Final project and Thoughts

Thoughts:

Above you will find presentation boards completed by Brianne Johnson and I for our final review. We were both very satisfied with our process throughout the quarter and especially in the last stretch of of our conceptual process and production. Although the initial values we stipulated about our project remained consistent throughout the quarter, our

ideas about execution of those values in the project varied considerably. We had to recognize that there was more than one way to support cultural expression and enable autonomy in residents through the architecture of this project and exploration of many many options made our final resolution far more valid and significant. Going into our final presentation, Brianne and I did a critical analysis of each aspect of our project, relating it back to our major goals and questioning its relevance and performance. Through rigorous studies of multiple facade ideas, options for the structural composition of the bermed promenade and many iterations of site planning alternatives, I believe we were successful in substantiating our ideas and developing our project in a direction that best expressed those goals.

Project Description:

The name of our project is Raising the Grade. This title speaks to our single most paramount goal which is the idea that by creating an attractive and readily adaptable prototype which holds mutual benefit for both farmer and farm worker, that we we might actually set a new standard or ethic for worker housing in the United States. Moreover, we hope to use design to provide new opportunities for growth and learning. In order to achieve these goals, we had to specifically address concepts of identity, affordability and community within our project.

Within the topic of identity, we recognize that the site itself imposes certain constraints on our project. Specifically, it is isolated. It is completely removed from the urban vitality of downtown. One one hand, this could set up a barrier to connectivity and prevent a sense of belonging to the larger Medford community. On the other hand, the condition of the site presents a special opportunity for residents. First of all, the environmental quality and natural state of refuge that is inherent to this beautiful rural site are huge advantages. Furthermore, being removed from the city center sets up the opportunity for the community here to establish its own sense of identity. Residing in its peaceful niche this community will inevitably form a strong internal bond while still being able to participate in the greater community context through school, work and by way of outreach by providing space on site for the larger community to participate in some of the internal communities activity. Most importantly this rural setting truly fosters establishment of a self sustaining, self empowered residential community. This is our greatest opportunity to use design to raise the standard of living and encourage education and personal growth.

Affordability was another element that guided our design decisions at every phase. In order to achieve any of our goals, and in order to encourage farmers around the nation to adopt our prototype, this project would have to be financially feasible. We brainstormed in our initial phases ideas about applying some kind of energy star certification to the farms that chose to adopt this prototype. Similar to Starbucks marketing themselves through their adoption of "fair trade" coffee, what if the farmer that took an ethical approach to housing their workers received a similar rating for their produce? What if provision of ethical worker housing was suddenly the newest trend in farming communities? In terms of the design itself, we focused on passive energy saving techniques, utilizing technologies that would provide significant payback over time (eg solar hot water, composting toilets and thermal mass radiant heating), efficient use of materials, and on ease/speed of construction. By making the initial assumption that this project would be a rapid prototype to be produced on farms all over the US, a pre-fabricated panelized system made sense, so we developed our construction components as a literal "kit of parts."

Community is the last element that we felt necessary to study with particular rigor. We became aware at the very beginning of the project that this culture of this community has specific habits, values, and traditions to which we would have to be very sensitive and responsive. After a great deal of research and after speaking personally with members off the farm worker community in Woodburn Oregon, we started to discuss organization of our site plan. We felt strongly about establishing three separate levels of community activity/interaction on site. The more public portion of the site would be the northern most part where the community building resides. This opens up onto an impromptu soccer pitch or gathering area then bleeds further south into the medium size community space which would be programmed less intentionally than the public area and would be equipped with seating for watching soccer games. Another medium level of gathering exists at the southern most portion of the site in the edible gardens. The last level of community occurs on the raised pedestrian promenade which connects each residential unit onto a single plane. We felt it was important that there be a specific sense or feeling of coming home from work at the end of the day, and leaving the drudge behind you . Careful articulation of transitions and thresholds on site became extremely important to us therefore. The use of a raised promenade provided us with not only a conceptual expression of leaving the fields behind and being able to stomp off your boots, but it had relevance to the ideas of forming a self sustaining and self empowered community. In practical application, we used it to hold composting toilets and a rainwater cistern for irrigation. More importantly though, we recognized that the like many affordable housing projects, we ran the risk of depriving our residents of a real sense of ownership. Therefor, by making the form and character of the promenade relatively customizable, (we provide a gridded framework of recycled plastic or car tires and the residents infill with as much landscaping or paving as they see fit) we are employing the concept of sweat equity to add a sense of ownership and belonging to the project.

The next level of Community transition occurs within the unit itself. Our major strategies with regard to unit design were as follows: 1) To blurr boundaries between inside and outside living spaces in order to enable connections with neighbor, 2) to maximize a very small, low impact space with built-in furniture, lofted beds and applying double uses to as many architectural elements as possible, 3) to optimize natural daylight and cross ventilation through the units' orientation, 4) to maintain a sense of "eyes on the street' so that the shared courtyards between units are activated by residents' constant visual and physical connection.