Interstice

20 INTERSTICE Relate: Housing in Chelsea, MA Harvard GSD Core IV | Spring 2025 Instructor: Nima Javidi Team: Betty Chen, Yi Zhu

21 Third Space: Porch The Third Space are interstitial spaces, the small yet signifi cant gaps between private and public life, which “hosts the regular, voluntary, informal, and happily anticipated gatherings of individuals beyond the realms of home and work. ” (Ray Oldenburg) Porch allows us to have a glimpse through the identical facades of the typical North American wood- frame houses and understand the different backgrounds and personalities of the individuals living in them. When projecting this migration timeline forward, what is the potential of the typical porch? Stages to perform, out-door rooms to breathe fresh air, places to see and be seen while maintaining certain boundary... By taking the bar typology, hinging at the ends and bridging across, we came to a new typology where intimate space fl ows naturally to the more open and public spaces. The transformed bars have a single-double dichotomy, where the single bars house private programs and the doubled ends house larger living spaces and public kitchen. Negative space framed in-between two bars becomes potential rain garden, landscape, porch, or future additional unit. Timeline | Migration: Adaptation of the Porch at a Typical Triple-decker in Chelsea, MA Collage | Hinging Exercise with unit plan from Casa de Tierra by Peris + Toral Arquitects Top: Porch Axon | Bottom: Porch Render

22 Third Space: Core Each point-load system connects along a shared party wall, and the hinging angle allows for the porch to be injected into the slits. The hinge serves as the circulation core, connecting different floors, reorienting the route of travel through the spiral staircase, and providing access to the porch; the porch, in turn, allows for a smooth transition from outdoor to indoor. This frontality towards the porch determines the placement of the wet wall, creating porsche and niches shared by people both from the inside and outside. The porch not only functions as the entrance hallway into different migrant family units, but also a common space for leisure, storage, and cooking. Top: Unit Plan (Stage I) | Bottom: Core RenderTop: Hinges | Bottom left: fragment model (1'=1/4") | Bottom right: fragment model 1'= 3/16"

23 Site: Now and Future The units form a fi eld of interconnected ribbons in a zig-zag manner from the lowest SW corner to the highest NE corner -- two key points of access -- allowing the residents to travel along the porches while limiting the public access only to the public corner programs. The ribbons address the site boundary in alignment, oblique, or cut. This allows for a variety of viewport orientations and makes sure that no two windows are directly face-to-face, ensuring a certain degree of visual privacy. After the future adaptation is completed, the core, the porch, and the add-on communal space will form a continuous route of circulation. And the communal volume, in plan functions as a shortcut through the linear ribbon, and vertically becomes double-triple height spaces that catch sunlight and open up to fresh air Unit Plan (Stage II) Site Plan Fragment model (1'=1/8") Greenhouse Axon Before After Section

24 Circulation: BOH & FOH The roof reveals how the three volumes come together. The porch roof folds into the core which fl ips up and becomes the roof for the main living space; and the main roof folds down again and become the curved canopy for the communal space. The way these roofs can be read as a single surface manipulated around the hinge accentuates the spatial connectivity underneath. Going through the spine of circulation, porch, and greenhouse, the residents experience transitions from a domestic scale of the porch, through the threshold of the core that allows movement across datum, to a public scale of the greenhouse where gathering and interaction take place. This line of circulation thus becomes a storyline where daily performance unfold. Unrolled Section Roofscape Render Circulation Diagram Physical model (1'=1/8") Fragment model (1'=1/4")