DRIFT COWORKING

Drift Coworking Office | Roanoke, VA

Third Year | 8 Weeks | Individual Revit, Enscape, Photoshop

Drift Coworking is a highly multi-functional, collaborative office building. It withholds several different environments to allow for full functionality between a variety of users. Many requirements were met throughout this interior with a limited amount of space, while providing additional areas to escape the typical office customs. Diligent considerations and design decisions were implemented to allow for the enhancement of innovation, focus and drive. This space is elaborated to empower minds to work together with completely different ending goals.

315 Albemarle Ave SE is an old warehouse located in Roanoke, Virginia. There is a new edition at the West end of the building, where the downstairs entrance and vertical circulation systems to the second floor are located.

The site is surrounded by one running and non-running railroad, the Roanoke River, and numerous suburban neighborhoods. There are several roads leading to and from the property to allow for walking, biking and other transportative methods.

The exterior, interior structure of the building is mainly brick, with additional roofscape structural beams. These beams remain exposed in my design to accentuate the previous construction and history of the building.

This coworking office space is burning lines between workplace and habitat by creating a meaningful space to transition creativity into opportunity. Implemented systems of components that can be separated and recombined produces a sense of flexibility and variety. Boundaries are implied through hierarchy and materiality. Modular flotation becomes the driving concept of the design.

Downstairs consists of reception and lobby areas, an administration office, two small conference rooms, two of four private phone booths, and additional lounge space. Materials and colors remain neutral to facilitate a sophisticated and consistent environment. Hints of orange are seen on accessories to create a delicate and notable symmetry with the corresponding upstairs

Upstairs consists of a tech start-up collaboration for Etsy, eight private solo entrepreneur offices, twenty hot desks, one large and medium conference room, printing resources, mail services, two private phone booths, restrooms, lounge space, and kitchen space.

The office space is entitled “DRIFT” based on design conceptualities that are implemented throughout the space. Floating Modularity is described as the design concept and is fabricated through materials, furniture and structural decisions. Drift becomes the flow and movement of people and elements within the design that allow for calm yet unique circulation and collaboration group project in which we develop a scenario by creating a journey map and user story for either a small group of refugees or a single refugee. We designed a 538 square foot oasis for a refugee family after conducting research and establishing a specific narrative. We based all design conceptuality around cultural aspects, necessities, and additional research. The end result composes a comfortable, habitual, and familiar domain.

Just above the contracted area downstairs, there are twenty rentable hot desks for anyone to use for an extended period of time. These desks are height adjustable to enable numerous work environments with limited space, along with additional storage lockers at the end of each row. There is also a designated lounge/work space for these associates so they don’t get intermixed with the tech start-up and entrepreneurs. There are also the two additional phone booths, printers and mailboxes.

The design concept is initially derived from the company Etsy; A global marketplace for buying and selling items that scews from traditional corporate customs in favor of a more free-wheeling approach. It is their mission to keep close human connections at the heart of commerce.

In the tech start-up, different levels of hierarchy, such as changes in the floorscape, to enable implied and physical boundaries to provide needed aspects of privacy and contradiction with the solo entrepreneur offices. Facilitating a sense of drift and flow throughout the coworking space. Orange is researched to promote a strong sense of pure creativity, motivation and focus. Applying hints of this tone to a neutral based material palet accentuates the Etsy mission.

These three axonometrics capture the continuous flow within the tech start-up community space. There are specific modular units (USM Furniture) that are delegated to showcasing Etsy products.

This space is meant to be entirely flexible and these 3D pictorials represent the change in the area over time. There are two heavy groundings that administer specific boundaries and hierarchy, which include the center island workspace and the sunk-in lounge space.

Modularity is seen as the pieces are made to fit together according to a common pattern, so that pieces can be reused in multiple arrangements to initiate a deemed sense of variety, formality and organization.

People all around the world are leaving their homes in fear of violence. These refugees face challenges when fleeing and finding a new home. Currently, Venezuela is experiencing a political and financial calamity, which is instigating a mass surge in refugees and population movement. The rise of authoritarianism under the regime of Nicolas Maduro has taken basic freedoms away from Venezuela’s people. Citizens are distraught by the violence, insecurity and threats. Venezuela has one of the highest inflation rates and seventy-five percent of its population lives off just under two dollars a day. There is an extreme lack of clean water, electricity, food, medicine and other essential services, which put Venezuela’s Refugee Crisis into effect, making it the second-largest external displacement crisis in the world.

The Ortiz’s set out for their 2,661 miles journey by foot. Various challenges were faced while partaking in the migration. Intense climate conditions and temperature changes through frigid mountaintops with temperatures reaching ten degrees below freezing, in “the icebox” zone, to scorching flat valley’s. It is common for migrants to die along these treacherous areas. Gas stations are transformed into hot spots for exhausted migrants. The family braved their biggest challenge during a gas station rest point in Peroles, Colombia. A little boy, about the age of their son, was alone and unaccompanied by his mother, due to her death. The Ortiz’s fostered the boy for the remaining 2,000 miles and established the boy into their family, adding a fourth member to their refugee household.

The Ortiz family - mother, father, and now two young sons - experienced difficult endeavors first hand and are a part of the eighty percent majority of refugees migrating to Lima, Peru. There is a high desire for Venezuelans to proceed to this location based on employment opportunities and government services. Lima is governed by President Pedro Castillo under a multi-party system with a presidential representative democratic republic. This governmental system is related to the American fundamentals that Venezuelans crave, but it’s safer to travel to Lima. Although Lima provides a desirable environment for refugees, there are still struggles upon arrival. This space is meant to ease the family into a new, somewhat familiar habitat from an unfamiliar, traumatizing situation.

Imbuing an environment providing new options of life and vitality through a strong and static state. Revitalization within pre-existing conditions of infrastructure and available resources attained through donation and collection amidst the journey from Colombia to Lima.

High attention is paid to strengthening the relationship among the inhabitants within the space, which creates a sense of security. Implication of naturally sourced materials and Spanish stylistic choices to offer a welcoming and familiar space to the Ortiz family. Fabricating an arrangement of bright colors, patterns and textiles in order to blend Venezuelan and Peruvian cultural and historical values.

Perspectives

By

Ava Blackwell, Maggie Williams

Axonometrics By Ava Blackwell

Floor Plans By Kevin Warmke

Philadelphia and strives to produce a comfortable space for its users. The overall notion of this project was to work interior design with a specific location and a specific clientele. Through this design, a secure, content domain is created for those who feel self-conscious about needing or wanting to dine in a soup kitchen. Extensive research encompassing the culture, demographics, and overall population to adapt and adhere to a wide variety of users.

Brotherly Love

The interior becomes an intervention of busy city life, with warm vibrant colors in order to create a welcoming environment and relief from the concrete jungle. The background and culture of Philly is brought directly into the design with careful consideration of each design choice made. The space is meant to contradict the stereotype of how soup kitchens are usually designed.

Kensington is a neighborhood in Philadelphia, PA, which straddles lower Northeast and North Philadelphia. It is home to many different ethnicities and cultures and known as the city of brotherly love, but is also one of the poorest regions of Philly. Kensington is situated next to the Delaware River which provides different strategies of work. It has traditionally been known as one of the working class centers of Philly.

Initially, employment focused around the nearby waterfront and the activities of fishermen. In the early 19th century, Kensington quickly transitioned to iron and steel manufacturing and became home to factories. As more people migrated for employment opportunities, music, art and other cultural aspects widely grew, which then created a unique population.