The Niche

Samantha Massey

Professor: Katie Stranix

Semester: Spring 2022

Type: Semester Project

Our student center aims to create a variety of spaces for pause and collaboration within a larger connective circulation. Situated in an integral point bridging the Charlottesville, UVA and Lambeth Housing communities, the Niche relies on a core modular system of form, structure and transparency to define its places and how they engage the community. The cell, cavity, node, niche, edge and joint condition each give a different personal experience and are not specifically assigned to a program. Thus these spaces function in providing individualized atmospheres for the user. By way of this catalogue, our student center provides the community with a space for individual as well as collective growth. The tectonics of the Niche allow it to connect with its context while remaining a coagulation of respective transparencies experienced on the interior, unique and more dynamic to its surroundings. These conditions informing the plan, provide the Lambeth community with the social and rehabilitative space it lacks.

Documenting explorations into the sequencing of space were important to the identification of the kind of circulation we desired for the commons.

Investigations into conditions of the site helped to analyze how these categories could be manipulated to provide a certain experience to the visitor. We took an interest in targeting the audience of Lambeth housing for space they needed to collaborate, communicate and succeed.

The invention of an organizing mechanism ordering space within the complex was the first step in devising a desirable plan. Further, spaces were organized through conditions studied of the site and relation to one another. By the imagination the kind of emotion we wanted to evoke in each category, we could accurately assign their conditions of enjoyment.

The collection of unique spaces created in the new commons contrasts with the failing harshly separated design of the existing Lambeth buildings. Changing elevation platforms through the building provide separation of space while maintaining an overall fluid circulation.

The designed roof condition works to provide a gradient of natural light by way of three conditions of the roof. The hexagonal organization of the catalogue connects to the roof condition supplying the space with the desired atmosphere.

The overall character of the student center strives for individuality amongst community. The catalogue helps to supply spaces for unique needs but maintain the feeling of being part of something greater. Opposing to the current condition of Lambeth grounds, the Niche heightens a feeling of self amongst a people by designing specifically to the scale of the individual.

Iterative work