THE KARPELES MANUSCRIPT MUSEUM CREATING A NEW PUBLIC SPACE ON THE PERIPHERY OF HISTORIC CHARLESTON:
a mending wall to bridge neighbors
NATE WOOD - STUDIO GAST - “THE PUBLIC STAGE” - 2013
CONTEXT PRESERVATION & MANUSCRIPTS PROGRAM CONCEPT FORM SUSTAINABILITY & SURVIVABILITY STRUCTURE MATERIALITY PUBLIC SPACE PLANS & SECTIONS MODELS
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INTRODUCTION
The challenge was to design a sensitive addition for the Karpeles Manuscript Museum that would create a new public space to enhance the beauty of the important historic Roman Revival St. James Methodist Church in the heart of the downtown peninsula of Charleston, South Carolina. Understanding that the project explores an addition to a historic structure within a historic urban landscape, a language of conversational contrast is implemented.
Something there is that doesn’t love a wall, That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it, And spills the upper boulders in the sun,
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1855
1869
1877
1885
Cannonborough-Elliottborough is composed of two adjacent neighborhoods that together function as one. The neighborhood is located on the Charleston Peninsula, part of the Old City Historic District. Cannonborough-Elliottborough’s history is of blue-collar workers, ethnic groups, and vernacular architecture, rather than famous historical figures, premier families and high-style mansions. It is a history of the common Charlestonian, rather than the elite. Situated in Charleston’s mid-peninsula, the Cannonborough-Elliottborough neighborhood includes the historic 6th and 8th Wards of Charleston. Cannonborough was named for Daniel Cannon, a carpenter and mechanic who owned several lumber mills in the area. Cannon acquired a large amount of land north of Calhoun Street (then Boundary Street) and west of Comings Creek. Much of this land was marshland at the time, but has since been filled in. Elliottborough was named after Colonel Barnard Elliott, a Revolutionary War era planter and member of the Provincial Congress. The original Elliottborough was bounded by Spring Street, Ashley Avenue, Line Street and Coming Street. The area was settled as early as 1785 and was comprised of the northernmost neighborhoods. The Ashley River’s marshlands bordered the neighborhood’s boundaries at that time. Significant development in the CannonboroughElliottborough neighborhood dates to the mid-nineteenth century, when rice production was experiencing a decline and commercial shipping and small-scale industries were developing as the economic base. Principal industries included rice and lumber mills, shipping and rail facilities, as well as small foundries and tanneries. The region’s transition from an agricultural-oriented economy to a more diverse economic base was accompanied by an increased immigrant population of Irish and German families, who migrated to the area primarily from northeastern cities to fill the increased demand for labor. Many of Charleston’s new industrial and manufacturing activities were located in the mid-peninsula, where land was cheap and housing was affordable. In addition to Irish and German populations, freed blacks, unskilled native-born whites, and a sizeable Jewish contingent also settled in the area. The oldest Jewish burial ground in Charleston, known as Beth Elohim Coming Street Cemetery, is located in the Elliottborough neighborhood at 189 Coming Street. The Cannonborough-Elliottborough neighborhood is made up of a diversity of building types, the majority of which are structures of typical Charleston single house construction. While residences in the area vary greatly in size, some of the larger homes are located along Spring and Cannon Streets, and along Ashley and Rutledge Avenues. Smaller homes are dispersed throughout the neighborhoods on narrow streets including Kracke, Sires, Rose, Ashe, and Percy, as well as on the numerous courts and alleys in the area. In addition to a mixture of small and medium sized businesses operating in the Cannonborough-Elliottborough neighborhood, numerous religious institutions are scattered throughout the area. Some of the largest of these include the Brith Shalom Beth Israel synagogue on Rutledge Avenue (just outside the neighborhood boundaries), the Francis Brown AME Church on Ashe Street, and the Holy Communion Church located at Cannon and Ashley. The area’s largest contiguous land owner is the Medical University of South Carolina, located along the western boundary of Cannonborough.
