Located on the busy intersection of Vliet Street and 24th, ACTS Housing currently occupies the first floor of the historic School Sisters of Notre Dame Convent. The convent, as well as ACTS, used to be a part of the St. Michael’s Church. They are now their own independent non-profit business, and their desire to remain connected to the community that helped build them is stronger than ever.
This site provided a new opportunity to engage on various levels with the surrounding Midtown neighborhood, St. Michael's church congregation, and ACTS employees. Through our interactions, observations, various research methods and conversations, we’ve developed a design to suit the needs of ACTS as well as the surrounding community. The result is a proposal to breathe new life into the entire St. Michael’s campus, as well as adapt the spaces within the convent to reconnect both ACTS and the neighborhood, with hopes of providing a plan that continues to suit the needs of the community for years to come. |
Rebecca Holmquist
My aspiration to design for the reuse and repurposing of yesteryear’s buildings intensified in my early college years as I lived and walked through Historic Districts. I realized that Historic Preservation was a passion shared by others; I wasn’t the only one concerned with the fate of these buildings and neighborhoods. This ignited my ambition to join with those that would study and preserve our architectural history. I believe that understanding and honoring our heritage and our ancestors’ accomplishments allows us to build firmly on our successes and learn from our mistakes. Developing an in-depth understanding of design characteristics and architectural styles will bring us one step closer to preserving not only our buildings, but our collective cultural past. What I have learned throughout this project is that Historic Preservation is not just about the building and its past. While we need to remember and celebrate cultural heritage from years gone by, it is also important to adapt to the changes over time. Historic Preservation not only needs to strive to obtain the original character of a building and its history, it also needs to adapt to new uses and occupants. |
Alessandra Maurtua
Designing isn’t always an easy task, there are always a series of factors one should consider. One being its existing surrounding and how your new design could impact its community. Something about the boundaries and the edges it creates has always captured my attention unknowingly. Looking through my work I realized that the creation of an edge was really crucial as well as the carving out spaces of a building or a landscape.
This semester has pushed me to explore the true meaning of a boundary and how it creates an edge, especially how to apply it to an urban landscape to create a social space. The way the neighborhood was framed really had an impact on the way I designed, thinking of boundaries, clusters, building types and areas of opportunity. Areas where it would be safe for residents to enjoy some time together instead of staying within their block. This made me think of “Another way of understanding and acting to change special awareness of human life” by creating what Edward Soja thought of a third space. With this came the study of edges how they are an extension of its surrounds and that can create zones. |
Emelia Rudd
In historic preservation, we are taught to respect the physical history of a site: the materials, the structure, the building itself. With a strong background and degree in social history and historic research methods, I’ve come to believe preservation can expand to mean more than just preserving or adapting physical materials and space. Every site, every building has a social history – people who walked the land, the halls, who occupied the space. At one time or another, a site could have been a gathering place, a home, or even a refuge. This ephemeral study of space falls neither in the physical nor tangible realms - instead, it creates a third space, causing a building comes alive. The interior design for ACTS Housing is the result of a combined respect for the building’s physical history with direct relation to the social fabric of the neighborhood, the building's current occupants, and the site's urban history. This design proposes the adaption of a physical, historic space to tell a socially rich story of home and placemaking. At its very core, the building was once utilized as a home for sisters, then a home for refugees. Now it will be home for ACTS Housing, and all those who come to occupy it in the future. |
Chara Yu
"A boundary is not that at which something stops, but...that from which something begins its essential unfolding," said philospher Martin Heidegger. While physical boundaries can sometimes be thought of as barriers, they have the capacity to become a transformative zone. In this studio I've explored the potential of boundaries in an urban context for spatial and social change. The Midtown neighborhood is more concentrated with residential buildings while there are more commercial buildings beyond its borders. At the scale of the block where ACTS is located, various boundaries are formed by buildings, pavement, fencing, and landscape. The building scale of ACTS Housing also presents boundaries in the small enclosed spaces and layout. At all three scales, I see opportunity for growth in the physical realm that would then be able to make social and experiential change. Redesigning the interior of the ACTS Housing building redefines its boundaries by making it a more open and welcoming space. The proposed landscape design of the ACTS Housing site and parking lot uses the idea of a multi-use space to create social experiences and draw people from around the neighborhood. This concept could be developed and multiplied in empty lots throughout the neighborhood for long-term and lasting change. |