Thesis Final book

BOSTON ARCHITECTURAL COLLEGE Architecture for Cultural Hospitality Darian Grant Mason May 24, 2013 Master of Architecture Final Review Date: April 29, 2013 Director of Thesis Ian Taberner, AIA Thesis Faculty: John Pilling, AIA Design Critics: Berton Bremer, AIA James Cody Birkey Paul Herbert John Malnati Thesis Client: Addi Ouadderrou Structural Engineer Consultant: Amir Mesgar MEP Engineer Consultant: Bruce MacRitchie

Thesis Faculty:

John Pilling, AIA

Thesis Director: Ian Taberner, AIA

Acknowledgements

Six years of studies equates to millions of thanks to all staff and faculty of Boston Architectural College. A special thanks to John Pilling the most gracious of thesis faculty and Ian Taberner, the Director of the Masters’ Thesis. Thank you to my mentors, supervisors, and critics along the way.

Thank you to my family and friends for putting up with last minute cancellations. To my wife Jennifer, Tu eres mi fortaleza.

Soli Deo Gloria

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Biographical Note EDUCATION: Boston Architectural College, Boston, MA 2013 Master of Architecture Candidate Cincinnati Christian University, Cincinnati, OH 2006 B.A. Biblical Studies/ Urban & Intercultural Studies EMPLOYMENT: Bergmeyer Associates, Inc., Boston MA February 2013 - Present Architectural Designer Watermark Environmental Inc., Lowell, MA December 2010- February 2013 Architectural Designer Cambridge Seven Associates, Cambridge, MA March 2009- December 2009 Weekly Internship Moshe Safdie and Associates, Inc., Somerville, MA September 2008- January 2009 Administrative Assistant, Document Controller Assistant YouthBuild Boston: The Designery Summer 2008 Designery Fellow Boston Architectural College: Practice Department, Boston, MA 2007- 2008 Administrative Assistant VOLUNTEER: Humanitarian Aid Worker, Foreign Language Internship, Haikou, PRC 2005-2006 English Teacher, English Camp, Tokyo, Nagano, Japan Summer 2004 Team Coach, Price Hill Community Outreach, Cincinnati, OH 2002-2003 Humanitarian Aid Worker, Port Au Prince, Haiti 1999 2002 5

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements p. 3 Biographical Note p. 5 Table of Contents

p. 7

Thesis Synopsis p. 11 Thesis Reviews

Introductory Review p. 29 Preliminary Review p. 41

Schematic Design Review

p. 53

Design Development One

p 65

Design Development Two

p. 77

Final Design Review

p. 89

Thesis Proposal p. 97

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BOSTON ARCHITECTURAL COLLEGE Architecture for Cultural Hospitality Darian Mason

Hospitality can be subtle.

It gradually takes the coat and hat, sets the table, and pulls out the chair.

A host alters the world around the guest in showing hospitality.

Hospitality is crafty; It eases its way into every part of life and dictates sights, sounds, and movements.

Maybe this is exactly the type of intervention that architecture needs.

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HOST

Thesis concept model

BOSTON ARCHITECTURAL COLLEGE Architecture for Cultural Hospitality Darian Mason

INVERT

GUEST

Thesis Synopsis Introduction An architecture for cultural hospitality is an architecture of change. A work of Twentyfirst Century architecture must address a multicultural world as well as the immediate context.

This thesis explores how architecture can address the entry of a new population into and existing community. Its very essence is the tension and interaction between host and guest. When a new guest culture meets an existing host context, architecture assists in the adjustment and integration by inverting host/guest relationships. The inversion of roles allows people to unlearn preconceptions and interact in new ways. The alien community takes on the role of hospitable host and, in doing so, welcomes the native community as guests. The inverted relationship of host and guest is then the first impression.

Background

Boston has long existed as a town of new comers. Pilgrims, freemen, Italian, Irish, and now Vietnamese and Africans make up the long list of immigrant populations that settled in and around Boston. These groups have and will continue to impact the city and its cosmopolitan nature of the city. And yet, Boston does not seem to be a melting pot as much as a distinct set of districts. The transit systems travels from the “old Chinatown” near Downtown Crossing to the new Chinatown of Quincy or from little Brazil in Charlestown to a settlement of Cape Verdeans in Dorchester. Boston has many cultures and all of them have their “place.”

The last decade has seen an increase of immigrants from Morocco settling in Boston. However, Moroccans have few cultural touchstones in Boston proper and no cultural centers. In fact, most immigrants move from their place of origin to a new location that is unfamiliar and totally removed from their place of identity. The current state provides an opportunity for architecture to address how immigrant populations can settle into a city. This project proposes a cultural trade school to provide an anchor for Moroccan culture and to provide a setting for identity in Boston.

