Orli Schwartz
rAge
(room for aging)
Our concept for the site is a community that celebrates aging in a multitude of forms. We all chose different constituencies to focus on and explored how to tie them together into an intergenerational and interspecies community around the sharing of resources and support infrastructure on the site.
To start, we examined the existing conditions of the site. We didn’t want our community to feel isolated or insular, so it was important to us to include design gestures and choices that engaged the surrounding streets and neighborhood. A large opening off of the commercial thoroughfare draws people in, ramping up to the inner elevated courtyard. Smaller ramps provide access to the bordering residential areas.
Our 4 constituencies are arranged around a single-story central building that provides the majority of the support spaces for the community. These support spaces include classrooms and event spaces, shared office and meeting spaces, recreation spaces, bus stops, a community kitchen, gardens, and lodging for support professionals or guests.
(room for aging)
Our concept for the site is a community that celebrates aging in a multitude of forms. We all chose different constituencies to focus on and explored how to tie them together into an intergenerational and interspecies community around the sharing of resources and support infrastructure on the site.
To start, we examined the existing conditions of the site. We didn’t want our community to feel isolated or insular, so it was important to us to include design gestures and choices that engaged the surrounding streets and neighborhood. A large opening off of the commercial thoroughfare draws people in, ramping up to the inner elevated courtyard. Smaller ramps provide access to the bordering residential areas.
Our 4 constituencies are arranged around a single-story central building that provides the majority of the support spaces for the community. These support spaces include classrooms and event spaces, shared office and meeting spaces, recreation spaces, bus stops, a community kitchen, gardens, and lodging for support professionals or guests.
The buildings designed primarily as living spaces for the groups of constituents overlap the support space at the second level and the rooftop of the support space acts as a common green space for the whole community, including the surrounding neighborhood.
Aging is a word often used in a negative light, amplifying decline and dismissing the potential for growth. This project strives to expand this definition to consider how the process of getting older at all stages of life, allows for a unique exchange of care and support, and a celebration of the aging process and intergenerational living.
Aging is a word often used in a negative light, amplifying decline and dismissing the potential for growth. This project strives to expand this definition to consider how the process of getting older at all stages of life, allows for a unique exchange of care and support, and a celebration of the aging process and intergenerational living.
The constituency I chose to design for in this project was the Sandwich Generation. The Sandwich Generation are those that take on the responsibility of providing care for aging parents, while still providing care or support for their own aging children.
In taking on this project, I began to explore concepts of separation and togetherness, as well as independence and dependence. My form takes the shape of varying levels of separation in 3 dwelling pairs. These pairs are connected, semi-connected, and separate, in order to allow for varying levels of independence and care requirements for Sandwich Generation caregivers, their parents, and their children.
I chose to begin with gable forms, as they are present in the majority of the houses within the existing neighborhood, and it was important to me that the dwellings feel like they fit into the existing neighborhood rather than stand apart from it. Despite the more traditional or rigid street-facing sides of the buildings, there are glimpses of more playful forms beyond through the spaces between them.
The pairs of dwellings are then broken or cracked open (like a geode) to create a faceted void between them. This void functions as a common space for the sandwich generation families and others and is filled with a faceted sloping landscape at the ground level that opens up onto the rooftop of the support building and the streets.
In taking on this project, I began to explore concepts of separation and togetherness, as well as independence and dependence. My form takes the shape of varying levels of separation in 3 dwelling pairs. These pairs are connected, semi-connected, and separate, in order to allow for varying levels of independence and care requirements for Sandwich Generation caregivers, their parents, and their children.
I chose to begin with gable forms, as they are present in the majority of the houses within the existing neighborhood, and it was important to me that the dwellings feel like they fit into the existing neighborhood rather than stand apart from it. Despite the more traditional or rigid street-facing sides of the buildings, there are glimpses of more playful forms beyond through the spaces between them.
The pairs of dwellings are then broken or cracked open (like a geode) to create a faceted void between them. This void functions as a common space for the sandwich generation families and others and is filled with a faceted sloping landscape at the ground level that opens up onto the rooftop of the support building and the streets.