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Project: 1979-1986
ORIGINAL DRAWINGS
Pencil on Vellum, 24" x 36"
This project occupies a prominent site in downtown Charlottesville. Located at the northwest corner of the small, formal urban plateau, the site not only anchors this corner at McGuffey Hill, but because of its high visibility atop the steep hill, the west facade of the building becomes the visual termination to the Preston Road/Vinegar Hill automobile approach. The building is intended to function as both an enclosing wall at the perimeter of Downtown Charlottesville, and as a virtual gateway to the surrounding Albemarle County countryside. The wall is expressed via a compressed east facade (literally so at the building entry); the strategy for the west is more sculptural. One walks through the entry facade into a courtyard with an overview of Charlottesville. The public stair is a distinctive element, both separate from the dwellings and uniting them vertically and horizontally. These stairs are a fundamental component in the social/physical analysis of the project: 16 total units, 4 units per repetitive pavilion, 2 units per stair/vestibule/terrace, 1 unit per family. 1.2.4.16 Dwellings is intended as a site-specific solution which nonetheless addresses some universal architectural and typological conditions. A critique of it as Housing is inextricably tied to the location's unique qualities and the resultant planning and circulation structure. The question of which came first - the individual unit or the building envelope - is moot: they exist simultaneously. The drawings constitute an effort to make the project Real by extending the precision of the ideas. Each space is assigned a dimension, each form is assigned a material. They can be seen as working drawings, which describe the architectural design with no ambiguity.
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