This project is about the instantiation of ephemera. Tulane University’s branding was seen as something to be defended against the everyday of the streetscape. Thus the three major moves of the project were intended to isolate the building from its surroundings; the building was physically isolated from the street via a plinth, its art collection was installed on the top floor, and it adopted the unfashionable façade of the University’s Library (which houses the other major destination for Latin American scholars, the project’s clients). This assertion of the University’s authority and grandeur quickly became fascistic and so the subsequent moves of the project were made to contradict and soften the building’s isolation. Most notably, a highly designed park space based on Paley Park in New York City was added that links to a semi-public architectural promenade which in turn subverts the privacy and interiority of the housing component. 

 

Formally, the project studied mass, emulating a cave system in both the material progression along the architectural promenade and the mechanism of vertical circulation as slipping through split levels.