+13 Studio Portfolio

+13

Studio Portfolio

Masterplan & Selected Building Pass Christian, Mississippi 2009 Patrick Willett

Table of Contents

Introduction to the Studio

04

Research

07

Group Master Plans

10

Team Based Building - Visitor’s Center Drawings

13

Reflections on the Semester

31

Copyright Š 2009 Patrick Willett No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission of the author.

All photographs, drawings, text, and layout by Patrick Willett unless otherwise noted.

Mississippi Gulfport Long Beach Pass Christian Bay St. Louis

Waveland

Introduction to the Studio Purpose This architecture and urban planning studio was focused on generating a master plan for an area in Pass Christian, Mississippi and then designing a building within that plan. Pass Christian is close to the more well know cities of Gulfport and Biloxi and was devastated by Hurricane Katrina in August 2005. While many of the individual homes destroyed during the hurricane have been rebuilt or renovated, the city is still building back its infrastructure. The city’s government and planning offices still operate out of trailers and only a couple buildings have been built back in the downtown area. We named the studio +13 because of the city’s elevation.

Walmart Site Before late 2005 a Walmart located on the eastern edge of town along Highway 90 served the Pass and the neighboring town of Long Beach.

The Walmart was destroyed by the hurricane and is presently being rebuilt several hundred feet inland in a slightly more aesthetically pleasing form.

Our studio’s task was to draw up practical ideas for integrating the Walmart into the town and developing the land around it using the town’s new zoning regulations. I helped design a master plan with my classmates Josh and Martin and I frequently refer to them when describing the master plan process on the next pages.

Roadtrip In an effort to learn first hand information about rebuilding efforts on the Gulf Coast, current Walmart and surrounding site conditions, and see examples of architecture in hot, humid climates, our studio took a road trip to the Gulf. We saw the innovative work by Rural Studio in Alabama, the

Ocean Springs Biloxi

small scale retail and housing in the french quarter of New Orleans, the work by the Gulf Coast Community Design Studio in Biloxi, Mississippi, and the current conditions of Pass Christian.

Team-based Buildings or Research Using the group master plans done earlier in the semester everyone designed a building(s) or researched a specific topic. Some students chose community or public centers, smart code research, and several chose housing at large and small scales including one single family house project.

Joel Yow, a fellow classmate, and I decided to collaborate on a group of buildings and a pier close to Highway 90.

The Place The Pass has a history of being a vacation town for upper middle class and wealthy people living in New Orleans and was also home to the first yacht club in the Southeast. Hotel’s thrived in the mid-1800’s but today summer houses and cottages are much more popular. The Pass grew over time but not like its nearby towns like Gulfport and Biloxi. Before Hurricane Katrina the Pass had a population of a little over 6,500 but close to half of the residents have moved north since then. Though, many of the older mansions, that were flooded by Katrina, along Highway 90, have been built back.

Although Pass Christian contains many historic buildings and continues to be a popular place to live it is in a prime place to be hit by hurricanes moving up through the Gulf of Mexico. The Pass was hit by a hurricane in 1947 and again in 1969 by Hurricane Camille with winds over 200mph that destroyed the whole coast between Florida and Texas. Assuming that beach front property was too valuable to leave as complete open space we tried to design in a way that would make the least impact on the land, withstand high winds, and consist of parts that could be replaced when another hurricane hits.

The Climate Because of Pass Christian’s location on the Gulf of Mexico it has a hot, humid, and rainy weather for most of the year. Joel and I used this climate data to decide to use natural ventilation, energy efficient fans, passive heating, and hydronic panels to achieve human comfort.

Introduction – 5

Pass Christian MISSISSIPPI

DEVELOPMENT

BILOXI LONG BEACH BAY ST. LOUIS

University of North Carolina at Charlotte School of Architecture

GULFPORT

OCEAN SPRINGS

PASS CHRISTIAN

WAVELAND

CITY REBUILDING PLANS AFTER HURRICANE KATRINA In October 2005, after Katrina came through in August, the Mississippi Renewal Forum was formed by the Governor of Mississippi, Duany Plater-Zyberk & Company, and the Congress for the New Urbanism.

