User/Re-Use is a design project that aims to re-imagine a user's (or occupant's) spatial experience through a set of interventions on an existing building. The site of the project is in Charlotte, NC, occupying an existing brick building envelope. Designers were tasked with creating new space for retail and office use.
Architectural Designer
4 months
2 Architectural Designers (Ben Simmons, Eric Jackson)
Design critic (Kelly Carlson-Reddig)
Adobe Creative Suite, Rhino 3D, Revit, V-Ray
The first problem we addressed revolved around the future users needs for the space. Determining where to place certain portions of the program so that users could seamlessly navigate between different areas.
Implementing expressive formwork was another key design focus, as the existing site offers lots of historical context and materiality.
For this particular project, our wireframing consisted of different phases of iteration. The first phase involved detailed diagrams of space manipulation and program hierarchy, focusing on the needs to the users and their ability to navigate the large space seamlessly while maintaining boundaries for more private areas within the building.
The next phase included more refined wireframes that explored the atmosphere of the place; how does the user experience an entrance, an aperture, or even the material they are surrounded by. This was all an important focus of the project and its accessibility to users.
During this case study, I found that it is important that the brand and its creative physical presence should be reflected in the digital space as well. Doing this is easier said than done, but this case study was an exercise not for re-defining the brand, but bringing its physical (print, model, building, spatial) presence into the digital world in a way that is reflective of what already exists.
