SPRING 2021: BLACKROCK LIBRARY

My fourth semester in UB's B.Arch. program was primarily focused on the issue of 'fitting in'. Specifically, the syllabus asks the question, "How can an architecture achieve a sense of belonging in a given place?" With this in mind, our first step was to do community research for the intended neighborhood used for the semester's projects: Blackrock. Each studio group was split into sections covering different research topics, in my case: Development Regulations and Zoning. This allowed us to get a better understanding of the neighborhood, as well as the residents within it.

Next, we each chose one building in the neighborhood, and began a series of four drawings to understand what made our building 'unique'. From this study, we would form an architectural thesis which was to be translated into the subsequent projects. 

My chosen building was the Dapper Goose, a popular Blackrock restaurant and bar located on Amherst St. that only truly 'comes to life' during its operating hours of 5-9pm. Therefore, how the building is perceived at night is arguable more important than during the daytime. For this reason, I chose to focus on the Dapper Goose's unique lighting conditions, and how they serve to conceal and reveal certain architectural elements of the building as my primary thesis.

Our next project involved designing an infill home for Blackrock, on one of the vacant lots in the neighborhood. My goal was to find a way to make the building 'fit in' to the neighborhood, which still carrying forward the conceal and reveal thesis. To achieve this, I created a very vernacular building and concealed it behind a tight steel mesh. This way, during the daytime, there is an unassuming rectangular street condition, but at night, lights on the building's façade allow the building to 'fit in'. The duality of these two façade conditions also serves the program of the building: a double with a storefront, in this case a bar and restaurant. During the daytime, residents in the upper units have privacy and comfort, and at night, the building visually comes to life, opening up to allow customers inside the mesh.

The final project of the semester had a similar goal at a larger scale: the design of a public library to 'fit in' to the neighborhood. Carrying forward the conceal and reveal thesis onto this scale of building, I used a series of three simple operations to project up from the form of the restaurant to the form of the Library:

1. Simplification of the form
2. Duplication and spacing of the massing
3. Removal of space which is revealed in oblique observation

These strategies add nuance to the thesis, and give it more depth. The steel mesh is still employed, but broken in the shape of one simple mass's elevation. All of this gives the building two unique viewing conditions.  From the front, you see two perfect gabled forms, but as you observe the building from an oblique perspective, its form becomes more complex to react to the program of a Library. 

The spacing of the two volumes of the project was critical, as it matches the spaces between building seen throughout the neighborhood. As a result of this, there is a large outdoor space created underneath the mesh, which has many programmatic purposes.