Why this?
A community event held by our project team granted a huge insight into the neighborhood: there are so many more children than we had thought there were! One girl who lives in the neighborhood asked us if we could give them back their park, which had burned down in the recent past. I thought that that would be a great design idea, but I wanted to go a step further. I decided the park and surrounding flats were a perfect site to place a community amenity. There are two beautiful duplex homes next to the park. One is occupied but the other one is boarded up and delinquent. I pondered if we could transform these already existing structures into a public place that the entire neighborhood could use. I decided to turn these homes (1304-1306 N 37th Place), next to the park, into an after-school center for the neighborhood children.
|
"Can you guy's give us our park back?" |
Initial Stages
I started by looking at the form of the building and identified three zones going from the front of the home to the back. Roughly equal in size, these zones changed from public to private the deeper into the house you went. I wanted to preserve this tripartite division, in relative function of the spaces as well as leaving traces of the walls that used to exist there. It was not just the organization of the home that I wanted to keep, but the massing and significant details of the home. I aimed to create a modern space, but with the ghosts of the past left to inspire and show the transition the home had gone through.
|
Phase 1 - 2020Phase one sees minor changes only to the home on 1304-1306 N 37th Place. The floor plan is opened up, creating large spaces for passive and active recreation. Study spaces and quiet spaces are created upstairs, and a void is cut into the floor to connect the two floors.
|
Phase 2 - 2025Phase two sees the first additions to the structure, made of glass, to preserve the original form of the home. Patios are added to the north and the east in order to provide outdoor gathering spaces. The east side of the building is opened up to provide an entrance for the youth arriving from the eastern side of the neighborhood. The elimination of some walls opens up the spaces, making the home a bright and welcoming space.
|
Phase 3 - 2030Phase three is the most ambitious, requiring the property of 1300-1302 N 37th Place to be joined with the home on 1304-1306 N 37th Place. The center zone of the homes are connected through a glass addition and the roofs are opened up. The second home houses more classrooms, widening the uses of the building to house night classes, parties, movie nights, etc.
|
|
|