REBORN BY RENOVATION
Winner of 2020 AIA COTE Top Ten For Students
Romberg Center For Ecology And Resilience
Instructor: Marsha Maytum,
William Leddy, Hsin-Hsien Chiu
Role: Designer & Team Leader
Collaborator: Karn Kingkaew, Qihui Bao
The High-Performance Historical Renovation of Romberg Center for Ecology and Resilience is a project about designing trails for different user groups and activating the entire campus by overlapping peoples’ paths at the central mixed-use research building. The project is separated into two phases: master plan design and individual building development. For the master plan, our team introduces waterfront access for the general public and design the pathways to assemble community residents and researchers.
For the central building, the core concept is to design a high performative historical preservation. We studied the existing building orientation and structure and intended to use minimal intervention on the original two building volumes to reduce cost and CO2 emission. Two new volumes of steel structure are extended to the hillside as the research space, and the original heavy timber roof structure is strengthened by some new steel truss and reprogramed into exhibition spaces and classrooms.
A greenhouse in the middle not only connected the old structure and new extension together but also provide a protected space for people from high-speed wind and a gathering space that encourage interaction and collaboration among researchers, the general public, and surrounding residents. The glasshouse is where the designed paths of three user groups overlap in the masterplan phase.