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There is no cultural or architectural tabula rasa to be found in Boston.

BOSTON ARCHITECTURAL COLLEGE Architecture for Cultural Hospitality Darian Mason

Thesis Synopsis The Site

This project confronts the fact of an existing, notable historical building in Boston and tests how a guest community of Moroccans can insert themselves into the existing context and invert the host/guest relationship.

Siting this project in “Boston Proper� immediately inserts the Moroccan community into the city.

Massachusetts Avenue is the western boarder of the city limits and Washington Street is the spine of Boston reaching from the South End to Government Center. The corner of Massachusetts Avenue and Washington Street is then the edge and an entry point into Boston. The site is on the border between the South End and Lower Roxbury and addresses the area that has historically been the thoroughfare into Boston. The district has been neglected by time, Urban Renewal, the elevated T, and is now being revitalized. It is also the site of the historically notable Hotel Alexandra.

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Thesis Synopsis

Hotel Alexandra, a defunct hotel, at one point signified the height of production, art, and culture within the city. The history and value of the original building can now be a poetic vehicle through which a new culture makes an introduction into the city of Boston and welcomes the city back into the space.

The hotel was built circa 1876 for the client Caleb Walworth and Emil C. Hammer. Sited at 1761 Washington Street at Massachusetts Avenue, it was to be a destination hotel of Boston built along a notable thoroughfare into the city. The building is clad with dressed stone masonry and with ironwork storefronts. While Washington Street is the public front of the building, the Massachusetts elevation includes copper faced bay windows in the style of Bostonian row houses. The building’s promise was then literally overshadowed by the elevated train-line that ran from Dudley Station to downtown Boston. When the elevated “T” came down in the 60’s the area was slow to rebound to its former glory.

The building has since been through a series of tenant fit-outs with retail shops taking up residence in the two ironwork storefronts. The building has seen fires and decay. Politics and economics has led the owner attempt to demolish the relic and rebuild rather than renovate the building to the standards of the historical society. It is into this torrent of controversy that this project finds a fitting site to test the thesis of inverting the host and guest relationship.

Existing Washington Street Elevation

Existing Massachusetts Avenue Elevation 15

Geometric and self contained three-dimensional weaving

Geometric and self contained systems of Moroccan tile work Archnet

- Photo provided by

There is a humble and hidden public face to buildings in Morocco. The interiors and richly ornamented for the owner and host.

- Photos from The Villas and Riads of Morocco by Corinne Verner, Cecile Treal, Jean-Michel Ruiz & North African Villages: Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia by Norman F. Carver BOSTON ARCHITECTURAL COLLEGE Architecture for Cultural Hospitality Darian Mason

Geometric and self contained - fracturing of the site based upon Moroccan tile design

Thesis Synopsis Inverting spatial relationships - Introducing Moroccan artisans into Boston as Host

Inverting the host/ guest relationship creates “Moroccan Space” in Boston that is interior centric rather than outward-focused. The exterior of the building is veiled to promote privacy and introspection. A new curtain wall surrounds the existing exterior facade that surrounds an interior courtyard. The interior of the building opens to the sky with a central courtyard that infuses the structure, program, and spatial relationships. The scheme is organized around the courtyard; moving from the humble public entrance to the grander private artist’s residence.

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Ground Floor Plan

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BOSTON ARCHITECTURAL COLLEGE Architecture for Cultural Hospitality Darian Mason

The Courtyard

Thesis Synopsis The Entrance

The moment of introduction and inversion begins at the entrance along Massachusetts Avenue rather than Washington Street. The Moroccan treatment of the public face dictated designing a veiled entrance at the exterior of the building that provides a humble entry. Entrance into the building passes through the existing facade and opens up into the lobby and courtyard.

The Courtyard The interior courtyard is a glazed space frame that provides the structural support of the whole design. It filters views across the courtyard so that the host has unfiltered views to the guest while remaining veiled behind interior screens.

The interior of the courtyard is only accessed through the kitchen as the herbs grown in the garden become featured in dishes in the cafe.

The Lobby

The Cafe As the guest enters the cafe, the original wall is to the left and the garden wall is to the right. Views to the garden are obscured by the new structure and facade. The guest can touch the existing wall.

Looking out of the ironwork storefront, the existing columns are between the new exterior facade and the new interior garden wall. The existing columns are surrounded by the new environment just as the guest is surrounded by Moroccan environment.

The Cafe 19

BOSTON ARCHITECTURAL COLLEGE Architecture for Cultural Hospitality Darian Mason

The Theater Entrance

Thesis Synopsis Guest Space Theater Space The guest is welcomed down into the theater and is confronted with the grand space below grade. Again, the courtyard form acts as a barrier and funnels the crowd from the large lobby space into the more intimate theater. The theater is designed for small storytelling experiences. The environment from above; wind, rain, smells and sounds drift down into the space.