The Forum brought together architects, planners, and local officials of all the cities along the coast of Mississippi for a week long charette. During the charette, a specific group of planners were assigned

to a city where they noted the concerns of locals, assessed the potentials of each, and proposed changes, focus areas, and/or concerns that the city would need to take care of.

BAY ST. LOUIS

. give attention to Highway 90 and the character of the community around it. . recreate the main street along the beach. . aesthetic decisions and good urban space.

2000 CENSUS INFORMATION Population: ~8200 Size (land): 6.1 sq.mi.

Elevation: 12ft.

The Bay St. Louis team focused: . identifying the systems/infastructure that already existed and how that the structure could be built and improved upon. For instance, placing utilities underground so that they aren’t susceptible to flood damage, etc. . desire to rebuild the rich architectural history in a more hurricane resistant form. Allow only a limited set of architectural styles so that the materials, color, details, and form of some of the original buildings will live on in new buildings. . rebuild the city with emphasis on quality of life.

Pedestrian friendly, bike friendly and keep the small town form.

LONG BEACH 2000 CENSUS Population: ~17,300 Size (land): 10.1 sq.mi.

Long Beach was devastated by hurricane Katrina like the other three towns.

Also, before Katrina, Long Beach was one of the fastest growing communities southwest of Biloxi.

Also, through the Department of Housing and Urban Development, Mississippi made available $500 million for counties affected by hurricane Katrina. $10

million was budgeted for planning and $150 million for community revitalization in the downtown areas of six counties: Harrison, Jackson, Hancock, Pearl River, Stone and George. The rest, $340 million, was set for economic development in 49 counties that comprise the Katrina disaster area.

Many of the plans made during the Forum were

concerned with how the local commercial businesses, communities, meet Highway 90. Several concluded that Highway 90 should be moved as in set back, rerouted a bit farther inland, or changed as in the addition of a traffic circle or median and street trees.

The reason why emphasis was placed on Highway 90 was by locating businesses along a heavily traveled route they could capitalize on it.

CENTER Like several other charette teams, the Bay St. Louis team focused on restoring the downtown “heart” of the community. This sketch is of where the main st. intersects the beach and how buildings could be raised for parking below.

Bay St. Louis has currently a number of projects that are in progress. They are working on restoring their art depot, renovation of the old city hall, the senior citizen center, seawall and other basic infrastructure.

LEFT AND BELOW LEFT Two plans for redevelopment and slowing down of Highway 90. The first image is of the west piece of the redevelopment, the second is of the east as it turns into the bridge.

ABOVE Hurricane Katrina wiped out the Bay St. Louis Bridge that connected the city to Pass Christian. The photo above is of the new bridge that connects the two cities.

officials during the charette took a classic urban planning approach. They proposed increased density all-around and improved quality of life through the urban architectural scale.

Since Katrina, Long Beach has been working on rebuilding some of its municipal buildings. The city is working on a steel, hurricane resistant Recreation/ Senior Citizen Building, a new two-bay fire department building, a rebuilt harbor, and a new city hall. All aforementioned projects are at the proposal phase.

The cities initial plans were focused on: . rebuilding the Gulf Park Campus of the University of Southern Mississippi-Gulf Coast along Highway 90 . realignment of Highway 90 for mixed use development.

LEFT Long Beach proposed regional master plan from the Forum charette.

While the city did vote in 2007 to follow the proposed master plan made by Ayers/Saint/Gross Architects + Planners during the Renewal Forum charette in 2005, they apparently are still in process regarding SmartCode. The team that worked with Long Beach

ABOVE Rendering of the proposed new City Hall for the town of Long Beach.

