The Memphis

Patriot’s Park Bench

Beacon Experimental Mixed-Use Houseing Studio 2022 Fall Semester | 11 weeks

Memphis, Tennessee

This Studio was set in downtown Memphis where the homless crisis continues to grow due to lack of shelters and hazardous shelters. My task was to provide a mixed-use apartment housing a target audience that could remain affordable overtime and provide comfortable living conditions. As a veteran myself, I felt a desire to propose a living condition for handicapped and disabled veterans that would both act as a therapy facility and community where alike veterans live side by side in a tight nit community.

The site was situated between multiple High-rises on the edge of downtown Memphis. This allowed access for close jobs, stores, food markets, and public transport. The proposed programs for this building consists of a commercial restaurant, retail space, physical therapy room, and resident apartment style units.

Six ADA rooms per floor are offered that give a sense of ownership and dignity to its occupants through spacious unit plans, and atrium that acts as a vertical neighborhood, and open spaces meant to release tension and congestion most often felt in common apartment homes. Most importantly programed in is an inhouse nursing and physical therapy floor to care for its residents. The Beacon can be copied like blocks and used by the VA as a more humane treatment facility where residents and staff live side by side.

Site Sketches

Addition

Subtraction

Explorative Parti Diagrams

Addition

Movement

Direction

Separated

Residential Unit layout

Physical massing models and parti diagrams were used to explore how the building evelope would fit into the existing downtown skyline. I clung to the idea of “calming and spacious” units that can be linked into larger units to fit tenants needs. Following solar paths for Memphis I then ex plored how natural light sprinkled each room.

These two units can be combined as the door in the middle can either lock or allow access to the other room in cases of two handicaped persons who want to share a unit.

On 2 of the 6 residential floors, this room becomes a dedicated double bed and bath ADA complient unit.

Structure

The exposure and material of the building’s structure plays a large part in the design intent as I’m aiming to create a natrualistic feeling of comfort and calmness that acts as a subconsious therapudic approach to healing the disabled veterans during their residency. Glulam columns, beams, and Timber Concrete Composite floor slabs are used and left exposed in the residential floors as the presence of wood reminds us of traditional homes and provides a warm and bright environment.