Shelter- New Haven

This next project was the big one of the semester. I ended up dropping my class because of personal reasons but I did get quite far in this process regardless.

The site is located on the intersection of Orange street and Chapel street in New Haven, CT. 

The project program was to "design a mix-use space which included transitional housing and residential support in a city center" which was in terms a homeless shelter.



So to jump right into it here were the building specs we needed.

So like any project you need a site analysis.

NOISE AND ACOUSTICAL 

WEATHER

MORE WEATHER

And then you gotta have precedents for your site.

My main intention for this building was to emphasize on the connection of the people and the city. I love utilizing green space as a way of connectivity. It not only draws the building into the skyline of whatever is around it, but especially for this project, it draws the people it's being designed for into it as well. Meaning, these people have been living outside homeless, so anything with a small similarity gives them that much more to feel comfortable with in this transition. "Transitional housing"

This brings me to the precedents of how the design was going to be.

Now we get to the fun stuff, where I start putting it all together.

Hey there Sketch Up, nice to see you again.
So here we have some rough rough elevations. As you can see this is where my semester ended for me. I didn't finish adding windows and such.

Then I played around with how I would want the circulation to pan out for public vs private spaces of the building.


The bottom two floors consisted of public space where you'd find coffee shops, a little convenient store, mailroom newspaper stand, clinic, etc.

The idea of adding these spaces specifically was one because there was a bus stop right on the corner so a coffee shop, new stand, etc. would be beneficial, and also because adding places where jobs were needed to be filled allowed the homeless people to be able to transition to the work force. 

This last render is the last of what I completed in this project. This angle showcases the ideal of green space and how it connects the whole building and doesn't give a harsh skyline addition. 

Thanks for keeping up with me,

Michelle 

Micro House- Temporary Living

SO, it's been a while hasn't it?

Well I wasn't taking a lot of design or architectural classes for a while, and it sucked. So I dived right into it last semester. But it hit me like a bus. I learned at this new school (U of Hartford) I was very behind in the technology. I'm a hand drawing person completely and the rendering level these kids were at made me feel VERY old.

So Studio/Design 5 started off with a "Micro House" project. We got to decided whether we were designing for emergency shelter use or temporary living for the homeless. The idea was so it could be constructed quickly in a small space (parking spot).

So I decided to design for emergency use but in the end it changed to temporary living. But we'll get to that.

Fist off, here's my site I chose. This was on the intersection of Church street and Ann Uccello street in Hartford, CT. There is a homeless shelter and an excess of homeless people in this specific area. As for emergency use (Winter blizzards when shelters are full and we need coverage asap) the parking lot behind works perfectly for overflow. The lots will be empty as well due to the fact there will most likely be a road ban during this time.

Some process drawings-

For some reason half of my final section cuts and plans look semi similar to the process work.  

As I began presenting this my professors helped me come to the conclusion that I didn't need to change the project- just the usage. So that's how this became a temporary living space vs emergency space. 

As you can tell, I love sketch up if you haven't caught that drift yet. 

This project was super quick, maybe two weeks tops so there wasn't much time for development or tweaks but it came out pretty swell. 

Thanks for keeping up with me, 

Michelle