EXTREME LEFT A diagram from the Renewal Forum charette of the existing condition, the proposed realignment of Highway 90, and the proposed development along the newly constructed section of road.

OCEAN SPRINGS

EXTREME LEFT Plan for the Walmart site.

2000 CENSUS Population: ~17,200 Size (land): 11.6 sq.mi.

Elevation: 23ft.

LEFT Proposed Transit Oriented Developent for the Walmart site.

The team identified several areas that Ocean Springs is already broken into. One was the rail corridor that meets the sound on the west and travels through Ocean Springs to the east. Bienville Blvd., that is Highway 90, runs parallel to the rail road.

Interestingly, Ocean Springs also has a Walmart that was addressed in the initial charette. The Walmart lies along Highway 90 and is bordered by low density residential development like the one in Pass Christian. Although the charette is unclear whether the city could, in the future, support a Transit Oriented Development like the team proposed.

WAVELAND 2000 CENSUS Population: ~6,700 Size (land): 6.8 sq.mi.

Elevation: 16ft.

Waveland was hit directly by the eyewall of Hurricane Katrina and experienced a 32ft. storm surge that devasted the town. The surge took away nearly everything within a half-mile of the beach and at least 50 people died.

not run along their part of the coast. So, the team recommended that Waveland focus its development on a couple of main streets, work to guide development on Highway 90, and keep the beach frontage primarily residential.

Interestingly, Waveland’s team did not recommend the removal or relocation of the CSX train line like so many other teams did. Instead, they recommended the town keep the raised line for storm surge protection.

ABOVE Resident mows the lawn in front of his devasted Waveland home.

The town is primarily a beach town and as noted in their renewal charette document, the majority, sixty percent, of their residents are full-time. Their focus is much more on addressing the large number of artists that live there, a new arts district and housing.

Waveland also recognized the importance of using Highway 90 for focused economic development, though, they are mostly a low density, residential area.

Their situation is different than Pass Christian and Long Beach for instance because the highway does

LEFT Illustration of possible elevated stilt houses that would be required in the velocity zone.

ABOVE Proposed Waveland development from Forum charette along Highway 90

Research

At the beginning of the semester each student was given a research topic to inform the rest of the class about in addition to general knowledge of Pass Christian. I chose rebuilding efforts in Bay St. Louis, Long Beach, Ocean Springs, and Waveland, several cities surrounding the Pass. Because another student researched the current rebuilding efforts in several places I focused on rebuilding plans just after Hurricane Katrina.

Rebuilding Efforts In October 2005, after Katrina came through in August, the Mississippi Renewal Forum was formed by the Governor of Mississippi, Duany PlaterZyberk & Company, and the Congress for the New Urbanism. The Forum brought together architects, planners, and local officials of all the cities along the coast of Mississippi for a week long charette. During the charette, a specific group of planners were assigned to a city where they noted the concerns of locals, assessed the potentials of each, and proposed changes, focus areas, and/or concerns that the city would need to take care of. The Renewal Forum was meant to spur thinking on the potential for urban planning to make a difference in places where Katrina had destroyed all buildings.   Many of the plans made during the Forum were concerned with how the local commercial businesses, communities, meet Highway 90. Several concluded that Highway 90 should be moved as in set back, rerouted a bit farther inland, or changed as in the addition of a traffic circle or median and street trees. The reason why emphasis was placed on Highway 90 was by locating businesses along a heavily traveled route they could capitalize on it.

Spring Trip During our spring break trip to Mississippi and New Orleans we got the chance to eat with the Gulf Coast Community Design Studio and learned a little bit about working in the area. When we raised the topic of the SmartCode and what we thought were very hopeful densities along Highway 90 the team agreed and challenged us to either propose changes to the SmartCode or the required densities.

research – 7

Left Poster summarizing research of the area.

Far Left Psychrometric chart of the effect of passive solar heating over the year. The yellow line indicates the narrow window of comfort across the year and the red line indicates the possible reach that passive solar heating can have meeting human comfort.

