Harvard Graduate Housing Complex

The 29 Garden St. Graduate Housing Complex for Harvard University provides 143 beds for students from a wide array of graduate programs. The project's 75 residential units include studio, double-studio, two bedroom and faculty three bedroom unit types. Other components of the community complex include a residential food servery/convenience store, a dining commons/multi-function room seating 45-80, an informal lounge, a garage with parking for 62 cars, a laundry facility, a campus police substation, double-height communal spaces, and a new 10,000 square foot rooftop garden terrace.

Working at the urban scale, the roof of the existing parking structure on the interior of the site was developed as a new occupiable open space. The newly reclaimed garden is accessed and visible from Garden Street through a three storey archway and stair cut through the existing building facade.

At the terrace level, three bedroom townhouse-type units, accessed directly from the new garden, provide for a resident faculty presence. On the typical levels, a new housing type for Harvard - the ‘double studio’ – has been created. One double studio type affords students independent living/study/sleep areas, while sharing kitchen and bath amenities. The second variety includes a space-efficient, pre-furnished shared dining/conference/social nook and provides private bathrooms for each student.

Walk-up circulation through the building, with its attendant community life, is promoted by a newly created main stair which opens variously onto lobby space and communal function room and, through extensive glazing to the garden below. The stair is accessed either from the ground floor lobby or through the second floor courtyard entrance lobby.

Brookline Residence Interiors

Its structure and enclosure completed previously, the interiors of this residence were designed and fitted out as a separate project, building on the intentions of the original shell.

The interior finishes are roughly troweled plaster and burnished concrete with doors and trim of Philippine Mahogany. The floating concrete floor topping provides acoustic insulation between floors of the light wood construction. The topping includes concealed radiant heating in order to eliminate the intrusion of mechanical fixtures in the simple detailed spaces. Specially designed passage doors are hung on pivots and overlay their frames providing a sculptural presence for the flush wood slabs. The new casework and paneling are of subtly contrasting species: birch for the upper floors, rift cut American White Oak with it’s brilliant medullary flecks for the formal living room and quartered Red Oak for the dining floor.

The Belmont Hill Club

Building on the core of a pre-existing prefabricated building, this major addition and renovation develops a vocabulary of members and paneling which achieves a new presence and compositional completeness for the existing steel fabric. Natural finish wood is used in combination with the metal where surfaces are touched or walked upon. The project's arced plan geometry is derived from the origin point of a founder's tree planted in the club's entry drive circle. The arc's concave front forms a gesture of welcome at the club's entrance elevation; while the convex back maximizes the relationship of the new addition's interiors and decks to the sweeping landscape views. Through the careful selection of members and thorough planning of detail assemblies, awkward detail intersections were kept to a minimum while emphasizing the inherent precision and crispness of the rolled steel sections.

A synthesis of urban planning, architecture and sculpture, this Memorial straddles a major path traversing centrally located Marion Square in Charleston SC. The memorial's position was chosen by the architect to occupy a place of frontality, adjacent to the existing Calhoun obelisk,

and appropriate to the intent of the city and local community to highlight the mission of remembrance. The piece is conceived through the eyes of the local survivors whose names are inscribed on a wall which forms the backdrop to a long bench which accommodates meditating visitors. The 'interior' of the memorial is formed by a two-story high screen of mill-finish stainless steel. The visitor is called upon to speculate on the nature of the boundary and his or her place in relationship to it whether to be within or without. At the center is a 16 ft bronze sculpture created by the architect (see Jonathan Levi, Research). A place of assembly whose footprint echoes that of the memorial sanctuary will accommodate the annual ritual of remembrance. Its side aisles, walls and tilted grass floor quietly guide the observer to varied perspectives on the sanctuary's space prism and a gradual awareness of the sculpture lying prone within. They also serve everyday life as comfortable places to sit, recline and pause. The memorial is constructed of specially mixed and finished concrete, detailed and heavily reinforced to reduce jointing beyond that normally expected by the eye, thus strengthening the monolithic aura of the material.

This suburban residence is the third in a family of projects whose resemblance is based on a common demonstration of innovative building elements meant as proposals for general use. The May residence is sited on difficult terrain. Its point of departure is a cantilever used to minimize the footprint on the small lot while thrusting the second floor living spaces and decks out to the view. A wood

structured and concrete paved bridge makes the connection to the street with minimal disruption to the topography. The auto is accommodated by a richly detailed porch roof which serves the front door as well. Three elements of the iconic house; roof, dormer and vertical mass (chimney) are impacted and brought together on the front elevation to convey a clearly legible image of domesticity. The cladding and windows are second generation prototypes exploring refinements in methods of assembly, finish and functionality. (See Jonathan Levi, Research). The cladding is resin-coated plywood, assembled in coursed boards which are coordinated with the window and door openings. Using a cambered jamb, the windows, though as tall as 9 ft, use a single handle fastener to seal and maintain full compression against the weather.