VASCILLATING VOXELATIONS

PUBLIC MARKET

* Awarded first place in Schenk-Woodman Competition

ARCH 502

Institution: University of Pennsylvania

Location: Callowhill, Philadelphia, PA

This project is an exploration into the formal and spatial possibilities of truchet tiles and the patterns produced by their aggregation. Specifically, the repetitive and labyrinthine nature of the truchet pattern was of interest to the design of a marketplace. Through the iterative development of the pattern in grasshopper, the individual tiles eventually became multiscalar in order to create spatial and programmatic variation. This concept of scalar variation was applied to the site strategy by deliberately assigning smaller or larger tiles to regions of the site according to what programs were to occupy that region.

The pattern over the site was broken deliberately into two halves, split by the railway. The meandering path which divides these two halves creates an outdoor fresh food marketplace situated along the railway park. The form of the building and particularly the sectional qualities of the interior were further developed using the intersection of a second extruded truchet pattern, perpendicular to the original. On either side of the market, each half was assigned specific interior programming. The building closer to North Tenth Street houses artist studios, a public gallery, and a makerspace. On the opposite side is a Community Center specifically geared towards serving the homeless population of Callowhill and North Chinatown, offering a cafeteria, limited housing, and job assistance programming.

GEOMETRIC ANALYSIS