Designing For Overlap

Team Members:

Jodi Hart, Vallabh Viswanathan

 ‘Designing For Overlap’ focuses on the exploration of one of the “Green Connectors” from the ‘Resilient Landscape’ master plan. It proposes that hydrological processes and vegetative spaces should guide urban form.

The “Green Connector” acts as a social corridor that invites collaboration and acts an economic hub whose storefronts open onto the landscape. Additional levels of green terraces climb up the buildings, providing a layer of privacy to the residents and encouraging community gardening and urban farming that partner with restaurants below.

The entire development seamlessly integrates the legacy program, Restorative Justice Center, with workspaces, vocational training, community landscape, and housing. The ‘Green Connector’ provides the beneficial ecological and natural framework for the prioritization of social interaction and economic opportunity, intentionally integrating those previously stigmatized. This project highlights how all systems - economic, environmental, social - can benefit when designed as part of a larger ecology.