Spring Fall 2023
Studio Critic: Brian Philips
The proposed housing project for new arrivals to Philadelphia is centered around the act of planting roots, literally through the emphasis on community growing, as well as metaphorically by incorporating support of the Philadelphia Welcoming Center. Courtyards organize neighborhoods of housing at varying degrees of vertical interaction with the mall. These courtyards serve as public space, meant to create community while encouraging moments of interconnectedness with one another as well as nature. The courtyards are lined with operable greenhouses made of CLT and PCP. The shell affords occupants full autonomy over their climate, both for personal comfort and green spaces. The opportunity to curate climate offers the preservation and sharing of culinary and agricultural traditions otherwise lost to migrants during their entrance to another country, or through the ongoing climate crisis. The project taps into the mall’s existing heating and cooling systems, subverting the mall’s conspicuous consumption of climate-changing fossil fuels. The housing’s upward-facing ventilation tower serves as a cooling strategy as well as an opportunity for community sanctuary via third spaces. These sanctuary spaces are embedded into communities and used as they see fit as they transition into life in Philadelphia.