The Quadrangle Experiment

So, I am back in St Louis and it is cold. Freezing, actually. But I've found my sweaters and some warm coats so I am managing. My studio this semester is my first option studio. The way option studios work is that about 10 professors present their studios and projects to the student body and then we rank the studios in order of our preference. Then we get placed into studios based on that and our seniority within the school. They try to give everyone their first choice in studios, but obviously that doesn't always happen. Luckily this semester, I got my first selection, which is a studio officially called "Of Donks and Dyads: the Quadrangle Experiment." The studio is taught by Andrew Cruse, who is the organizer of the Environmental Systems courses. The studio joins the three themes of sustainabilty, building reuse and housing. The main intention of the studio is to address student housing in the Parkview Gardens neighborhood (where I live) and where a lot of university housing is located.

Quadrangle is the university's housing branch, which rents off-campus housing to undergraduate and graduate students. The university and Quadrangle is currently undergoing renovations of 850 housing units. Much of the housing stock located in Parkview Gardens is brick buildings constructed in the 1920-30s as single family apartments, usually 4-6 apartments per building. Our studio project will focus on two buildings which we will research, plan and create drawings for this semester and then will be constructed and implemented next fall.

Our studio is being held off-campus in an already gutted building that is typical of the building stock in the area. It is a six-unit building that has been stripped to the bearing walls except for the top two apartments where our studio is located.

 

In general the studio is going to be ran more like an office with everyone working on a different aspect of the project. The way this happens still has yet to be seen because Wash U hasn't done anything like this before, which is one of the main reasons I ranked it first. One of the main problems I've had with the university is that it is so insulated from the rest of the city and isn't always doing a lot to engage with the city's problems or issues. So, I saw this as an opportunity to really engage with both the way the university works and the neighborhood that I've been living in for the past two years and also shape how the university interacts in the future. We will also be working with students from the business school and the engineering school, measuring sustainability performance and feasibility.

 

The university is hoping to use these buildings as case studies for the future renovations of existing buildings. Right now we are doing research, historical and theoretical that will result in a book that detail these facts and how we will proceed. 

In addition to studio, I am taking Environmental Systems II, Community Development and the American City, as well as Design Thinking which is the thesis prep course where we doing all of our research and planning before our thesis studio. Right now I'm still in the planning phase for that but here are some initial images.

 

 

 Anyway, I'm pretty excited about this semester and hoping I can really explore some of the ideas and theories that I've been working on over the years. In addition to school, I'm working as a monitor in the woodshop, basically just making sure people don't cut their fingers off and also on the exhibition team that puts up and takes down exhibitions. Once it warms up hopefully I'll be working a little faster. :)