The Move and the Moments...

The Move and the Moments...

First Place NOMA Student Design Competition, St. Louis 10.2009

PROCESS BOOK Process Book

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2009 NOMA Student Design Competition

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The Client: An immigrant family, new to the U.S. has selected St. Louis as the location in which they will choose to live out the American Dream. Originally from Bogotá, Colombia, the Cordoba family has inherited a plot of land in a 4 working class neighborhood in St. Louis. The Cordoba family will need to have a new home custom designed and built to suit the needs of their growing family. The house will need to accommodate the husband, wife, their two children (a 12-year-old son and a 7-year-old daughter), as well as the wife’s elderly parents, who are in their early 70’s. The family would like to have another child in the future, once they get adjusted to their new home. The husband, a professional by day, is also a talented oboe player. The wife, a homemaker whose specialty is cooking, also enjoys weaving. The grandfather was injured several years ago and is confined to a wheelchair. He now spends the majority of his time creating spectacular paintings. His wife is an avid gardener and loves spending quality time with the grandchildren. The Cordoba family has a unique creative edge tying them together. Each member of the family retains their own measure of creativity, which adds to the dynamism of the household. This is likely the reason why the family has expressed an interest in a unique programmatic element that the family calls their ‘spark space.’ This creative and inspirational element is meant to be an adaptable space or series of spaces where the creative ‘spark’ that binds the family together may be housed and nurtured. The proposal is required to be designed with sustainable practices fully integrated into the home, while responding to the needs of the elderly, particularly for persons in a wheelchair. The response to this design problem must address culture, multigenerational relationships and the introduction of a new housing type into the existing fabric of the Benton Park Neighborhood of St. Louis, Missouri.

Competition Challenge: “Architecture is a social act and the material theater of human activity.” –Spiro Kostof Central to the vitality of every architectural work is an articulate dialogue between the work and its context.

Whether that discourse is one of exclusion, inclusion, or indifference reflects the extent to which the local culture is allowed to permeate a project. NOMA is issuing a challenge to analyze, absorb, and engage the culturally fertile and diverse urban landscape of a neighborhood in transition. The objective of each proposal shall be to construct an architectural solution that will address how the identity of a city/neighborhood may be reinvented to adapt to the evolving needs of the people, while reestablishing the importance of cultural value in this country. Cultural relevance is an inextricable strand in the rich history of St. Louis, Missouri. Known as a city of neighborhoods, the urban center has 27 distinct neighborhoods whose architecture reflects the influence of its original French, Italian, German, Dutch and English immigrants. This city embodies a wide range of representative types of middle and working class urban housing. Expressed in traditional St. Louis materials of brick and terra cotta, the buildings are distinguished by the high quality of the brickwork and architectural detailing. St. Louis is also appropriately referred to as the Gateway City – paying homage to its critical role in our nation’s migration westward. The design team must clearly articulate how they turned a house into a “home.” We require each entry to take a stance as to what the role of context is in their architecture. Sensitivity to the user’s needs and lifestyles will be key to the success of the project. Culturally responsive, socially conscientious, environmentally sound and urbanistically grounded, we strongly encourage each team to infuse these attributes into the competition entry.

2009 NOMA Student Design Competition

Site Analysis and Precedents For the site analysis, we had to understand our urbaninfill site within the context of the historic Benton Park neighborhood and the Colombian culture. There were several constraints which we needed to analyze and creatively turn into opportunities. The precedent studies became invaluable in the design process. We used them as a starting point: analyzing then building upon relevant precedents.

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St. Louis, Missouri 6 St. Louis has moderate, seasonal weather, but storms can occur at any time of the year. July and August are the hottest and most humid months of the year, and January and February are cold, usually with snow.

2009 NOMA Student Design Competition

Benton Park 7

kitchen

Originally known as City Park, Benton park was created by ordinance on June 25th, 1866. The park was later renamed in honor of Thomas Hart Benton, a distinguished Missouri senator from 1821 to 1851. From 1842 to 1865, it was used as a city cemetery. A system of caves is located under the neighborhood. They have a constant 55 degree temperature, ideal for beer storage, which encouraged brewers to settle in the area. With the breweries came a large influx of German immigrants, and the architecture of this neighborhood owes much to the imagination and skills of German masons.

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formal parlor

2023 Lynch St. 8 Benton Park neighborhood is a historic district. As such, the neighborhood asks that all new building fit in with the surroundings as much as possible.

