MACK JOURNELL

The basis for this project centers around Sleep-Spaces and more specifically, how sleep spaces can become more integrated into everyday life instead of being used at night and left empty during the day.  Thus, each building on my site runs on a time cycle where its function transforms as day turns to night.  The communal gesture on this plot is an open plan, pre-kindergarten school during the day and a communal sleep space at night and is located at the back of the site along the communal alleyway. This logic expands to the rest of the site which is comprised of single room apartments that form 2 pods of 2 apartments and a stand alone apartment on top of the school.  Each one is designed to function as a Murphy-Bed-Like space, including a decentralized kitchen with appliances that can shift around and be tucked away when they are not in use, desks and tables that fold up into the walls, and murphy beds so that the space can be used as a bedroom at night and suit the needs of the inhabitants throughout the day.

Taking a look at the plan view, the walls create modular nooks that appliances can be tucked into or they can become work spaces with a desk. Each nook that protrudes from the main facade of the building is capped off with a window, either spanning half of the wall or reaching floor to ceiling. Thus the beds retract horizontally as to retain as much light as possible during the day. The color coding in the plan represents these nooks with blue being bathrooms, yellow being stairs, and red being the other assorted items.

Next is a diagram of how the plans shift due to cycles of time. On the left side of each drawing is an illustration of how the spaces might be used during the day while the right side shows the interiors during the night.

Now looking at the elevations, there are many screens acting as wall figures. Each one mirrors the angles of the apartments and then extends upwards, creating passageways and site lines that guide people through the ground plane while providing light to the interior of the site. These elements also act as support structures for the stairs that lead to the second level. Users begin their ascent on the “inside” of the screen, and half way up switch back to be on the exterior of the site to plays with privacy and create an exterior space that feels like an interior. On the second level, balconies reach out from their apartments to meet the screens and create patio space as well as canopy for the ground below.

Finally, not only do the objects inside the rooms exist in two phases, but the stacked apartments do as well. Depending on a clients needs, each stack of apartments can function as a single, two room unit or two separate units by locking or unlocking the door to the internal spiral staircase. One example of this merging that I have speculated is two band members that live together, during the day turning one room into a rehearsal studio and the other to a front office or band headquarters.