Fall 2022: SENIOR COMPETITION: Housing as Process

As the culminating project of UB's B.Arch. program, we worked in groups of two students to redesign the Sedita Senior Housing building: an outdated 1970's development. With this redesign, we were encouraged to both renovate the existing building, and add onto it, creating more units and expanding the target demographics in the process. My partner Alyssa and I designed our project around the climate of Buffalo. For 4 months out of the year, temperatures in the city are near or below freezing. This is problematic, especially for the elderly, since they are not given any opportunities to get exercise during the winter months.

This lead us to ask the following question, which guided our design:

How can a series of distributed social spaces both inside and outside, allow residents to engage each other, especially during colder months?

We approached this by creating an extension of Sedita along the perimeter of the site which forms one central courtyard. This organizes our circulation around a series of loops: 

1. A cold loop on the ground floor open to the public.
2. A series of warm loops on the upper floors reserved for the residents which connects the new build to the existing Sedita structure, while also providing views to the interior courtyard.

Our Objectives with the design are to:

1. Create a variety of winter-focused social spaces, such as two sledding hills, a central ice pond, and winter gardens.
2. Promote a series of local businesses, including a restaurant, café, grocery store, daycare, and hair salon.
3. Provide semi-private social spaces on each residential floor, with a focus on access to saunas and steam rooms.
4. Design to limit solar gain with louvered panels and green roofs.