CONTEXT Corner stores represent a distinctive building type in the CannonboroughElliottborough neighborhood. The historical use of corner properties for small neighborhood businesses has played an important role in adding life and vitality to the area. In 1967, the Crosstown Expressway was complete, establishing a connection between Interstate 26 and the Ashley and Cooper River Bridges. The expansive freeway effectively severed portions of Cannonborough-Elliottborough. This severance, along with heavier traffic volumes and the national trend of “white flight” movement to suburban areas, caused severe decline in CannonboroughElliottborough during the 1970s and 1980s. The 1984-85 survey area became part of the Old City District, and the BAR’s authority over the Cannonborough-Elliottborough area originated with demolition review and repairs and alterations review of buildings identified as over 100 years old or as highly-rated. Today, BAR also has review authority over all new construction and review of demolitions now includes structures over 75 years old. Cannonborough-Elliottborough below Line Street is currently part of the Old City District, but is not included within the Old & Historic District or Charleston’s National Register District. Freedman’s cottages represent an important local vernacular architectural type and are common in the neighborhood. Today, the Cannonborough-Elliottborough neighborhood exists as one of the most diverse residential areas in Charleston. Blue-collar workers, college students, older residents and young families live side-by-side in this evolving section of the city.
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast. The work of hunters is another thing: I have come after them and made repair
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CULTURE Despite its lack of published history, the area has a rich and flavorful past, and is currently enjoying a resurgence of vitality. Unlike parts of Charleston south of Broad St. where the trend is turning towards second homes for owners from all parts of the country; this neighborhood exhibits a ‘close-knit’ community quality of multiple generations of native residents. Businesses in the community, nearly all of which are local, independent operations frequented by neighborhood residents, are interspersed among residences. Cannonborough-Elliottborough is a truly diverse area. Neighborhood Restaurants: • Cosmo’s Deli @ 221 Coming • D’Allesdro’s Pizza @ 229 St. Philip • Dave’s Carry-Out @ 42-C Morris • Five Loaves Cafe @ 43 Cannon • Fuel Cantina @ 211 Rutledge
TEXTURE Forms & Uses • The single house is the predominant form in the neighborhood. • Multiple unit apartment houses and single-family dwellings. • Neighborhood churches serve as civic as well as religious buildings. • The majority of buildings are 2 or 2 1/2 stories. • Dwellings in the neighborhood usually range between 2000 and 3000 sf. • Most houses feature a typical single house floor plan or a variation thereof. Styles & Typologies • High-style architecture does not exist in-mass in the neighborhood. • There is a diversity of architectural styles within each block in the neighborhood. • Corner stores are a prevailing feature throughout the neighborhood. • Victorian is the predominant high style architecture • Corners stores, Freedman’s cottages, and the Charleston single house
NATURE The neighborhood is lacking in park space, currently there are only two small parks at the far north and south. At the southern end of Cannonborough-Elliottborough, facing Morris Street, is DeReef Park. The park has a number of mature trees and a formalized brick walkway and patio in the middle of the park with older play equipment to the north. There are also picnic tables scattered throughout. Although the park is currently under-utilized, there are plans for its redevelopment as the second phase of Morris Square. The Elliottborough Park, completed in 2009, sits at the north end of the neighborhood. The western border of the park is a former garage. The northern and eastern borders are lined with community garden plots with a variety of herbs and vegetables. The park is heavily used throughout the day.
INFRASTRUCTURE What Cannonborough-Elliottborough lacks in traditional greenspace, it makes up for in visible and approachable streetscapes. The general lack of setbacks and the close proximity of buildings to the street provide a very public and community oriented feel to the neighborhood. From the moment the Crosstown was constructed across the Peninsula to connect the Ashley River bridges to the Cooper River bridges, an indelible scar was slashed across the City of Charleston, the six-lane “expressway’s” sole focus was on quickly moving vehicles giving little thought to pedestrians. The road is uninviting to motorist and dangerous to pedestrians. In 1997, the City and the residents of Cannonborough-Elliottborough perceived a need to create a plan that would direct the future of their community. Around the same time, the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) was considering a major redevelopment effort with potential impacts to the neighborhood. This threat precipitated the need for the preparation of a development plan that would involve input from the community.
