ISSUE #1
Over the next several years, Baby Boomers, the second largest generation in the United States, will be aging into some form of a senior living community and the shear number of retirees will cause a shortage on accommodations for this generation. Additionally, options and expectations of these communities have been moving away from the sterile nursing home model of yesteryear and toward technological advances and prioritizing convenience and urban living.
ISSUE #2
Throughout the United States there are a plethora of empty big box stores sitting unused in prime locations just awaiting adaptive reuse for urban living. With a thorough understanding of both issues, a comparative design experiment challenging existing infrastructure and social mindset of how we treat our elders will be conducted. The goal of this project is to adequately test the hypothesis of solving Issue #1 with Issue #2.
The graphical analysis of Loop 10, the perimeter highway surrounding Athens, began to take the shape of the classic Venn Diagram. Many loop exits and surrounding roads overlap, much like the greater Athens community - mixing The University of Georgia population with the permanent resident population.
The model below in Configuration 1 is both a kit-of-parts model and a Venn diagram. Through the exploration of the different ways the varying circle sizes fit together, programmatic form can be found.
Diana Wheeler, Peachtree Corners’ Community Development Director, created a R.E.C.I.P.E. for developing and maintaining desirable senior living communities. “Customer-driven communities concentrate on Recreation, Education, Culture, Image, Personal Health and Environment as critical elements in successful senior-sensitve areas” (Abbott, Carman, Carman, Scarfo, 169).
By assigning colors to the R.E.C.I.P.E. acronym and postulating how those programming elements could work together, I was able to map the four different side views of configuration 1 of the Venn diagram model and collage them together in the image on this spread.
To further use the Venn diagram model and collage to drive programming of the R.E.C.I.P.E. concept, I created based a gradient based on the dominant color of the area and digitally adapted it to see how the assigned colors would mix together. Also, the dominant lines of the model were pulled and digitized for program and path of travel exploration.
Shifting the R.E.C.I.P.E. gradient to the shape of the existing K-Mart and overlaying the prominent model lines influenced the two diagrams shown here which will be revised in the design phase.