Alignment of public facades 25%-33% glazing on public facade- clear glazing

Red kiln fired brickrunning bond

Foundation: stone or concrete painted white or stone veneer

Mass and scale comparable to older buildings Alignment of setbacks

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average lot: one front with an alley in the back

site: two fronts

The competition site is 113 ft by 48 ft and it is atypical in Benton Park neighborhood in that it has two fronts.

Most houses have a public street at the front and an alley at the back. Because of the unique condition, it was important to address this notion of two fronts in the design.

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Bogotรก, Colombia 10

2009 NOMA Student Design Competition

Colombian Courtyards 11

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Precedents

Pedro Lira House Sebastian Irarrazaval

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Precedent

Ramp House M.J. Neal Austin, TX USA 2000

Castan House Robert Grodski Architects 2009 NOMA Student Design Competition

Lira House Colonial Hacienda Estate House 17th-18th C

Bogota Suburb Brick & Revival of Vaulted Space

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Residence in Vienna Schacherer,Dolezalek

La Maison Latapie Floirac, France 1993 Lacaton & Vassal Process Book

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2009 NOMA Student Design Competition

3 Schemes The design process was very democratic. In order for everyone in the group to be invested in the project, it was important that everyone felt like their ideas had a chance to be heard and considered. After a series of mini-charettes, where people individually built conceptual models and talked about them, we split into 3 teams to come up with 3 schemes.

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Scheme 1 16

This scheme created a relationship between kitchen and courtyard in which the wall separating indoors and out can dissolve, leaving one large “sparkspace.� The underlying grid to organize the house was a design base point we kept moving forward. Having the grandparents so removed from family life was not in keeping with the Colombian culture, so we vetoed this arrangement.

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Scheme 2 18

UNIVERSAL DESIGN: Items and spaces which can be accessed and utilized by individuals regardless of age, size, or disabilities.

4&$5*0/ Because Grandfather is wheelchair bound, this project sought to integrate universal design into the Cordoba home. The house has a series of ramps for circulation entering the home. What it doesn’t do, is get the grandparents up to the second floor, which we sought to remedy in the next iteration.

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Ground Floor

16#-*$ 13*7"5&

15’

15’

10’

Second Floor

Ground Floor 15’

10’ 10’

We designed the layout of the interior building based off of 3 modulated blocks.

The will develop into a kit a parts which will later be used to layout other homes throughout the neighborhood.

UNIVERSAL TEAM

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7.18.2009

Process Book Designed Pathways Universal

TEAM 3

Scheme 3 20

grandparents’ apartment

family life UP

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Level 1 1/8" = 1'-0"

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Ground Floor Plan Owner www.autodesk.com/revit

Interior Courtyard 2009 NOMA Student Design Competition

Project Name

Leve 1/8"

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Setbacks and Datum lines TEAM 2

DATUMS/WINDOWS LYNCH ST.

7.18.2009

The diagram of datum lines and setbacks became very powerful when trying to blend the Cordoba home into the fabric of the Benton Park neighborhood. This design also tried to integrate the grandparents into family life.

This concept became central to the winning design.

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2009 NOMA Student Design Competition

Ramp House Because of the cultural significance of the grandparents 23 in the family unit, the grandfather needed to be able to go everywhere in the house. An elevator was not a valid option. We did not want a mechanical solution to what was essentially an architectural problem. Therefore, a ramp was the answer. But how to make it work...

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Ramp House Iteration 1 The first attempt at integrating the ramp into the house had many

24 problems, not least of which was the sunken outdoor patio. This

element causes the iteration to be disparagingly known as the “racetrack house.�

Section CC

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Ramp House Iteration 2 28

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Front Elevation The ramp drove the design in this scheme at the expense of the courtyard. A woman from Bogota, Colombia came to give her opinion of the design and she remarked that in Colombia, they didn’t mind sharing, a concept that we embraced as soon as we could let go of our American notions of public and private. She emphasized that the courtyard had to be seen/accessed from every point in the house, and that the kitchen needed a strong relationship with the courtyard (the outdoors). She also stressed the importance of the grandparents within the family unit and in the culture generally and asked us to better integrate them within the house.

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South Elevation 2009 NOMA Student Design Competition

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East Elevation Process Book

The Courtyard 32

2009 NOMA Student Design Competition

The Ramp 33

The display case within the ramps is the bridge connecting the grandparents’ suite to the rest of the house.