• Hope & Union Coffee @ 199 St. Philip • Lana’s Restaurant @ 210 Rutledge • Hominy Grill @ 207 Rutledge • Mia Pomodorio @ 212 Rutledge • Simply Sandwiches @ 1 Cannon • Sugar Bake Shop @ 59 Cannon • Trattoria Lucca @ 41 Bogard • Wildflour @ 73 Spring
Neighborhood Shopping & Salons: • Beads on Cannon @ 87 Cannon • Books Herbs & Spices @ 63 Spring • Continuum Skateshop @ 49 Spring • Forget Me Knots @ 21 Jasper • Innovative Interiors @ 139-D Spring • Lowcountry Barbershop @ 114 Cannon • Love Me Again Clothing @ 183 Coming
• Mac & Murphy @ 74 1/2 Cannon • Maddison Row @ 171 Spring • Magar Hatworks @ 57 Cannon • Northern Roots Salon @ 185 St. Philip • Stems Florist @ 208 Coming • Tiger Lilly Florist @ 131 Spring • Unique Transportation @ 207A St. Philip • Velvet Salon @ 162 Spring • Verbena Salon @ 189-C St. Philip
Neighborhood Unique Places: • Cannon Street YMCA @ 61 Cannon • Charleston Wedding Chapel @ 221 Ashley • Eye Level Art @ 103 Spring • Karpeles Manuscript Museum @ 68 Spring
Materials • Most commonly wood frame construction • Gabled standing seam roof • Six or two lite sash windows • Front porch or double side piazza • Turned balusters and columns • Simple moulding profiles and casings • Wood panel doors, with transom and hood above Infill Development • Compatible contemporary infill, both modern and traditional is present.
The area is built on what was once wetlands and it is still susceptible to flooding. Storms that correspond with high tide are especially detrimental to the area. The city is constructing improved and additional surface collection systems throughout parts of the basins, and a new pump station on the Ashley River.
The result, known as the “Spring and Cannon Corridor Plan,” addressed everything from building height restrictions to resident-friendly business hours. In the development of the plan, the neighborhoods focused on working with the City of Charleston to address zoning, infrastructure, development and preservation issues in an effort to promote positive community development that would not encourage gentrification. The most striking change the plan proposes will be to reimplement two way traffic on Spring and Coming Streets, in an effort to slow traffic through the neighborhood and return the cross peninsula traffic to the US-17 Septima Clark Parkway. The US-17 Septima Clark Parkway Transportation Infrastructure Reinvestment Project is designed to improve the mobility, efficiency, emergency preparedness, and community livability; and, most importantly, to alleviate many of the flooding problems by reinvesting in the infrastructure. The transportation advancements will incorporate safer travel lanes for vehicles; improved intersections for pedestrian safety and vehicle efficiency; Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS); and new, energy-efficient traffic signals.
When David Karpeles took his children to the Huntington Gallery in San Marino, California in the late 1970’s they became absorbed with the Gallery’s library of historic manuscripts. “To my shock there were no books,” Mr. Karpeles told the New York Times in 2006. “It was all manuscripts – letters of Thomas Jefferson, Napoleon, George Washington and so forth… They were looking at the original documents that these famous men touched. And it’s not like a picture in a book. It’s a completely different feeling.” Karpeles, a mathematician from a suburb of Santa Barbara built a fortune in California real estate investments, began his collection with an original draft of the Emancipation Proclamation signed by Abraham Lincoln. David and his wife Marsha have since amassed more than a million manuscript pages. In 1983, the couple founded the Karpeles Manuscript Library in Montecito, California to stimulate interest in learning, especially in children. It has grown quietly but steadily to 12 locations across the country. All of the Karpeles Manuscript Library services are free and open to the public year round, and most are in architecturally significant buildings that have been restored as part of the Karpeles project. Each museum has permanent exhibits and travelling exhibits that rotate about every three months. The Karpeles Manuscript Museum in Charleston supports twelve special exhibits of documents and manuscripts in twelve elementary through high schools in South Carolina and North Carolina. Exhibits change several times each school year and are chosen to supplement school curricula and matters of topical interest. The Museum encourages visits by groups (schools, senior citizens, classes, etc.). Special arrangements can be made to accommodate the group traveling schedules and bus parking can be made available. The museum is continuously exhibiting the Fine Arts, showing paintings, sculptures, and photography of local, regional, national, and international artists. The museum also makes space available for workshops, meetings, and special events for community groups, governmental groups, and private organizations.
