Abigail Duncan

Breathing

Space

A West Kensington Community Center Revolving Around Healthy Living

Abby Duncan Thesis 2020 - John Defazio

Thesis Statement The Condition: Community Centers are a crucial part of allowing people to connect, grow, make decisions, and boost economic quality of life. Unfortunately in lower income areas, community centers are not designed well enough to contribute to these factors. While disparities in lower income community centers are present, there are also health dispareities present in these communities. Low income Philadelphia neighborhoods face a wide variety of health problems relating to income, environmental conditions, access to health resources, and education. No matter socioeconomic status or environmental conditions present, everyone has a right to a healthy life, and to live in a healthier connected community.

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Northwest

The Goal: The goal is to redefine the Philadelphia Community Center based on the principle of connecting people through habits of healthy living. The community center will empower people in three ways:

1. The core revolving on program focusing on non-traditional ways to confront and

North W

est

4.9

improve mental, physical, and illness/diseases.

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2. Supported by productive public spaces that allow the community to sustain and generate income.

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All revolving around architecture that allows for community authorship, flexibility, and adaptability, and provides a breathing space for the people.

South Southwest

Life expectancy: 63.9

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What drives health outcomes?

1. Access to clinical care 2. Health behaviors 3. Social and Economic Factors 4. Physical Environment

Kensington, Bridesburg, Richmond

Life expectancy: 82.1 Neighborhood health ranking:

1

Center City

46 Upper Kensington

“Whether people are healthy or not, is determined by their circumstances and environment. To a large extent, factors such as where we live, the state of our environment, genetics, our income and education level, and our relationships with friends and family all have considerable impacts on health. �

Leading Health Problems in Philadelphia: 1. Obesity - 35% 2. High Cholesterol - 33% 3. Hypertension - 15% 4. Asthma/Chronic Respiratory - 14% 5. Poor Mental Health - 14% 6. Diabetes - 13% 7. COPD - 8% 8. Heart Disease - 6%

Philadelphia is ranked the least healthy county in Pennsylvania

Site Selection

301 W e s t C u m b e r l a n d S t r e e t - W e s t K e n s i n g t o n , P h i l a .

Ranked #27 in Philadelphia neighborhood health

5 Min walking radius

The Golden Block is located in Fairhill, bordering with West Kensington. This “block” was known prior to the economic downfall in the 1980s for holding festvials, housing community businesses, and being the hub of social life in the area. With the economic downfall, the area was forced to close many businesses, and left the area feeling less than lively, with no place for community to gather. My hope was to bring some of the language of the Golden Block to my site, to help activate and remember it.

“The Golden Block to me means opportunity, it means togetherness, it means unity. I mean there’s music, there’s life and there’s help and there’s hope “

301 W Cumberland

Golden Block Start

0.8 Mile s

Golden Block End

The Golden Block

How can the Breathing Space activate, reinforce, and compliment the positive community assets already available?

My Site Impressions

“On the other side there were many homes and a playground. The playground was fairly new and had a sign reading “lungs at play. This is a tobacco free zone” it made me hopeful that these people did care about the health of the neighborhood children and wanted to see some kind of change. Although the park was dead, it seemed like a place that kids might enjoy. This felt like an urban space waiting to have life brought to it. Down the street there was a new house being built, a school building, and more open space. There was a good amount of trash but also seemed like people were thoughtful about their neighborhood seeing murals, people sitting on stoops, and people socializing.” - Site visit 1, September 2019.

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Identifying Problems & Program Looking at the overlaps between the problems, it is evident that people that are impoverished also often face a variety of health problems.

People that face either poverty or health problems tend to feel limited by their conditions and want to experience something more. It is also evident that the spaces people go in their communities to improve quality of thier lives are not designed in a way that addresses the communities specific community struggles, wants, and needs. How do we provide architecture that helps with healing/ wellness and the conditions of the neighborhood through experience?

How do we empower people to heal/live healthier lives through architecture?

Community Specific Needs SQFT 2000 1000 1500 800 800 1000 800 1000

Clinical Care SQFT 1200 400 1200 300 500

Physically Active Spaces SQFT 1000 Biophilic Gym Locker Rooms 200 500 Boxing Gym 250 Dance Studio

Expressive Therapy SQFT 300 500 200 500

Arts Rooms Music Rooms Group Therapy Meditation Rooms

Technical School SQFT 900 900 1800 200 200

Woodshop/Carpentry Landscaping HVAC Tool Rental Typical Classroom

Exterior Spaces SQFT 10,000 2000 15,000 7500 20,000 2200

Soccer Fields - Youth Playground Central Plaza Exterior Gym Plaza Community Garden Greenhouse

General Community Spaces SQFT 3000 Community Metting rooms 1000 Recreational Room

General Building Progra SQFT 600 XX 200 XX

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Precedent Inspiration Housing typology 2

Housing typology 1

Affect: Create a sense and change in energy, by using a new color palette, an opposing grid from the neighboring buildimgs, and approach the design with a more human scale.

Project concept: To create a public space that bridges to residential communities that are split by a river. The communitties had little change in building design, scale, and occupancy. This gave the community an opportunity to connect through a series of smaller buildings that created a market place for local vendors. The organization created miniature courtyards and a variety of public space along the river.

