LIVING IN MOTION:
THE DOMESTIC SPECTACLE
Housing Studio
Instructor: Stephen Slaughter
Summer 2012
This project focused on a new intervention within Over-the-Rhine, Cincinnati that would fuse a public program of performance and spectacle with the private program of urban housing. The inspiration stemmed from the inner city performers and dancers that perform on the streets and open public settings within urban contexts. The design utilizes this spontaneous act of performance by celebrating it’s corner volume and implementing an outdoor public stage for exciting shows. This along with a supportive program of dance studios would cater dance lessons to inner city children and teenagers, while providing exciting shows to the general public. This fusion of living, expression, and philanthropy aims to revitalize a dynamic corner to a growing urban condition.
Spectacle of People and Program
Formally, the building is represented as the existing square site (cube in volume), but then the same cube is inserted then rotated to the true north axis. This simple move allows the building to push the boundaries of the edge conditions, and the interior spaces begin to push and peak out of different views toward it’s surrounding environment. This also begins to create a spectacle of both the building and the inhabitants of the housing and dance studios through a constant moving image of the users and the mirage that the exterior scrim creates.
The merging of different types of people was also vital to this project. The corner of 12th and Vine St. is an active and loaded scene with restaurants and bars and traffic that swarm this area. There are students, business people, families, and inner city crowd that all move through the streets of this area. The project in this sense is inspired by this diversity and movement of people and culture.
The Spontaneous Performance
The programming was set up to optimize the corner as a public gathering space and break-out performance stage. The subtraction of the corner mass allows this space to breathe fresh life and bring both pedestrians and performers to this stage. The housing lives within the rotating masses above. The play with screens and different rhythms of curtain wall mullions allowed for more visual movement for the design. Within the housing masses, voids were carefully implemented to allow for public gathering spaces and separation of different housing types.
The surrounding existing buildings created odd but interesting view ports into the site, and this allowed the back of the housing to have an open garden space which would also visually connect to the cafe located at the north end of the site. This collision of views and rotated axis creates an exciting visual and physical movement in, through, and outside of the building.