PRESERVATION &
MANUSCRIPTS
The Karpeles Manuscript Library Creed As a child I remember a world filled with hope and pride. Those who had pursued their goals, whether successfully or not, reflected their pride and fulfillment. One could feel their excitement in their desire to follow their new and future goals. Those of us too young had hope and looked to the inspiration of our predecessors to give us purpose. The world is not longer so filled. There is little hope and little pride. Our children have no sense of purpose and few goals. They make no commitments for fear that they will make mistakes and fail. They see our mistakes but are blind to our accomplishments. Their emptiness spreads over us all. I, for one, will not accept this. I wish to renew that feeling I had as a child; that hope, that pride, that sense of purpose. I believe that we learned those feelings by our exposure to the accomplishments of our predecessors. We studied history; we studied literature, we studied government, science, philosophy, art and music. Our children have not. They do not know who is Simon Bolivar, Rudyard Kipling, Immanuel Kant, Franklin Pierce, Sir Walter Raleigh, Virginia Dare or Queen Isabella. They are hardly aware of the Quest for the Indies, the Origin of the Species, the discovery of vaccines, the Reformation, the Black Plague, Esperanto, the Peer Gynt Suites, the Rubaiyat, the Magna Carta. It is to cure this lack and thereby fulfill my own desire to renew the sense of purpose for our children and ourselves that the Karpeles Manuscript Library has been created. - David Karpeles 1983
Where they have left not one stone on a stone, But they would have the rabbit out of hiding, To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean, 8
PERCY STREET ELEVATION
COMING STREET ELEVATION`
SPRING STREET ELEVATION
The Karpeles Library is the world’s largest private holding of important original manuscripts and documents. The library maintains 12 museums throughout the country. The archives include such treasures as the original draft of the Bill of Rights of the United States, Einstein’s descriptions of his Theory of Relativity, Darwin’s notes on the Theory of Evolution, and The Thanksgiving Proclamation signed by George Washington. By tackling a private museum, this project explores a strategy of creating public space with private ingredients, moving on the basis of understanding that collective space (public + private) is a defining substance of what is urban.
No one has seen them made or heard them made, But at spring mending-time we find them there. I let my neighbor know beyond the hill; 10
1.0 General Public Spaces • Lobby/Gallery • Reception/Control • Sculpture Court • Museum Shop
PROGRAM MATRIX
2.0 Curatorial • Orientation Gallery • Exhibition Gallery • Storage
3.0 Education + Community • Multi-Purpose/Lecture • Storage • Conference Room
4.0 Preparation & Storage • Curatorial Workshop • Exhibit Preperation/Workshop • Digitial Imaging and Print Lab • Prep. Office • Holding • Collections Research • Collections Storage
PROGRAM 5.0 Administration • Reception • Server/Tech Room • Staff Lounge • Storage • Workroom • Director’s Office • Curatorial Offices • Open Workstations • Library • Volunteer’s Room
6.0 Service • Restrooms • Staff RR + Showers • Mechanical Room • Janitor
SHIP./REC.
HOLDINGS
WORK ROOM
O.
EXHIBIT PREP.
COLLECTIONS
DIGITAL IMAGING
STORAGE
RESEARCH SPACE
VOLUNTEER ROOM
DIR. OFFICE
O.
REC.
STOR.
OPEN OFFICE
STORAGE
STAFF LOUNGE
O.
O. ORIENTATION
GALLERY
CONF. ROOM
EXHIBIT
GALLERY
STOR.
SERV.
REC.