Exhibit Hall The guest is welcomed up to the second floor to browse through the wares and crafts of the Moroccan artists.

The guest can look obliquely to the other side of the space where the Moroccan artisans are working. They can walk through the antique wall to connect back to the surrounding neighborhood.

The Exhibit Hall

Antique Wall and New Curtain wall The host looks through the courtyard, out to the antique wall. The guest looks through the antique wall to the new structure. The host’s space is surrounded by the new spaces and materials while the guest’s space is surrounded by the antique wall.

On closer inspection, the new structure is supporting the existing facade and pierces the existing walls at the corners and in the center of each face. What was the exterior is now the interior. What was defining the space is now being defined by the space. The new structure has inserted itself and inverted the relationship.

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The Viewing Platform

BOSTON ARCHITECTURAL COLLEGE Architecture for Cultural Hospitality Darian Mason

Thesis Synopsis Host Space The Workshop The workshop is the heart of the design taking up the central floors. It is flooded with light from above. The spaces are still divided to provide private workshops for the master artisans and more public workshops for those still in training. The areas do not try to contend with the courtyard. Instead, workspaces are arranged around the inner wall to provide circulation around, rather than through, work areas.

The Artist Residence At the top floor, the Moroccan visiting-artist walks to the guest room and can touch the original wall and the courtyard wall. The path from the guest room to the private areas travels along a corridor that hugs the courtyard wall. The host is veiled from views from the lower floors but can see everything that is happening below. When the resident artist emerges from the bedroom the patio is surrounded by the exterior walls that allow northern light in. The patio space is open to the sky.

The Process of Inversion This thesis set out to insert a natural guest into an existing context and host community.

This insertion is accomplished through the inversion of roles. This project creates a rigid set of patterns for the users to follow. This design dictates zones of interaction and zones of privacy. The quality of this design is judged on whether these spaces created host spaces and guest spaces and whether the complete design inverted the natural relationships by establishing new spatial relationships.

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BOSTON ARCHITECTURAL COLLEGE Architecture for Cultural Hospitality Darian Mason

Thesis Synopsis

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BOSTON ARCHITECTURAL COLLEGE Architecture for Cultural Hospitality Darian Mason

Thesis Synopsis

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BOSTON ARCHITECTURAL COLLEGE Architecture for Cultural Hospitality Darian Mason

Introductory Review The Introductory Review Review Date: Sept 20, 2012 Attendees: John Pilling John Malnati Berton Bermer

The review presented the thesis concept, terms of criticism, methods of inquiry. It also clarified how this thesis was to be tested within a site and with a defined program. Multiple precedents were provided to show the intention for the project.

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BOSTON ARCHITECTURAL COLLEGE Architecture for Cultural Hospitality Darian Mason

Introductory Review

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BOSTON ARCHITECTURAL COLLEGE Architecture for Cultural Hospitality Darian Mason

Introductory Review

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BOSTON ARCHITECTURAL COLLEGE Architecture for Cultural Hospitality Darian Mason

Introductory Review

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BOSTON ARCHITECTURAL COLLEGE Architecture for Cultural Hospitality Darian Mason

Introductory Review

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BOSTON ARCHITECTURAL COLLEGE Architecture for Cultural Hospitality Darian Mason

Introductory Review

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BOSTON ARCHITECTURAL COLLEGE Architecture for Cultural Hospitality Darian Mason

Preliminary Review The Preliminary Review Review Date: Oct. 31, 2012 Attendees: John Pilling John Malnati Berton Bermer

The review re-presented the thesis concept, terms of criticism, methods of inquiry. It reviewed and clarified the site selection but also presented the Moroccan site and culture on a surface level. Prior to this review I had met with the client Addi Ouaderrou to present my thesis project and ask for his insights. A very brief meeting prompted multiple questions and new avenues for study. A follow up meeting allowed Mr. Ouaderrou to offer his perspective on space and Moroccan design and aesthetics.

The main thrust of this review offered four design schemes as avenues to approach inverting relationships; infusion, grafting, weaving, and enveloping. The panel and the client narrowed this selection down to grafting and weaving.

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BOSTON ARCHITECTURAL COLLEGE Architecture for Cultural Hospitality Darian Mason

Preliminary Review

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BOSTON ARCHITECTURAL COLLEGE Architecture for Cultural Hospitality Darian Mason

Preliminary Review

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BOSTON ARCHITECTURAL COLLEGE Architecture for Cultural Hospitality Darian Mason

Preliminary Review

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BOSTON ARCHITECTURAL COLLEGE Architecture for Cultural Hospitality Darian Mason

Preliminary Review

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BOSTON ARCHITECTURAL COLLEGE Architecture for Cultural Hospitality Darian Mason

Preliminary Review

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BOSTON ARCHITECTURAL COLLEGE Architecture for Cultural Hospitality Darian Mason

Schematic Review The Schematic Review Review Date: Dec. 12, 2012 Attendees: John Pilling John Malnati Berton Bermer

James Cody Birkey Paul Herbert

The schematic review settled the program and gave the panel a substantial impression of Moroccan spatial philosophy. This review was the period in time that the scheme developed around a courtyard and the program arranged itself around that idea.

