ARCH 436 Design Studio: SplitFrame (Completed 2008)
Student Design/Build Team Member
Winner of an AIA Small Projects Award (Honor) 03.05.2010
Winner of a Connecticut DEP Green Circle award, 12.15.2009
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SplitFrame is the result of an intensive semester-long process involving student research, design and construction. The ambitious project was undertaken during Wesleyan University’s 2008 spring semester by sophomores, juniors, and seniors enrolled in Architecture II, the second in a sequence of undergraduate design studios. The Mattabeseck Audubon society, located in Portland CT, was struggling to provide visitors direct opportunities to interact with their site. A commercial cranberry bog until 1950, the weirs and ponds there had been over-run by beavers, raising the water level and making accessing the sanctuary very difficult.
The response was to create a split-level platform, using an innovative pre-cast concrete pin-foundation system for the elevated viewing station and a floating aluminum frame assembly for the observation deck on the water. The project was designed to minimize its impact on the site, both in construction and over the projected life of the structure. The two main materials are recyclable Aluminum and American-grown Cypress. The installation disturbed only one existing tree, contacts the earth at 6 discreet points, and the fiberglass decking allows 60% of natural light to filter through, letting the biodiversity underneath continue to thrive.
Altogether, the two platform components provide an immersive site experience, bringing visitors out onto the water and offering an overview of the sanctuary from the maple tree canopy above.
Press:
"Smaller, better, stronger, lighter" Architizer, July 2010
"The Birds and the Beavers", Dwell Magazine, October 2009
"AR2: Work", Architectural Record, January 2009
"Decked Out", Landscape Architecture Magazine, February 2009
Photo credits: prof. Elijah Huge, Zachary Bruner Teaching assistant