MULTI-PURPOSE
PLAZA
LOBBY
LIBRARY
WORK ROOM
SHOP
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CONCEPT Understanding that the project explores an addition to a historic structure within a historic urban landscape, a language of conversational contrast is implemented. Aiming to be both sensitive to the historic structure and the neighborhood fabric, scale and massing create a complimentary dialogue between the vernacular order and the classical order. The contrast highlights the nature of public space in an urban environment. As a new zone of collective action the museum aims to respect the needs of the real (represented by the vernacular architecture of the residential neighborhood) as well as the needs of the ideal (represented in the classical order of the Roman Revival St James Methodist Church). During the conceptual phase of design, inspiration was drawn from Robert Frost’s poem Mending Wall. The poem speaks of two neighbors repairing a wall that separates their properties. The narrator of the poem sees no point in building a wall because there is nothing to keep in or out. The neighbor, on the other hand, believes that the wall is good resorting to an old adage: “Good fences make good neighbors.” This ritual of wall maintenance highlights the dual and complementary nature of human society: mending the wall becomes a communal act, a civic “game,” that offers an opportunity for the speaker to interact with his neighbor, which is a fine metaphor for what makes good public space. The manuscripts and letters within the Karpeles museum’s collection are tangible evidence of the ideas that would come to shape history and the society we now live in. Artifacts of men willing to come before their neighbors and convince them that tradition isn’t a sufficient explanation for the existence of their proverbial walls. This idea of public space as a mending wall (historical barriers serving as bridges) inspires the additions design, to explore the barriers we maintain between the public and the private.
And on a day we meet to walk the line And set the wall between us once again. We keep the wall between us as we go.
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FORM
INTERIOR PARTI
EXTERIOR PARTI
A linear bar…or “wall”, splits the interior of the museum between its public and private program elements. The linear bar is clad in perforated copper panels and culminates in a bridge to create a connection to the sanctuary space of the historic St. James Church. Patrons enter the museum though a new bluestone paved alley that runs between the existing church and the addition. Skylights illuminate the copper wall panels as they come down into the museum’s interior, bringing natural light into the lobby and main floor galleries through the glass decked light wells of the third floor research. The buildings façades are articulated, reducing the massing of the addition to conceal itself within the scale and development pattern of the historic neighborhood, the voids are a series of wood curtain walls that create shafts of light within the museum. The solids that are created between these light shafts become the exhibition galleries and research spaces. The lobby and gallery spaces are connected to the exterior by a series of porches, providing a deep overhang to protect the gallery spaces from harsh UV levels, while also allowing the museum to be opened up to the public plaza when hosting public events during appropriate weather.
To each the boulders that have fallen to each. And some are loaves and some so nearly balls We have to use a spell to make them balance: 16
EXTERIOR PERSPECTIVE
CREATE STORM-RESILIENT BUILDINGS. Design and construct buildings to withstand reasonably expected storm events and flooding. One should assume that storm events will become more common and more intense in the future, and that regions prone to severe storms will expand in area. More stringent design and construction standards, such as the Miami – Dade County Building Code, should be adopted widely.
LIMIT BUILDING HEIGHT. Most tall buildings, with their dependence on electrically powered elevators and their reliance on air conditioning, usually cannot be used in the event of power outages. The occupant density in tall buildings generally precludes providing a significant fraction of power requirements with onsite renewable sources, and in a development pattern with a lot of tall buildings, blocking solar access of other buildings is a significant concern. In Adapting Buildings and Cities for Climate Change, the authors recommend six to eight stories as a reasonable height limit.
CREATE A HIGH-PERFORMANCE ENVELOPE. High levels of insulation, high-performance glazings (with multiple low-emissivity coatings and low-conductivity gas fill), and airtight construction are critical in achieving passive survivability in buildings. High levels of energy performance of the envelope (superinsulation) are particularly important with smaller, skin-dominated buildings.
MINIMIZE COOLING LOADS. Reduce unwanted solar heat gain by paying careful attention to building orientation (situating buildings on an east-west axis with the long façades facing south and north), minimizing east- and west-facing glazings, specifying glazings “tuned” to the orientation (using low solar-heat-gain-coefficient glazings on the east and west, for example), using overhangs and other building geometry features to shade glazings, and selecting vegetative plantings that will shade the buildings (particularly the east and west façades).
PROVIDE FOR NATURAL VENTILATION. In addition to reducing unwanted solar gain, design buildings to provide for natural ventilation. Even if the building is designed to operate with conventional air conditioning, provide operable windows, natural stack-effect cooling towers, and other features that can provide passive ventilation and cooling when necessary— even if using such strategies will result in higher-than-desired humidity levels in the building.
