably the least developed aspect of the project but gives the best approach for the new facade.

Structurally the existing building had to be reinforced to accommodate the new loads and support the openings in the floors. I inserted a concrete ribbon that ran vertically through the building, acting as a brace in the vertical direction and as a diaphram in the horizontal direction. Within this ribbon is where circulation happens and then defines more privates spaces like offices and studios.

These are pictures of a 1/4" scale section model that I made, which ended up being about 3 feet tall and 2 1/2 feet wide, but was a real crowd pleaser with my jury.

Degree Project - Design Review

 

Much of my design thinking research had to do with urban revitalization and the issue of the loss of population in formerly industrial urban environments. In the city of St Louis, the Land Reutilization Authority (LRA) owns 11,000 plots of vacant land and structure. The LRA is a city organization that acquires vacant land and structures. The 11,000 plots does not include countless other plots and structures that are not cataloged or that are still owned. Reuse of these buildings and the infill of existing building fabric is something that I focused on. I chose the neighborhood of Midtown because it already has several creative companies that are moving into the neighborhood.

 

The building I chose was built in 1910 and was formerly a clothing manufacturing and storage warehouse. The building itself is 34,000 square feet, 6 levels and is currently empty. The structure of the building is timber column structure and a load bearing brick exterior wall.

 

My initial concept studies involved infusing this historic building with new program. I wanted to create an environment that would encourage collaboration and innovation among individuals. The program for the building is something that I am calling a creative arts generator. I was thinking about how the city of St Louis has world class universities and a vibrant, albeit small, creative community that needs space that supports these activities. So if I can provide space and resources for these, would people be enticed to stay or even attracted to move here? The program would cater to creative industries and provide shared resources like material shops, desk spaces, and library resources.

 

Within the building I wanted to pull apart the existing floors and create a connection through the building vertically. The section diagram pulls space in through the bottom and through the building's middle via an atrium space.

 

I removed portions of the existing floors to create a section cut through the middle that would encourage movement and connection floor to floor. I also added new construction with an addition to the east wall by cantilevering floors to create the extra space needed for the new program.

 

Around the new construction I added a screen that would articulate the removed volumes on the interior onto the exterior. The review itself went pretty good, my panel of critics had a great discussion about the possibilities which is always a good sign. My next steps are to really figure out how the structure work and what the screening element is really like. I think that some things will change but I am excited about what will happen with the project.

Studio! Done!

After working on individual schemes until spring break, after mid review our professor, Andrew Cruse, chose three schemes that he thought we should move forward with. From that we split up the  12 person class into 3 groups of 4 and each group worked on developing one scheme. For my group, we worked on the scheme that I had designed, which focused on multilevel units with double height spaces that would increase the natural light. The building we were working on is neighbored by two equally sized buildings that were about 8 feet away from each side. This made getting light into the building from the side really difficult, which is why I developed the strategy of bringing light in through the top and down into double height spaces.

The original building was six two-bedroom units, I increased the density of the building to ten units; four two-bedroom units and six one-bedroom units. Within each unit, it was a requirement to have a bathroom for each bedroom, full kitchen and washer and dryer in the unit.

When we started working in groups, we also began to do intensive energy modeling on the design where we measured energy and water usage, light conditions and window strategies. We tested the building as-is, how it would generally be remodeled and then with the energy efficient conditions that we had developed. Our most efficient design reduced energy by 75% and was creating 25% electricity with PV panels installed on the roof. Obviously, this is all testing data and we wouldn't have actual results until it was tested in the field, but it was still interesting to see actual data on a design.

In the review, everyone was really impressed with my design because of the architectural intervention. The three groups each had a different focus. One group was redesigning the building units more conventionally, using the same floor plates and unit arrangement and just rearranging the wall to be more pleasant and the other group went for a more dense approach and employed a dorm-style unit. Each of their units was 250-375 SF and they designed a large common room/kitchen and a fitness center. 
 

Each group also had to build a 1/2"=1'0" scale model that will be on display in the student housing office as examples. It took us about 2 1/2 - 3 weeks to build, they were huge.

After the review, we had a reception in a gallery space where the projects are being displayed and the vice-chancellor of the university came. I am currently in one of his classes right now and he was really impressed with our work as a studio, which is good because he approves funding for a lot of things. About my project he said that if he was a commercial developer building market rate apartments that he would definitely build mine first because it is the most desirable and marketable, but would be really expensive for students because of the rent mark up.

