Singing Cave, 2014

A ROOF OVER LECHMERE STATION, FOR NOW AND LATER

Advisor: Ana Miljacki

The renovation and relocation of Lechmere Station is scheduled for 2017, but can realistically be expected to take several years longer than that. Thus an opportunity presents itself: to redesign the site for its current public, while anticipating and inscribing potential future occupations.

Based on your observations and analysis of Lechmere Station, re-design this bus station/subway terminal site by proposing a new urban roof structure to re-organize and re-spatialize the program and circulation on the site. The roof is the first and most basic form of shelter as well as a symbol of shelter, and both its sheltering performance and its representational dimension will require your attention. In order to address the latter, you will need to develop an attitude about who constitutes the public and how, both now and in the future. Hovering above the ground plane, the roof plane must accommodate all the protocols of the ground plane as well as give form and definition to the site. The roof will provide shelter, shade, light, ventilation, and a new elevated public space in the city, and in order to the design it, you will need to alter the ground plane. However, the ground plane is not the exercise. The design of the roof must suggest, imply, guide and/or demarcate the activities below it. Thus, without seeing a ground plan, by observing the specificities of the roof plan, we should be able to understand how the circulation of buses, the green line, and pedestrians are accommodated and operating below it.

DESIGN RESPONSE