Left Psychrometric chart of the effect of natural ventilation & night purge in a building in this climate.

The pink line represents the reach of natural ventilation across the climate data and the red line represents the effects of night purge. The yellow line, though, indicates the narrow window of comfort across the year.

Josh

group member

15’

To get a better idea of what elevated walking would be like our group marked common site elevations on the stairs to our studio.

The red line above is the height that all buildings bordering highway 90 have to be elevated to. All the southern blocks are in the Velocity Zone, an area expected to receive a higher storm surge and wind gusts during a hurricane. Retail establishments depend on casual street traffic to survive so our group initially tried to keep all retail out of this zone.

12’

10’

Martin

group member

8 – Studio Portfolio

We later decided to experiment with elevating retail and connecting it through an boardwalk-like elevated plane.

Throughout the master planning process our group encountered major design decisions. We tried to solve them through sketching, diagramming, and mock ups like the one on this page. In addition, ther groups decided to split up the plan among members and then attempt to synthesize the parts into a whole. We decided to try to work out most all decisions through sketching and talking without splitting up the parts.

left Before splitting up into small groups we collaborated as a class on a full, unfiltered list of possible program elements for the project. This was helpful later when formulating a full program for the plan.

research – 9

Master Plan Evolution 1 Original group master plan design.

In Josh, Martin, and I’s original master plan we placed all of our buildings to the back of our site so a large green/park space in front could serve as a storm buffer, though, the Smartcode recommended high density buildings in the high risk flood zones.

2 Portion of group master plan development sketch.

After presenting the initial plan to the class we decided to design larger buildings in the Velocity flood zone because those buildings could be built to withstand high winds and storm surges.

The main concept behind this plan to create two nodes: a community node and a commercial node and provide a gradient between them.

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Portion of mid-term master plan design.

Portion of mid-term model .

Portion of final master plan design.

To get a better sense of the building heights and the urban space that our group was creating, we constructed a small model.

While working on our individual building projects we revised our master plan.

Our group continued developing the master plan for the mid-term including the commercial node. Since most buildings are in the flood zone and have to be elevated off the ground we used a boardwalklike structure to connect elevated retail.

The boardwalk is colored in red-orange in the plan.

Just above the northern extents of our site is a very freqently used commercial railroad that, in the coming decades, has the possibility of turning into a rail commuter line if there is a very large demand. We included in this plan, an extension of Hayden to the possible future light rail.

5

The parcel below the Walmart and its parking lot is owned by Walmart so the area would not have the same limitations on building that the traditionally small parcels of Pass Christian would. We decided to move our elevated retail to this part of our site.

Building Narrative

The last three weeks of the semester all the students designed a building or researched a specific topic brought up in the master planning phase. My friend and classmate Joel Yow and I decided to collaborate on the design of two buildings. Joel and I have worked together on several projects including the North Cascades Research Facility so we understand each others design process and frequently find that our collaboration pushes us to design better buildings.

We used Joel’s group master plan and chose a restaurant and visitor’s center already programmed in the plan on the corner of Highway 90 and Hayden Avenue. We thought the two buildings could be interesting because of their position to the highway and the ocean. Joel and I proposed that we design each building to respond positively and appropriately to the climate, site forces, street, flood elevation requirements, and the anticipated needs of the East Pass Christian community.

I do not begin the design of architecture by making a concept sketch or model that determines the architecture. I am not interested in that method of working. I begin by investigating the setting for a building and sketching and writing on it with no knowledge of what the final result will be. The first drawings for the Visitor’s Center began in this way. During this early sketching and writing process I pay close attention to what my drawings tell me and usually a consistent thought between them begins to emerge. For me, at this time in my work, the beginnings of an idea are sometimes frail so I work to develop it from every angle and scale at the same time so all parts of the design grow in unison. This is not an easy or quick process but it is creatively rewarding and the results can be surprising.