Concept: The project brings a wide variety of programs together while breaking down the masses to create smaller scale spaces that give each program their own “home�. The materials and the integration with the landscape make the project feel part of the nature.

Affect: By breaking down the scale, using wood that relates to the context, and pushing the building into the landscape, the school begins to feel like a serene space, that is protective but not overwhelming.

Furthering Design Research

“The Harvard Alumni Study found that men who average at least eight flihts a day enjoy a 33% lower mortality rate than men who are sedentary - and thats even better than the 22% lower death rate men earned by walking 1.3 miles a day” Puerto Rico’s health problems and geography, along with ways to address health that include staying active and being present in a built environment that still feels connected to nature would go on to shape my site design, program, and indvidual building design. It became evident that a connection to the Puerto Rican’s culture should be present with my design, and pairing that with active design, textured natural environment, would help guide people to healthier habits.

Design Process - Fall and Early Winter After further analyzing Puerto Rico, the architecture, and the health problems, I had a better idea of how to design my project. There were many health as well as social issues present that I wanted to address. I wanted to keep most of the buildings small to have a more humanistic feel, and spread them in a way that people could flow through the site. I added many green spaces, something the area didnt have. Then I added the loop to promote walking, as well as creating a social destination that anyone could use. Lastly, I created interior winter gardens called breathing spaces. These would act as the horizontal cirulation bewtween buildings, since I exploded the typical community center. I wanted a stronger connection to the people through my main building. I started taking contours of the mountains in PR and overlaying them onto my largest building. Paired with many colors to create a playful environment, my project started to shape itself on the 5 blocks.

My technical review focuses on refining my site plan, and diving into my individual building. I wanted the building to feel heavy and solid, but also take a natural curved form that gave the langauge of a mountain top.

Doing that allowed me to add green roofs on top of each “layer�, creating a stronger connection from the interior of the building to the exterior. I would then focus on shaping my ramp to create a constant flow of circulation that influenced people not only to move on the exterior loop, but the interior as well. The loop feels as if it is an extension of the heaviness of the building, using steel construction methods and sprayed on stucco.

Technical Review Progress

Site Planning Concepts

Current Condition

Proposed Building Interaction

Proposed Pedestrian Interaction

The Divison

The Shift

The long site allows for the program to be spread iout and be connected through the loop, breathing spaces, and green space. The bottom left of the site houses an open park that influences kids to play with imagination, and less with playground equipment that could be easily damaged. Acress is the public market allowing for the community to create weekly events to generate income. The large clinic and community building is in the top middle, cut by a pedestrian street. Going down the middle of the site on one side there are physical health programmed buildings, and on the other side there are buildings that support the market program and act as open labs. The building at the end of the path houses the expressive therapies, leading to the serene green walk, community kitchen and green house. The loop increases and descreases in size based on where people are guideded to walk as individuals, or socially. The green spaces consist of a community garden, a soccer field, open park, and outdoor exercise plaza in the middle.

Exterior Views

Community & Clinic Building The largest building would act as the “mountain” to the village buildings below. The first floor has a “living room” for all ages to come and relax as a community, the large ramp continues from the first floor to promot walking to the second floor. On the other side of the first floor is the clinical space - focusing on nutrition management, respiratory diseases, and an urgent care. The second floor has community health education rooms, a cafe, a dining area, and a large open flexible community space. Continuing up the ramp to the third floor is the teen room, the kids room, and the library. The fourth floor is broken into two smaller spaces that have a workshop area, and a meditation space. I wanted to allow people to socialize or take a moment of reflection looking out on their community and the city.

BASKET TWIN

BASKET TWIN

AIR HOCKEY

The building’s stacking nature also reflects on the interior, allowing people to see up and down to other floors. Doing this will hopefully influence people to try different activities others are doing. The interior ramp takes many forms. At some points it feels inclosed, and at other points it feels wide and open, allowing for different levels of privacy along the walk.

Community & Clinic Building The view to the right looks up the ramp leading to the second floor. Although people are encouraged to take the ramp, there are elevators located on both sieds of the building for people to have easy access to any area. The living room allows for all ages to relax and socialize. The breathing space starts to come thorugh on the first floor thorugh the reveal of the ramp. The glass makes it feel like the spaces are almost one, and invites people to use the spaces freely.

Where the living room is a social space, the laarge breathing space more so acts as a place people can be engulfed in nature and in a more reflective space. Where the building itself is very heavy and whole, the breathing space acts like a light, airy balance.

Sustainable Healthy Systems Not only did I want to create a building that influenced people to make healthier decisions and create activity, but I also wanted healthier systems in my bujilding and across the site. The breathing space allows for nature light and air flow, a large geothermal system is installed under the soccer fields, going to each building through a package unit. The mechnical spaces have been hidden in the top two curbed spaces, and are protecting sound pollution through wooden fins that blend in with the green roof language. The trees on the green roof and in the breathing space act as a filter to dust and pollution inside and outside the building.

Water cisterns - one & one for storage used for green roofs and parks

Pump room for water cisterns and geothermal system distribution

Geothermal closed loop horizontal system

Drip irrigation from water cisterns Mechanical rooms on roof of east and west building zones Heat pump for geothermal system in basement Bike, stroller, cart storage

Package units for geothermal system in small buildings

Onsite parking

of roof for community engagement with

“You never change things by fighting the exisiting reality. To Change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete�

- Buckminster Fuller