Perceptions of structure: housing for the elderly in an urban environment

Abstract

Men frequently speak of space and time as if they were only concrete in extent and duration such as the individual consciousness can feel, but enfeebled by abstraction. In reality they are representations of a wholly different sort, made out of other elemently according to a different plan and with equally different ends in view.

Emile Durkheim

The parti is the basic design concept for a building or group of buildings. As a diagram it might suggest certain enclosures and uses. Yet that same diagram can be developed in different ways to create very different types of spaces. The reuse of that parti can offer a new understanding of the essence of that singular parti diagram.

This project is the union of an existing city's parti and the demanding spatial program that, through necessity, opposes that parti. This project demonstrates a reinterpretation of the existing parti diagram by using a new orientation to accommodate a new function, that of accessible housing.