PROVIDE NATURAL DAY LIGHTING. The following strategies can optimize day lighting design while minimizing unwanted heat gain: provide windows high on exterior walls; specify glazings with high visible-light transmission and a low solar-heat-gain coefficient; install light shelves to reflect light deep into the space; install skylights with provisions to prevent overheating; paint ceilings and walls with high-reflectance paints; consider clerestory windows and light monitors to bring light deep into buildings; utilize light wells and atria to extend day lighting to lower floors of larger buildings; in buildings with very deep floor plates.
PROVIDE SOLAR WATER HEATING. To provide hot water during power outages or fuel supply interruptions, install solar water heating systems that can operate passively (thermo-siphoning or batch/ integral-collector-storage) or that operate with DC pumps powered by integrated photovoltaic (PV) modules.
PROVIDE PHOTOVOLTAIC POWER. Capability to power a building with PVs is invaluable during outages. To be able to rely on PV power during a power outage for nighttime electricity necessitates battery storage, which increases system cost substantially (but may be justified for the value provided). Be sure to mount PV modules in a manner that will protect them during storms. Wire the building to isolate critical loads so that they can be PV powered when the rest are cut off.
CONFIGURE HEATING EQUIPMENT TO OPERATE ON PV POWER. The vast majority of gas- and oil-fired heating equipment cannot operate without electricity. Providing the capability to operate that equipment during a power outage— using either a generator or a PV power system—is clearly beneficial. To simplify switching over to PV operation during an outage, equipment should be redesigned to operate on DC power; even without battery storage, some operation of heating equipment would be possible during a 24-hour period.
STORE WATER ON SITE; CONSIDER USING RAINWATER TO MAINTAIN A CISTERN. Provide water storage to serve the building during an extended loss of water. Ideally, store this water high in the building, such as on the rooftop, to facilitate gravity delivery. In cohousing communities and planned neighborhoods, shared water systems can be developed with gravity-feed to dwellings. Cisterns can be fed with rainwater and used during normal building operation for landscape irrigation and toilet flushing—as long as an adequate reservoir is maintained for emergency use. Such cisterns can also serve fire suppression needs.
INSTALL COMPOSTING TOILETS AND WATERLESS URINALS. Composting toilets and waterless urinals can be used in the event of water loss, and composting toilets can function even if the municipal sewage treatment plant shuts down. In a large building with conventional toilets, such as an apartment building, consider installing one or two high-capacity composting toilets in a common area for use if water supply is cut off or the sewer system fails.
SUSTAINABILITY & SURVIVABILITY The project explores the concept of “passive survivability,” or a building’s ability to maintain critical life-support conditions if services such as power, heating fuel, or water are lost. The associated page is an adaptation of a checklist created by Environmental Building News and was used to assist in the design of the museum addition so as to serve as a shelter in the event of an emergency.
PASSIVE STRATEGIES DIAGRAM
‘Stay where you are until our backs are turned!’ We wear our fingers rough with handling them. Oh, just another kind of out-door game, 18
BIOSWALES EQUIPPED WITH FOLDING “MENDING WALLS” DIVIDE A SERIES OF OUTDOOR ROOMS ALONG SPRING STREET, A SIMPLE MECHANISM ALLOWS THE MUSEUM TO FOLD THE WALLS INTO BRIDGES AND CREATE A UNIFIED EVENT SPACE.
PLAZA “MENDING WALLS” DIAGRAM
BIOSWALES DIAGRAM
STORMWATER DIAGRAM
The city of Charleston and this neighborhood are vulnerable to hurricane level storms and heavy rains that align with high tide leading to flash flooding. The design for the addition was driven by both its program needs and the idea of passive survivability. As a civic building this museum should also act as a civic anchor in the event of a major disaster, being able to serve as an emergency shelter for the local community. The Museum’s collection storage and service spaces are located within the linear bar that bisects the building, allowing the building to preserve its sensitive collection but still provide an environment that is equipped to provide natural ventilation and light. The strict enviromental needs of the documents is serviced by a forced air system with roof top equipment at the main stairs. Storm water runoff from the building’s roof and paved surfaces is collected in a ground floor cistern. The water flows within the copper clad mending wall, symbolizing nature’s patient agenda to weather our barriers. “Something there is that doesn’t love a wall.” As one travels up Spring Street away from the historic St. James church, “mending walls” separate a series of “front yards” that become outdoor rooms of social interaction. The “mending walls” align with the bioswales, and through a simple mechanism the walls panels can pivot to become bridges literally connecting the previously separated outdoor rooms to create a united space to host events such as an outdoor market or a neighborhood oyster roast. Overflow from the buildings rainwater collection system is directed into the bio-swales that separate the outdoor rooms; the bioswales are planted with native tidal wetlands species a reference to the layer of natural history under the residential plots of the neighborhood.
