Elderly housing, orphanage, and community center

Abstract

Architecture cannot target only a particular age group or type of person worthy of its attention, but rather must respond to the entire human condition. I chose to design a project that would allow me to consider architecturally the span between birth and death, with both segregated and interactive spaces for the various age groups.

The site echoes the human condition in complexity—a steep, wooded slope partially encircling a flat open area, separated by a large, flat stream, further disrupted by a tiny, steeply falling stream. Located on the outskirts of Newport Virginia, the project is a small, self-contained community intended to relate to the existing town in spirit as Le Corbusier’s La Tourette relates to the nearby town of Eveaux—felt and glimpsed but not seen.

The building is organized around a series of major concrete walls, paired for circulation and containing volumes between the pairs, spaced in multiples of two and three. These walls are oriented to the geologic strike of the rock beds, perhaps the most permanent of all site qualities. Bridges link portions of the project on both sides of the stream, and the center is carved out to form an open plaza; a microcosm of the valley and surrounding ridges which make up the landscape.