Community Center for the EcoVillage

• Bachelor of Architecture
• James R. Jones
• Third Year Book
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During semester one of third year, our studio worked on two projects and a competition. The first project consisted primarily of wood design, and the second primarily of concrete. The competition requested a wood design as well.

Questions were posed at the start of each design process. They included the following: what does the material want to be?

What are the material’s limitations? How does each project respond to the site?

In this book, the process of how each project came about will be discussed. Each one had a different methodology to reach the product presented at the conclusion. Project one was a design concept for a community center for the EcoVillage located in Charlottesville, Virginia utilizing some on-site trees. Wood is unique in that it is anisotropic and contains a grain. This can be used to inform the architecture such as form and circulation.

Project two was an art gallery to be designed to host the work of photographer Ansel Adams. The location was to be in the Vicinity of Moss Arts Center in Blacksburg, Virginia-definitive location to be chosen by the architect. Material was not the only constraint in this project; the perspective Adams had on photography became one as well.

The third year competition, a one-week exercise to design a ranger station, was situated at Pandapas Pond, Blacksburg, Virginia. This highly forested area is greatly sloped, making the path to the building a critical question.