One on a side. It comes to little more: There where it is we do not need the wall: He is all pine and I am apple orchard.
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EXPLODED AXO DETAI
ON OF CONSTRUCTION COMPONENTS (RIGHT) ILED WALL SECTION THROUGH GALLERY (LEFT)
STRUCTURE
The Karpeles Manuscript Museum addition’s utilizes a composite structural system of paper fiber reinforced concrete and southern pine glulam timbers. The possibility of flooding as well as the desire to link the critical museum elements to the historical church sanctuary space drove the decision to lift the museum’s main lobby and gallery spaces to the second floor, creating a piano nobile. This move allows for the more public elements of the addition (the museum shop and restaurant) to be on the ground floor, allowing them to contribute to and enhance the active street life that runs along Spring Street. Precast concrete columns, beams and floor slabs constitute the structure of this first level, while glulam timbers with steel connections support the two upper levels of the museum. The museum’s immediate context of cypress wood clad homes and the importance of the local timber industry to the state of South Carolina lead to the selection of southern pine glulam timber as an element in the structural system, as well as within the curtain wall system for the large window walls of the lobby and the shafts that separate the large gallery space.
My apple trees will never get across And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him. He only says, ‘Good fences make good neighbors’.
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MATERIALITY
The elements of the Karpeles museum’s program that require a level of protection are housed in the copper clad linear bar that splits the interior of the museum between its public and private program elements. The copper panels cladding the bar reference the red roof of the church as well as many of the historic homes in the area. These red roofs are made from sheet iron, first used at the end of the 18th century. Iron must be painted to prevent rust and traditional linseed oil paint was the only available product to protect the metal until the latter part of the 20th century. The linseed oil was tinted by grinding in earth pigments, with iron oxide (red) being the most common. With time the copper panels exposed to the salty humid exterior conditions will patina, acting as a visual reminder of the museum’s preserving environment. A museum dedicated to the preservation of these tangible artifacts that allow its visitors to peak into the minds of great men and women, will be protected from a material that utilizes the same delicate element that the museum is being constructed to protect…paper. Technological advancements as well as the sustainable nature permit that paper fiber reinforced concrete be utilized in the plank panels that will skin the opaque wall surfaces of the museum addition, the precast panels of the ground floor, as well as the seismic overlay reinforcing on the interior of the historic church’s masonry walls.
Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder If I could put a notion in his head: ‘Why do they make good neighbors? Isn’t it
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PHOTOVOLTAIC PANELS CHARGE THE EMERGENCY POWER BATTERY SYSTEM TO SERVE THE ENVIROMENTAL CONTROL SYSTEMS IN THE EVENT OF A POWER OUTAGE.
A PERFORATED COPPER PANEL RAIN SCREEN SYSTEM CLADS THE CENTRAL BAR, REFERENCING THE RED STANDING SEAM ROOFS PREVALENT IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD. THE COPPER PANELS COME INTO THE INTERIOR, WITH TIME THE PATINA WILL EXPRESS THE PRESERVATIVE QUALATIES OF THE MUSEUM’S INTERIOR.
AN EXTENSIVE VEGETATED ROOF SYSTEM PROVIDES A HIGH LEVEL OF INSULATION AND MINIMAL MAINTENANCE UTILIZING LOCAL SPECIES TO PROVIDE A FIRST PHASE OF FILTRATION TO THE STORMWATER..
UPPER FLOORS UTILIZE A GLULAM STRUCTURAL SYSTEM WITH STEEL CONNECTIONS. COLUMN’S TAPER AS THEY RISE REFERENCING THE CORINTHIAN COLUMNS OF THE ST. JAMES METHODIST CHURCH.
