HANGING ABOVE CANAL
Berkeley Circus Recognition
Community Resilience Center
Instructor: Mark Jensen, Steven Huegli
Individual Work
The site is located within San Rafael’s Canal District on 3rd Street, which is a densely populated area of lower-income, largely immigrant residents mixed among light industrial uses. The area is comprised of multi-family housing, marinas, and light industrial uses. The day-care center, which serves as a community value-add program, is considered interplay with the community center to form a comprehensive community resiliency network.
In addition to the spatial requirements, the facility shall also incorporate mitigation measures in anticipation of discontinued municipal utility services following a natural disaster. The facility is designed to be occupiable after a natural disaster event, serving as the community’s recovery center.
The project synthesizes structure, envelope, environment, and materials into an integrated architectural solution. According to the analysis of the site, context, and surrounding community, the project is considered as a congregate and engaging infrastructure to assemble the community. It also focuses on applying passive strategies for sustainability to reduce electricity costs. The continuous volume lifts from the ground and elegantly leads the attention to the canal. The space under the volume is treated as transparent to engage the public to the riverside. In order to emphasize the concept, the steel truss structure is used for the lifted volume, and three concrete shear walls support the volume underneath. As for foundation, the steel piers are installed to a depth where they reach bedrock in order to resist the shearing earthquake forces.
