24 Block
This project consists of 24 social housing units located at the Race and Main site in Urbana. This project is designed to transform the undergraduate and graduate housing experience while simultaneously strengthening downtown Urbana.
The design is focused around three central architectural concepts: inclusion vs. exclusion, contraction vs. expansion, and blurring indoor and outdoor space. The building features a study room, community kitchen, recreation room, pool, and communal dining spaces. The site has been terraced to create areas for community areas and amenities to rest. Adjacent to these communal spaces are community gardens, which further encourage collaboration and outdoor engagement.
The design of the building creates an inclusive residential environment and strengthens the surrounding Urbana area. The site is anchored by a central void that runs through from the boneyard, through the building to link Race Street to Boneyard Creek. This void is also visible on the facade of the building. A diagram of how the void impacts the proportions of the facade as well as the plan is shown in the diagrams section at the end of the page.
Site + Concept
The site is located in downtown Urbana, right outside the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. The site slopes downwards to a river that can be seen at the section cut of the 3d site plan. When designing the mass of the building the connection from the river to street level was preserved as a void through the building. This void is expressed on the facade and affects the proportions.
Compression and Expansion
To direct resident traffic into the supporting social spaces a series of concave and convex shapes are used to pull in and push out residents. The ground floor wall seen on the east elevation curves inward in attempt to pull traffic off of the street. This curve is reflected on the backside of the building to push residents into the supporting community spaces. The same concepts are seen in the monumental stairs at the rear of the building. The stairs push residents out towards the boneyard and the community space. That is repeated to create more interactions between residents. Residents are forced to look out onto those community spaces every time they go up the stairs. In addition to the stairs and the curves, differing floor heights are intentional to push residents down towards the boneyard and gardens. This can be seen in the section on the second page.