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- presentation board
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- axo explosion
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- axo section
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- axo program
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- axo circulation
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- university ave looking north
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- university ave looking south
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- cafe to lounge
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- gallery
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- elev front
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- elve right
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- elev left
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- elev back
Craig Babe Studio_605_Fall 02009 Texas A&M University College of Architecture
White Rabbit_Black Rabbit/College Station, Texas
introduction/Two week academic design project in college station to create a café/lounge/gallery/bookstore/performance space in the commercial and residential Northgate Neighborhood on the edge of the Texas A&M campus.
context/Northgate is the center of college nightlife, yet like most of the Bryan/College Station area, the neighborhood has suffered from suburbanization, and is one of the few areas left with the potential to promote real urban density. The White Rabbit site is at farther end of Northgate adjacent to a chain fast food restaurant, an abandoned groceries shopping center from the 01960’s and a operating bank from the same era. Instead of addressing the adjacent context of upper Northgate, this project focused more on the heavy pedestrian traffic caused by the Texas A&M campus across the street, and the overall context of the Bryan/College Station area. White Rabbit is an attempt to move forward and attract “alternative people” as an alternative to the bar scene just down the street. White Rabbit is an attempt to bring new life and extend the pedestrian friendly area of Northgate.
program/White Rabbit calls for five major programmatic elements: café, lounge, gallery, an independent bookstore, and performance space. The spaces were then defined by the spaces individual needs (for lighting, ceiling height, private or public space, ect.) as well as each element’s relationship to the whole. The café, lounge, and gallery spaces were merged into one indefinitely continuous space, because they share similar definitions. The bookstore and performance space were considered to have different definitions than the café/lounge/gallery. The bookstore is lifted up and pushed out over the sidewalk to create a shaded gathering space at the entrance to the café below. The bookstore also has a small one-piece gallery space overlooking the street in order for the architecture and architectural contents to serve as an advertisement to the pedestrian and automotive traffic below. The performance, needing more control over lighting and circulation, was half-way submerged into the ground. Access to the performance space/basement is handled by an external ramp that opens to the sidewalk. A dialogue is maintained between the gallery above, performance space below, and sidewalk through specifically placed windows allowing separation as well as varying degrees of interaction between the public and private.
circulation/Ramps provide for processional vertical movement. The ramps are in between programmatic elements, and often serve as buffers between elements. However, these in-between spaces do more than circulate, they accidently congregate. Spaces are provided to both seek solitude in the non-space as well as offer opportunities for socialization with those passing by.
skin/Once the architectural contents of programmatic and circulatory elements were aggregated into a single form, a skin was wrapped around the form to create an interior and exterior. The skin was then panelized for production purposes.
effect_affect/White Rabbit_Black Rabbit is black on the outside and white on the inside. Black Rabbit aims to create a beacon of modernity and progressive urbanism in an otherwise defunct and decaying strip mall environment. White Rabbit creates an enclave for the otherwise neglected demographics of the Bryan/College Station area. The interior spaces of the café, lounge, gallery, and bookstore are drenched in direct and diffuse natural lighting and an ambient white light. The panelized skin is continued on the interior giving the surfaces a faceted form. Socialization and private meditation are provoked through a mixture of open spaces, solitary spaces, calculated external views, lighting conditions, and a garden.