So, moving forward the housing department will get estimates for each scheme and then make a decision on construction from there. The school plans to continue doing this studio in partnership with the housing department for the next five years, which I think is a real asset to the university. It was a really valuable experience to have such a real project and get feedback from so many different people who were involved from funding to management to design and engineering.

Creative Generation: Innovation and Collaboration in St Louis

Design Thinking (DT) is the class that you take before starting your final semester and studio. In DT, you do all of you research and development on program and site for your final project, which is like a thesis so this semester is basically thesis prep. At the end of the semester we make a book that encapsulates all of our research. Also, part of the requirement is that our site is within the St Louis region. What I'm beginning to research is how we work with and around each other.

Our final product for the class is book that contains all of our research and work in about 100 pages. For our final presentation though we have to condense all of that down into 5 slides that we present in 3 minutes and get feedback on. Included here are my 5 slides and what I said.

 

I started out by exploring the context of architecture and the idea of infusing spaces with different uses and investigating what happens when those uses overlap and begin to mix. Former industrial urban regions are still recovering from the elimination of the manufacturing industry and it is causing these regions to empty out, uprooting infrastructure and population. One successful revitalization strategy that is occurring is the infusing of creative initiatives into existing urban fabrics. These creative enterprises animate places and spark economic development. This leads to gains in livability, jobs, incomes, and innovative products and services all the while boosting cultural industries.

 

The creative city prioritizes livability, diversity, and economic development goals. The creative sector is St Louis is being propelled forward by momentum created by the existing startup community that is paving an incredible growth trajectory. These are fueled by the success of their peers. Successes will breed further success.

 

Arts-related activities play a key role in contributing the kind of quality of place that attracts and retains talented people and enables people to put all of their talent to work. These kinds of places generate additional innovation and economic activity, which broadly benefits entire urban areas.

In the revitalization of urban areas, adaptive reuse is a driver of community development and economic activity. Existing building stock maintains a character that is an invaluable asset. In the next 10 years, 90% of construction activity will be in existing building stock. Additionally, historic tax credits have been responsible for $4.5b in development. The traditional bones of older cities - short blocks, diverse uses, and architectural character - work well to promote walkable neighborhoods and encourage citizen interactions.

The program goal is to provide a diversity of activities in a space that allows and encourages collaboration and promotes a culture of work, participation and community. A cross-section of backgrounds, experience and skill levels would be welcome with spaces for teaching and working.

 

Overall, I got good feedback and encouragement. My critics liked my location, program proposal and the fact that I want to do an adaptive reuse. They were a little skeptical about the adaptive reuse and making it architectural rather than just an interior remodel so that will be a hurdle for next fall. 

The Quadrangle Experiment

We had a pin-up today for schematic design in studio. So like I've explained before the project is a renovation of an existing 1920-30s apartment building that is being used as student housing. My concept centered on the exploration of sectional space. So I created two level units that have double height space that brings light down into the middles of the units. The units are one and two bedrooms, single level on the bottom and interlocking L-shapes on the second and third floors. 

Next up we will continue to work on these designs until right before spring break and then after spring break, we will choose 2-3 designs to continue working on and developing for the rest of the semester as a group and will hopefully be constructed next fall.

Design Thinking

Design Thinking (DT) is the class that you take before starting your final semester and studio. In DT, you do all of you research and development on program and site for your final project, which is like a thesis so this semester is basically thesis prep. At the end of the semester we make a book that encapsulates all of our research. Also, part of the requirement is that our site is within the St Louis region. What I'm beginning to research is how we work with and around each other.

For the first time in history more than half of our population is living in urban centers. In the last century we've restructured our economy from manufacturing to services to technology. Historically, populations have followed jobs and while that is still true it isn't the guarantee that it once was. Cities are still trying to attract economic developments but research is showing that cities are working to attract people as much as companies. This is being called the Creative Shift because the population that is being courted is primarily in the creative sector; arts, design, technology, education, etc. These are the sectors that are transforming cities, revitalizing urban cores. Workers are more mobile now, able to work from anywhere for a company headquartered anywhere.

I am interested in finding a way to attract this population to St Louis and build the resources that already exist here. Between Washington University and St Louis University, St Louis is home to two premiere educational institutions, the people graduating from these institutions are not always staying in St Louis and building on the community here. I want to know what will keep them here, assuming that they have the choice to stay. What if we create a hub or a incubator that provides them with resources to allow them to live and work in St Louis. Also focusing on creative industries, providing desk space, internet access, workshops, conference rooms, etc.

Anyway, this is still the beginnings of my research. Right now, I'm working on finding an appropriate site and exploring the idea of adaptive reuse. These images are collages that I've been working on that illustrate my research.