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BOSTON ARCHITECTURAL COLLEGE Architecture for Cultural Hospitality Darian Mason

Schematic Review

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BOSTON ARCHITECTURAL COLLEGE Architecture for Cultural Hospitality Darian Mason

Schematic Review

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BOSTON ARCHITECTURAL COLLEGE Architecture for Cultural Hospitality Darian Mason

Schematic Review

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BOSTON ARCHITECTURAL COLLEGE Architecture for Cultural Hospitality Darian Mason

Schematic Review

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BOSTON ARCHITECTURAL COLLEGE Architecture for Cultural Hospitality Darian Mason

Schematic Review

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BOSTON ARCHITECTURAL COLLEGE Architecture for Cultural Hospitality Darian Mason

Design Development One Review The Design Development One Review Review Date: Feb. 27, 2013 Attendees: John Pilling John Malnati Berton Bermer

James Cody Birkey Paul Herbert

This review included most of the digital explorations of the project. The design was modeled and documented. The design concept of an open courtyard was finalized in this review as was the program layout.

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BOSTON ARCHITECTURAL COLLEGE Architecture for Cultural Hospitality Darian Mason

Design Development One Review

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BOSTON ARCHITECTURAL COLLEGE Architecture for Cultural Hospitality Darian Mason

Design Development One Review

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BOSTON ARCHITECTURAL COLLEGE Architecture for Cultural Hospitality Darian Mason

Design Development One Review

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BOSTON ARCHITECTURAL COLLEGE Architecture for Cultural Hospitality Darian Mason

Design Development One Review

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BOSTON ARCHITECTURAL COLLEGE Architecture for Cultural Hospitality Darian Mason

Design Development One Review

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BOSTON ARCHITECTURAL COLLEGE Architecture for Cultural Hospitality Darian Mason

Design Development Two Review The Design Development Two Review Review Date: March 12, 2013 Attendees: John Pilling John Malnati Berton Bermer

James Cody Birkey Paul Herbert

Where the Design Development One review was stuck within the computer, Design Development Two got back to working by hand in models and sketches to explore the design down to the detail level. This process addressed the structure, mechanical systems, and materiality of the project.

Study on supports to be included in the curtainwall system 77

Elevation studies BOSTON ARCHITECTURAL COLLEGE Architecture for Cultural Hospitality Darian Mason

Design Development Two Review

Material Study and design perspective 79

BOSTON ARCHITECTURAL COLLEGE Architecture for Cultural Hospitality Darian Mason

Building study sketches

Design Development Two Review

Technical detail for supporting the existing antique walls with a cast in place vault.

Technical details for curtain wall scheme 81

Study models for the antique wall and floor connections

Structural study model for the space frame and floor grid BOSTON ARCHITECTURAL COLLEGE Architecture for Cultural Hospitality Darian Mason

Design Development Two Review

Sectional study model to examine light, shadow, and structure 83

BOSTON ARCHITECTURAL COLLEGE Architecture for Cultural Hospitality Darian Mason

Sketches of spaces

Design Development Two Review

Sketch of the lobby entrance 85

Sketch of mechanical scheme

Sketch of the elevation at Massachusetts Ave with curtainwall scheme BOSTON ARCHITECTURAL COLLEGE Architecture for Cultural Hospitality Darian Mason

Sketch of courtyard screens

Design Development Two Review

Sketches of structural connections for the glulam system

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BOSTON ARCHITECTURAL COLLEGE Architecture for Cultural Hospitality Darian Mason

Final Review The Final Review Review Date: April 29 2013 Attendees: John Pilling John Malnati Berton Bermer

James Cody Birkey Paul Herbert Philip Belanger

The final review was the presentation of the design as it has been developed. There were final tweaks of the elevations and material choices as well as a fleshing out of the qualities of spaces and materiality.

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BOSTON ARCHITECTURAL COLLEGE Architecture for Cultural Hospitality Darian Mason

Final Review

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BOSTON ARCHITECTURAL COLLEGE Architecture for Cultural Hospitality Darian Mason

Final Review

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BOSTON ARCHITECTURAL COLLEGE Architecture for Cultural Hospitality Darian Mason

Final Review

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BOSTON ARCHITECTURAL COLLEGE Architecture for Cultural Hospitality Darian Mason

Thesis Proposal Document Thesis Proposal Document

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