Along one of the main roads in Cincinnati in the Kennedy Heights neighborhood, there sits an abandoned Kroger. Surrounding it is a mish-mash of homes and businesses with no cohesive feel or look. This studio examined regional reuseable materials in order to build with what is discarded rather than building new. A terraced landscape builds up and takes over the Kroger, treating the four walls as ruins. The terraces consist of parks, paths, and community gardens that lead you through the site, exploring and uncovering what is there. You slip through a slit in the vegetation to uncover the building below. Dappled light filters into the Montessori School, Cincinnati Art Museum storage, and Community Arts Center. It is as if the underbrush of the land is being inhabited. The “building� disappears into the landscape, becoming both a park and gathering space for the community. Inside, there are moments where the building becomes crystalline below the vegetation, and others where the light is blocked out completely by the growth. Over time, the Kroger will fade away, becoming only a memory underneath the land.
discovery of site + building sequence
collage studio f a l l 2 0 11 cincinnati, ohio aaron betsky + eli meiners
site plan