The Community Center is sited to relieve the pressure created on the corner and the surrounding community by the unresolved force of the diagonal commons of the Mariner's Harbor Housing Complex. Literally growing out of the landscape, the low-lying profile and skillful handling of grades allows the building to nestle into the ground creating a true, open physical "gateway" between the two communities.
By anchoring the community center with the landscape identity of the housing complex, the proposal resolves the scale pressures between the architectures of the two communities as well. The building joins the low lying height of the surrounding neighborhood to a larger landscape gesture in keeping with the scale of the Mariner's Harbor buildings and grounds. The center merges landscape, corner, and building in a gesture, which resolves pressures and releases energy with a dynamic new building form. The new facility is a wonderful addition for both communities and can create new linkages and programmatic "gateways" to understanding between them.
