Project 1: Community Need Center
Aid an underserved community by determining the community's needs and creating structures to fulfill these needs.
What is an Underserved Community?
An underserved community with lack or various resources and services. This can look different in many aspects as each community is different but there are many similar qualities between many of these underserved communities. To develop a further understanding on what an underserved community is, my classmates and I worked together to create a checklist on different qualities of an underserved community.
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Identifying Underserved CommunitiesBased off of the checklist, we researched maps of these qualities in the Dallas area. From this, we determined that most underserved communities were in the south and southeast areas of Dallas. From here, we started looking into specific underserved neighborhoods and picked a neighborhood to research further. I decided on researching the fair park area, where the state fair is held yearly, and tried finding sites of interest for potential building.
Fair Park was added to Dallas in 1886 and didn't have it's own unique use at the time. Different groups of people would rent out the area for their own uses. At one point in the 1920's, the KKK used fair park as a recruitment site bringing large divide and segregation in the community between races. Over time, Fair Park expanded leading to destruction of many nearby neighborhoods. Furthermore, to hide the impoverished neighborhoods around fair park, even more expansion was done leading to less and less affordable housing being created. |
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As I was further researching Fair Park, I found a neighborhood called South Boulevard/Park Row. This neighborhood is part of the fair park area just south of the actual park. This neighborhood is a really old, run down neighborhood with a large Islamic community. The two sites I found were fairly close to each other, in fact they were on the same street. The first site was a large rectangular piece of empty land in the middle of the neighborhood. The second site was 2 separate large vacant lots at the edge of the neighborhood which I combined into one L-shaped lot. Both sites were near a middle school that was across the street.
Based off of these two sites I decided to choose the L-shaped site as I would be able to play around the space.
Based off of these two sites I decided to choose the L-shaped site as I would be able to play around the space.
Site Analysis
Now that the site has been chosen, I created a site analysis of the site in order to figure out what areas of the site are good for building, ways to access the site, and how to adapt the buildings to the site.
Based off of the analysis I was able to figure out how the site is separated. All the residential areas are located on the south, southeast areas of the site while the commercial areas of the site are on the north, northwest parts of the site. Most of the commercial areas are also across the street and highway. The highway allows for the site to be more open to the public yet the location allows for the site to be easily acceptable for the neighborhood.
Masterplan
Education CenterBased off of the middle school across the street, I decided that a education center would be a good addition to the site so middle schoolers would be able to walk across the street attend classes and receive extra help in their studies.
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DaycareAdding onto the education center, I figured a daycare would a a nice addition as parents would be able to pick up all their kids if they have kids of various ages who aren't old enough to look after themselves.
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ParkThe park idea was created as a way to create a gathering area to bring the community together. The park is also a nice way to create cohesion between the daycare and the park with a playground for the kids in the daycare.
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GymAs both of the buildings earlier discussed were for more of the children, I decided to add a building for the parents. As the neighborhood is an Islamic neighborhood, and women only gyms are in higher demand, I wanted to add a gym with separate spaces for both men and women.
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Site Model
Development
Based off of the original ideas the buildings, I tried playing around with shapes to enhance the site with the buildings. I ended up creating 3 separate buildings that surround the perimeter of the site creating a community gathering space for the community to create the abstract idea of togetherness and helping each other.
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The development of the education center was the most challenging as it took up the most space; however, it was the main building creating the community gathering area do its design was essential. The design of the building was split into two areas: classroom/learning areas, and library on part of the first two floors.
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The floors of the gym are split into 3 parts: parking, men's area, and women's area. The parking space addresses the parking issue due to the limited space. Also on the first floor is a entryway into two separate lobbies, one for each gender so the can enter their respective floors without running into each other.
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The daycare is designed to be split into 3 areas on the first floor: one for infants, one for toddlers, and one for kindergarteners. On the half second floor is a workers lounge with a glass view of the downstairs to overlook the children if anything were to happen.
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Final Designs
Education Center
The final layout is based off of the idea of separation between school and library. The main classrooms are to the right of the floor plan while the library is to the left. The main entrance is located in the tunnel on the first floor which visually breaks up these two parts of the building. The tunnel also opens up into the community gathering space. In this space is where events, gatherings, and parties could be held. This courtyard also contains a set of stairs leading to the roof of the education center where a roof garden is located. This is an extension of gathering space for the community to enjoy the views of the flowers contained in the garden as long as an oversight of the entire site. Visitors will be able to take in the view of the gathering center leading into the community park and the daycare creating the idea of togetherness and cohesion.
Along the outside of the building facing the public is a series of ribbon windows to allow natural light into this project but still giving privacy to the students from the general public. To contrast this, the side of the building facing the community gathering space contains walls of glass curtain walls in order to create the illusion of openness in this space.
Daycare
Each section of the daycare provides the basic needs for children such as classrooms and a cafeteria, yet there are small elements catered to each specific age group. Infants have a nap area, toddlers have a gated outside play area, and the kindergarteners have a library and a door leading to the neighborhood's park playground. The half second floor is created as a relaxation space for the teachers/workers of the daycare but it also oversees the floor below to ensure the safety of the children.
The walls of the daycare facing the neighborhood are solid and closed off from the public to create privacy for the children. In order to combat the closed off visual, the walls of the daycare facing the park are glass curtain walls. This allows natural sunlight to enter the main classrooms as long as creating a visual connection between the daycare and education center with its similar design. This creates the abstract idea of all the buildings being connected in order to create a flow of the gathering space into the neighborhood park emphasizing the area as one huge site instead of three separate buildings and sites.
Gym
The main idea behind the floor plan was to give bot men and women similar spaces and experiences but in their own comfort. This leads to the design having a separate lounge for men and women on the first floor and each lounge leading them up to their respective floors. To add a greater sense of privacy, maze like entrances to provide a sense of security where everyone entering the space is there to use it and no one is peering inside. The balconies are included to create a connection between the gym and tutoring center where both buildings together create the gathering space and one people can oversee the space from both buildings.
To maintain a sense of privacy but at the same time opening up the space to create an open feel, ribbon windows are used to bring in natural light into all areas of the building but are placed high enough where privacy is still maintained,