A New Lease on Life: From Historic Building to Flexible Workspace

Presenter

Brianna Rose Wetherbee

Campus

UMass Dartmouth

Sponsor

Rose Mary Botti-Salitsky, Department of Interior Architecture + Design , UMass Dartmouth

Schedule

Session 3, 1:30 PM - 2:15 PM [Schedule by Time][Poster Grid for Time/Location]

Location

Poster Board A69, Campus Center Auditorium, Row 4 (A61-A80) [Poster Location Map]

Abstract

This thesis project will take a French-Renaissance style building located in the heart of Philadelphia and convert it into a mixed-use co-working office with the goal of creating more purposeful community spaces. With the rise of gig-work and recent changes in corporate organizational structures, contractors/freelancers have become more common, resulting in a new demand for co-working spaces and pressure to rethink the work-life balance. W. E. B. DuBois, a sociologist and activist known for his essays on race and culture, defined and developed what he coined “The Development of a People”. The fourth stage, preceded by stages of subsistence, accumulation, and education, defines how as humans, we need “culture-contact”, which is the “transference and sifting and accumulation of the elements of human culture which makes for wider civilization and higher development” (DuBois, 1904). Essentially, we as humans do not exist in isolation and as such, we need spaces in which we are allowed to meet other people, share ideas, and explore. Simultaneously, many historic buildings sit empty. These beautiful buildings deserve the chance to find a new purpose and the process of adaptive reuse has several economic and environmental benefits. As interdisciplinary designers, we are at the forefront of the sustainability movement; we can control how these spaces function as a part of the site and with the environment rather than as in independent in insolation. The co-working office will be designed using data from precedent studies and other data relating to space planning to ensure circulation efficiency and flexibility.

Keywords

space planning, office design, sustainable work spaces, adaptive reuse

Research Area

Architecture and Urban Planning

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