PAPER FIBER REINFORCED CONCRETE PANELS CLAD THE TIMBER FRAMED HIGHLY INSULATED ENVELOPE SYSTEM.
GROUND FLOOR CONSTRUCTION UTILIZES PRECAST CONCRETE TO PROVIDE A TOUGH DURABLE MATERIAL TO PROTECT THE MUSEUM IN THE EVENT OF FLOODING CONDITIONS.
CROSSWALKS AND CURB CUTS ALONG SPRING STREET ARE IMPROVED TO PROVIDE UNIVERSAL ACCESS AND HELP TO CREATE A BETTER PEDESTRIAN ENVIRONMENT. THE BACK ALLEY IS ACTIVATED BY BOCCE BALL COURTS. THIS INTERNATIONAL GAME GOES BACK THOUSANDS OF YEARS AND CAN INFORMALLY BRING TOGETHER PEOPLE OF ALL BACKGROUNDS AND AGES.
THE HISTORIC SANCTUARY PROVIDES AN INCREDIBLE ASSEMBLY HALL SPACE FOR PUBLIC AND PRIVATE EVENTS
PUBLIC SPACE Memorable places are about the people. We crave to see others and we draw energy from the social interactions we have made, are making, and hope to make in the future. The energy of public spaces reflects the community needs by delivering useful, well-conceived spaces and services. It portrays itself as part of a much larger network of communal facilities. It does not aspire to be an island – just a valued component like the virtuous citizens who are at the core of any healthy community. The museum gives the community a space of both casual and programmed cultural gathering, preserving treasures on its interior while inviting the neighborhood to activate it as a place. The public space is driven by its parochial context, cementing its relationship to community and locality, yet simultaneously universal; playing host to the greater cultural diversity that breathes life into a city.
Where there are cows? But here there are no cows. Before I built a wall I’d ask to know What I was walling in or walling out, 26
CRUSHED OYSTER SHELLS CONSITUTE THE PAVING SURFACE AT THE “FRONT YARD” OUTDOOR SOCIAL ROOMS AND THE BOCCE BALL COURT SURFACES. THE LIGHT COLORED SHELLS PROVIDE A DURABLE URBAN SURFACE THAT HELPS REDUCE THE HEAT ISLAND EFFECT WHILE CONTROLLING STORM WATER RUNOFF.
A BOARDWALK PATH RUNS BETWEEN THE FRONT YARDS AND THE ADDITION PROVIDING ACCESS TO THE RESTAURANT AND MUSEUM SHOP. THE PATH INTERSECTS WITH A SECOND BOARDWALK ALONG THE NEW PUBLIC ALLEY THAT MARKS THE NEW ENTRY TO ACCESS THE KARPELES MANUSCRIPT MUSEUM.
A PUBLIC ALLEY RUNS BETWEEN THE HISTORIC CHURCH AND THE NEW ADDITION. BLUE STONE PAVERS CREATE A TACTILE SURFACE AND DEMARCATE AN ADDITIONAL PEDESTRIAN CROSSING TO BE BEST UTILIZED DURING PUBLIC EVENTS HOSTED BY THE MUSEUM.
NEW CURB CUTS PROVIDE UNIVERSAL ACCESS THROUGHOUT THE SPRING STREET CORRIDOR, CREATING AN ENVIRONMENT THAT INVITES ALL PEOPLE TO EXPLORE ITS RICH HISTORY AND EXCITING PRESENT.
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And to whom I was like to give offence. Something there is that doesn’t love a wall, That wants it down.’ I could say ‘Elves’ to him,
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But it’s not elves exactly, and I’d rather He said it for himself. I see him there Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top
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In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed. He moves in darkness as it seems to me~ Not of woods only and the shade of trees. 34
INTERIOR LOBBY PERSPECTIVE
BUILDING MODEL
MODELS
He will not go behind his father’s saying, And he likes having thought of it so well He says again, “Good fences make good neighbors.” TECTONIC MODEL
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NATE G. WOOD M. ARCH CANDIDATE
UNIVERSITY OF OREGON
SPRING
2013