community music center
an extension + reintegration of the existing historic home + music center
little five points, atlanta, georgia
junior studio | fall 2018
prof. george b. johnston
the existing building
this historic home sits on the boundary between a cozy neighborhood of tree-lined streets and the bustling commercial area of little five points. the existing buildings on the site reflect this duality of function with a defunct storefront at the public face, backed up by a home dating to the 1950's. currently, this building houses the community music center at little five points, predominantly used for administrative functions on the 1st floor and teaching music lessons on the 2nd floor. the construction system consists of stuccoed load bearing concrete masonry unit walls and stick wood framing. the understanding of this site as a palimpsest of previous conditions layered on top of each other is important, as we propose the addition of another layer to tie everything together, while providing a performance space, more practice + lesson rooms, and small apartments for visiting artists and musicians in residence.
the plan of the existing historic home implies both foursquare and ninesquare geometries.
by overlaying the foursquare and ninesquare grids, a new grid typology is created.
this grid can be projected across the entire site.
using the footprint of the existing house, two voids are cut out in the dense grid and structure is placed along all existing gridlines so that the grid physically manifests on site.
the existing home can be read as either a foursquare or ninesquare building, depending on your interpretation, with the 1st floor exhibiting the qualities of the foursquare while the 2nd floor thickens the lines of the foursquare to divide the space into the nine compartments of a ninesquare. the overlap of these two systems creates a new type of grid that is then projected across the entire site to structure and rationalize the intervention.
floorplans
sections
