The goal of this semester long project was to design a recreational center for a community in Roxbury, MA. With my professor Armando Plata, I spent the first half of the semester experimenting with concepts by creating “Artifacts”— two and three-dimensional abstract art pieces as a way to determine my concept. These artifacts culminated into a concept of exposing complexities and connections. 

Expanding on my concept, I decided that the theme of the recreational center would be Art & Creation. The complexities being exposed are the variety of different creative disciplines the center will be designed for. The connections would be the collaboration between the disciplines, highlighted by a unique floor plan that’s designed to encourage collaboration. 

The final design consists of six separate buildings, or “shops”, connected by a glass clad space-frame that spills out, forming an art gallery in the rear of the building. The shape of the shops were designed specifically to create social hot-spots within the circulation, encouraging collaboration. The geometry of the space- frame was generated using Blender by simulating a fluid flowing through the shops and flowing out of the rear. Figuratively, the collaborative work created in the shops would eventually be “washed up” by the fluid, into the gallery.