As the family members walk along the ramp, they encounter places to pause, relax, and enjoy the view to the courtyard as they read a book, or talk to another family member.

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Process 34

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The Move and the Moments...

First Place NOMA Student Design Competition, St. Louis 10.2009

2009 NOMA Student Design Competition

In creating a home for the Cordoba family, we desired to allow the culture to inspire and inform the program.

Colombian culture is family oriented. The Heart of the 37 House is its central space - The Courtyard. This space speaks directly to the Colombian heritage because of its focal point that connects and gives meaning to the major elements of the home. Both visually and physically the space provides a cultural reference for a Colombian family now located in St Louis. Often times there are multiple generations residing in one home and much respect and honor is given to the elders: the Grandparents. With the grandfather being in a wheelchair, it was important to make the entire home UNIVERSALLY ACCESSIBLE while creating an architecturally relevant and sustainable dwelling. The kitchen serves as a familiar reference to Colombian Culture in that it has a seamless relationship with the courtyard. Therefore the wall between kitchen and courtyard can transform to create one large space—the SPARKSPACE for the Cordoba family. By deemphasizing individual space and heightening the shared space, we created this new element—this sparkspace—that allows the family to be together, share ideas, strengthen relationships.

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North Elevation

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In Colombian culture, family is very important, and grandparents are fundamental to family life. In the Cordoba home, the grandparents are central in plan and section and connected to the rest of the family via a ramp.

By drawing datum lines from neighboring houses, the Cordoba home fits into the fabric of the historic Benton Park neighborhood.

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DN

Lower Level -9ft

Live-Work-Play +2ft 2009 NOMA Student Design Competition

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Grandparents’ Suite +7ft Process Book

Bedrooms +18ft

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Section DD

Section BB 2009 NOMA Student Design Competition

In Colombian culture, the kitchen is central to family life. Because this culture also prizes a relationship with the outdoors, the Cordoba’s kitchen connects to the central courtyard by a sliding glass wall that opens up and joins the sparkspace and kitchen as one space, the sparkpace.

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The display case functions as both the handrail and the structure for the ramp.

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Operable Windows

Cistern Process Book

Circulation

Private Space

Structure

Sparkspace

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South Elevation

Section FF 2009 NOMA Student Design Competition

The Cordoba home is universally accessible. It employs a series of ramps that allow the Grandfather, who is 49 wheelchair bound, to access all the floors of the house, most importantly the upper floor for bedtime stories in the children’s rooms. For the rest of the family, the home includes a set of expediency stairs to the kitchen/living area which allows one to bypass a portion of the ramp but never its entire length.

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Central Courtyard [Sparkspace] 2009 NOMA Student Design Competition

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Section EE

Section GG Process Book

Sustainablity & Cost Analysis 52

Backyard Wooden Deck (5%) +Reclaimed lumber +500 ft² of decking +$10,000

Carpet and Tiles (3%) +Recycled carpet tiles used to reduce materials +On all floors +$2.00/ft² for materials and labor +2615 ft² total

Floors (13%) +$10/ ft² on 2,615 ft² +$26,150

Plumbing and Fixtures (5%) +low flow fixtures to conserve water +$10,000

2009 NOMA Student Design Competition

Grey Water FIltration System (6%) +Virtually eliminates need for offsite water source. +Located below courtyard +Parts: $8,500, labor: $2,000 +$12,500

Accesible Ramp (13%) +Universal accesibility +Aprox. 300 linear ft +$27,210

Glass (12%) +Operable windows provide cross ventialtion +1348 ft² of Low-E glass +330 ft² +$23,620

Concrete Wall (3%) +28,512 ft³ face. + $5400

SIPS Wall and Roof (25%) +66% more energy efficient than conventional frame construction +4,914 ft² wall +1,725 ft² roof +$49,760

Brick Siding (15%) +4886 ft², 34202 Bricks total + $0.90/brick (Material and Labor) + $3,0781.80

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FROM LEFT: Vincent Yee, Ken Mai, Ralph Raymond, Chris Hinton-Lee [judge], Herman

Howard [advisor], Audrey Plummer, Aishe Lawal, Donniece Wright.

NOT PICTURED: Chi-Chi Ugenyi, Ashley Johnson, Saa Camanor, Inbeom Lee, Joi

Ricks, Chad Boone, Dawn Trimble [advisor], and Nekia Strong [advisor].

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2009 NOMA Student Design Competition