Course: 2022-2023 Advanced Studio + Thesis Project (Brown University)

Professors: Marthe Rowen & Julien von der Schulenburg

site: Lot 52, College Street, Providence, R.I.

site sq. ft: 20,000

project sq. ft: 45,000

type: Brown Architecture program and dorms

This project, as my undergraduate Honors Thesis project, explores facade design and materiality. The site is a lot on the western edge of the Brown University campus, located near to the Rock Library, the John Hay Library and the List Art Center - all large scale, academic buildings- while also being surrounded by smaller scale residential buildings. 

This contextual fabric lends itself to a kind of village typology that mitigates the relationship between the two scales of surrounding, buildings. By splitting the program into 3 masses for the dorm, studio/makerspace, and public and academic spaces, then connecting these masses with bridges, it creates this ring of circulation surrounding an interior courtyard. The idea of an interior within an exterior works to go beyond the ‘boundaries’ of the built structure, and even beyond the site itself. 

This project seeks for its inhabitants to think critically about the space in which they exist, and to broaden the scope of architecture, making, and design to the Brown and Providence community, through a space animated by students living and engaging with one another in an intimate collective. The  program of the project calls for a makerspace, studios, dorm, dining hall, classrooms, lecture hall and library. The northwest mass serves as the maker and studio spaces, the southern mass as the public and academic spaces, and the northwest mass as the dorms and dining hall.  The site itself is also stepped six feet to create courtyards in the spaces between buildings.

Three precedent projects that were chosen in order to study facade design were the Black and White Building by Waugh Thistleton, Museum Folkwang by David Chipperfield, and the Ogden Center by Daniel Libeskind.  By investigating rhythms, expressions of vertical vs. horizontal, structure, grids, louvres/screenings, and material palette, I could then apply these concepts to designing my own façade.  

This process involved defining elements of regulating lines through looking at the columns, floors, ceilings, as well as program directly behind the façade, and choosing to express vertical columns became a design decision for each facade. Infill and operable windows were integrated with a rhythm that created movement within a rigid grid. Museum Folkwang sparked an interest in ceramic, which would constitute all materials of the façade as ceramic panels, clear glass and channel glass.  

As another set of rules, there is also a system of inside versus outside, with inside being the façades facing the courtyard. On the outside, matte, heavily texture panels inspired by a bubble wrap cast, and on the inside, and on the inside, a glazed, lighter texture made a dotted pattern. Floor to ceiling  glazing  with exterior vertical louvers also became a component of the inside façades. The channel glass bridge would also have infill style clear glass throughout, contrasting the translucent matte glass with shiny, clear glass. This in-depth exploration of the façade design process unravelled an intricate and complex system of components that must work in harmony, with both the architecture and the interior.