P002 → A Room to Keep One’s Things
Being a Part and Being Together
Course: 201A, Core Studio 3, Fall 2024
The City As Storage:
Rethinking Oakland’s Central Business District
Instructor: Georgios Eftaxiopoulos
In his mid-twenties, film critic Paul Fonoroff had collected so much cinema memorabilia that his apartment became an archive rather than a “normal” unit as a place to eat and sleep. He eventually leased the unit next door so that he could both expand his collection and also have a bed.
This proposal is for people like Paul whose place of living is centered around their collections and their interests. This project seeks to bring life and inhabitants to an urban block in Oakland which currently exists in a transient state. With a goal to create a living environment for young professionals to be a part and to be together– a place to create permanence and store items, objects, and memories.
Site Condition:
Above: analogous drawing exploring site condition and urban block plan as it currently exists today (level 5)
Located in downtown Oakland, CA, situated between 9th and 11th streets, this urban block currently exists as an office building/conference center and hotel. People who are visiting this block are there for a short time and are not interacting with the surrounding areas or communities.
Housing Precedent:
Top image: Dakota, Building Axonometric
Middle image: Dakota, Level 7 Plan
Bottom image: Dakota, Unit Plan
The housing precedent I studied was The Dakota, located in New York. This building was full of mansion type large apartments with services separated between the tenants and the live-in workers. Because of this separation between spaces like libraries and bedrooms versus kitchens, the units in this building are really customized and unique for each resident. A unit defined by objects and personal belongings. Furthermore, some residents, such as Yoko Ono, acquired multiple units on one level and began to connect spaces and expand units to fit more needs and more belongings. The space can end up in a condition in which it is hard to tell where a unit starts and ends, or where another unit begins.
Housing Proposal:
Above: service spine construction and habitation.
Wooden stud walls become wet rooms and kitchen spaces for each unit. Above are large storage spaces.
This proposal reinvents the case study (Dakota), by using a service spine as an organization tool in which the spine ground units and links them together. The service spine holds bathroom/kitchenette spaces, units are organized around this added wooded structure piece. The spine is also a storage and mechanical device. Storage is created in the space above the bathrooms/kitchens and allows for plumbing and electricity under the raised floor. This is possible due to the large floor heights from the existing office building. This is an added-on wooden structure in which modular prefabricated wooden units are organized around. This gets plugged into the existing concrete structure. The essence of the intervention is the service spine.
Above: service spine physical model.
1:24 wooden model showing service spine construction. Kitchen and bathroom main spaces, above-head large storage spaces with sliding doors, and under-foot space holding plumbing.
Above: process of construction series
The process of the intervention’s construction to integrate the service spine and housing units starts with the original facade being taken off the building. From there the service spine gets built, then the modular wooden units get brought in and arranged around the spine.
Above: Typical unit plan (4 units shown)
Units then get arranged around the service spine. A unit is designed as a small one room space for one person, so that inhabitants can program the space according to their specific needs– in the same way that the Dakota’s units become specific to each inhabitant. The space serves as a cabinet of one's own curiosities.
Above: Unit aggregation, typical level plan (level 5)
As an aggregation, the units are arranged around the center (U-shaped) service spine to allow for exterior circulation. Units have sliding glass doors to access outdoor communal courtyard space. Each level has 28 units. There are 3 levels (floors 4, 5, and 6 of the existing building) → 84 total units proposed.
To access the housing units which are situated within the existing conference/office building, residents are able to use two stairwells or a separate lobby entrance which leads to the elevator bank.
Above: 1000 Broadway fifth level plan before housing intervention inserted
The original office building has existing staircases and elevator cores as well as atrium spaces.
Above: 1000 Broadway fifth level plan once the housing intervention has been constructed
This proposal utilizes the conference center and takes over a largely vacant and unused chunk of spaces on floors 4-6 on the South end of the building. This allows 2 stair banks, an elevator bank, and atrium to become part of the housing proposal. The intervention uses the existing floor plates, only removing the facade and then inserting prefabricated modular units. To allow for continuous external circulation a metal grate floor is added over a small portion of the atrium. Units face outwards and share communal exterior spaces along the circulation path.
Above: 1000 Broadway building section, cutting through the atrium space, facing North
When the building is cut through, you can see the difference between the lively new housing units and the existing office/conference spaces, as well as the two levels of underground parking. The service spine organization between plumbing, kitchen, and storage can also be seen. This transformation is in itself developing a new city model diverging from the mono-programmatic current state. It brings rootedness and a new form of work and life.
Above: Abstracted unit condition-- walls begin to get broken down and units connect to become multiple rooms
The proposed future of this concept is that this housing intervention can expand and morph into a condition in which the non-loadbearing walls between units can get punctured as well as the service spine to allow units to start to connect and expand based on the needs of users and the community that is formed within the space. This could allow for more storage space for residents (people like Paul Fonoroff who have collections that begin to exceed the limits of their space), or for residents to begin to share interior spaces. Where a unit starts and ends would become a blurred line, in the same way as the Dakota.