I chose to hand draft my final drawings because I really enjoy the ambiguity, process of discovery, and beauty of hand drafting. A hand drawing is both process and product; it bears the marks and errors of the makers process and also is a presentation tool. I have worked extensively in several popular computer based architectural aides in school and internships but none are able to approximate the fluid back and forth, everchanging design process I can achieve with simple hand tools and paper.

Building – 13

Opposite Landscape scale drawing. Original paper size: 18 x 24”.

Joel and I began the building design phase by making a drawing of the master plan with our proposed building design configurations darkened in. This drawing helped remind us of the proposed forms around our site and helped orient jurors to our position within the master plan.

this PAGE Initial building and site sketches.

Original paper size: 8.5 x 11�.

These first sketches articulated the structure and an added piece of program, a five story viewing tower.

14 – Studio Portfolio

this PAGE Development sketches. Original paper size: 8.5 x 11�.

These sketches began to define some of the details for how the environment could best be used.

Building – 15

this PAGE Connection and construction details.

Original paper size: 8.5 x 11�.

Because of the short time frame of the project these details remained sketches.

16 – Studio Portfolio

this PAGE Detail sketches and watercolor analytique of bathroom materials. Original paper size: 8.5 x 11�.

Building – 17

this spread Section perspective looking into the shop area. Original paper size: 18 x 24�.

The bay depicted in this early sketch is proportionally smaller than the final building and caused me to reconsider the bay size.

I decided to move up to a larger sketch size to get a better sense of what it would be like to inhabit the space.

this spread Large scale sketch of a changing/ shower stall in the Beach Amenities side of the Visitor’s Center building.

Original paper size: 18 x 24�.

Moving up to a larger paper size for several building ideas proved to be helpful in describing and developing micro articulations.

this spread Progress sketch of the building’s North Elevation.

Original paper size: 18 x 24�.

this spread Plan and elevations of the final building. Original paper size: 18 x 24”.

2 Building Spaces 1 Patio 2 Kitchen 3 Storage 4 Café 5 Visitors Shop 6 Covered Porch 7 Women’s Bathroom 8 Men’s Bathroom 9 Men’s Shower 10 Women’s Shower

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this spread Section and elevations of the final building.

Original paper size: 18 x 24”.

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Building Spaces 1 Patio 2 Kitchen 3 Storage 4 Café 5 Visitors Shop 6 Covered Porch 7 Women’s Bathroom 8 Men’s Bathroom 9 Men’s Shower 10 Women’s Shower

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this spread Hand-drawn perspective looking into the café area.

Original paper size: 18 x 24”.

Just beyond the interior café is an exterior patio for sitting during pleasant weather.

Beyond that is the connecting porch between the Restaurant and Visitor’s Center.

This perspective was particularly hard but a fun design tool too. I began by drawing the skeleton of the plan and constructing a one foot perspective grid. As I added definition to the perspective I also developed other drawings and changed elements of the design.

Reflections on the Semester

This semester was a great learning experience about architecture and the master planning process. I was familiar with master plans but had not participated in planning in a team format. I also learned about my own design process in the second half of the semester. A design process should not be scripted but I’ve found that I can subtly suggest changes to my natural way of designing. This past semester I tried specifically to draw together all of my previous ideas about designing at different scales, a holistic, piecemeal building growth process, and my experience drawing to craft a work of architecture.   In addition, architecture professors like to be involved in student work.

They enjoy giving design feedback but relevant comments are hard when a student has many sketches of what could be and not much synthesized. My professor, Josie Holden-Bulla, was gracious enough to allow the ambiguity in my process and provide comments on what I did have drawn.

Conclusion – 31

A Note on the Type & Design This book uses Arno Pro and Myriad Pro and is based on the pentagon page. In addition, I decided to represent most of my drawings and sketches through photographs of them in settings similar to their creation so the physical existence of the piece is more clear to the reader.