Archives: 2013
CUBE will host 10 Min. Architect – a free design clinic, Sat. Feb. 2nd, 9-11:30 at 3CUPS in Chapel Hill, NC fb.me/1vItuukg3
Posted in Partner Jason Hart has been appointed to the Community Design Commission for Chapel Hill, NC.
Our efforts helped stall the demolition process for Neutra’s Cyclorama in Gettysburg, but it seems that the battle… fb.me/zxnXam8V
In all of our projects, we seek out the inherent qualities of the project site and context and strive to enhance the awareness of those qualities through our architecture. When our projects involve an existing building, our approach is no different. Rather than beginning with land topography as we would with an empty site, we consider the existing building as another type of topography. For our conversion of H.H. Richardson’s Hayden Building in Boston’s Chinatown, we interpreted the building and studied its newly defined relationship with the urban context. We made use of multiple resources to better understand the historical context of the building. A thorough analysis of the Richardson archives at Harvard University provided an insightful view into the mind of the architect. Another invaluable resource was the Stonehurst Residence in Waltham, MA which is one of only a few remaining residential projects by Richardson. We also took advantage of many of the historical societies that offered information about the building, the City of Boston, and its neighborhoods.
The research not only uncovered a bit of the Hayden Building’s eclectic past, but it also revealed Richardson’s design tactics that would ultimately serve as a precedent for our work: The Activated Edge, Sequence of Thresholds, and the Horizontal Datum.
Left: Historical photo courtesy of Historic New England | Right: 1814 & 1883 Historical Sanborn Map images