thurlow small architecture - portfolio

TSATSA

THURLOW SMALL

401/316.5708 [email protected] 10 Exchange Court Studio 406 Pawtucket Rhode Island 02860

INTERIORS

LANDSCAPESURBAN DESIGN

OBJECTS

4 Thurlow Small Architecture

had Hadspen GardenCompetition EntryLondon, UK2007

184

nam Gabion Field Finalist entryNational AIDS MemorialSan Francisco, CA2005

172

yin Yinzhou Central Park inYinzhou Master Plan Ningbo, China2008 - 2009

160

hwy SlipStreamGreenstop proposalTulare County, CA2006

190

met Metro Transit Study Media City of Providence, RI2009

236

sor Sorbus Clothing Store InteriorProvidence, RI2007

044

wor Working PlanetInterior + RenovationProvidence, RI2008

008

pnl Panelite Office + ShowroomInteriorNew York NY2005

050

nail Nail Advertising AgencyOffice InteriorProvidence, RI2008

020

deli Downtown MarketInterior RenovationProvidence, RI2007

056

tea McCarthy TeahouseLandscape PavilionConway, MA2006

104

ywi Y-wing HousingHousing ProposalPrototype2006

094

PDDP Pawtucket Downtown Design PlanCity of Pawtucket, RI2010 - 2011

222

PAW2 Pawtucket ComprehensivePlan MapsCity of Pawtucket, RI2010 - 2011

232

bay BayCity ProjectWaterfront Urban DesignCity of Providence, RI2007 - 2008

244

bri Bridge ParkCity of Pawtucket, RI2010 - 2011

154

YEO Yeosu Pavilion ProposalYeosu, Korea2009

078

100 ARCHIVEOnline Exhibit2010 - 2011

090

suk Sukkah NYC ProposalNew York, NY2010

084

KSI Keepspace ProjectUrban Design StudyCentral Falls, RI2009

240

INTERIORS

LANDSCAPESURBAN DESIGN

OBJECTS

Works and Projects 5

hil The Green RayHigh Line ProposalNew York, NY2003

200

wes Westminster StreetEnvironment DesignProvidence, RI2007

252

400 400,000 Houses Urban proposalAmposta, Spain2004

266

paw Downtown DistrictPlan 2 Plan groupCity of Pawtucket, RI2006

258

mem Lattice TerrainBeale Street LandingMemphis, TN2003

212

lab Oak Ridge National LabVision PlanOak Ridge, TN2002 - 2001, 2000

278

dra Terrain Exhibition + InteriorDrake UniversityDes Moines, IA2005

066

art Obvita SlideArtCity 2005 Art PavilionCalgary, CA2005

070

gal Peerless GalleriaInterior RenovationProvidence, RI2007

062

aid RhinoAIDS Mobile Clinic proposalAfrica2005 - 2002

112

man Manufactured HousingHousing ProposalPrototype2003 - 2001, 1999, 1997

120

art Laminar BoothArtCity 2002 Art PavilionCalgary, CA2003 - 2002

146

ddd Donna Dinucci DesignsInterior Panel SystemPawtucket, RI2007

140

165 NC WallpaperPanel SystemProvidence, RI2007 - 2008

132

tra Pawtucket / Central Falls Train Station StudyPawtucket, RI2006

262


Location Pawtucket, Rhode Island Date 2001 - 2011 Partners Andrew Thurlow, Maia SmallDesigners Nicholas Proto, Melissa LockwoodInterns Jaimie Abel, Kyle Bendle, Christopher Capozzi, Nate Del Vecchio, Christine Dennett, Alex Diez, Theodore Duboc, Jose Goncalves, Eliza Higgins, Snehal Intwala, Jarrod Martin, Brandon Massey, Dianna Pozdniakov, Evan Richards, Nathaniel Richards, Grant Robinson, Eric Scott, Amanda Shadowens, Phil Stott.

THURLOW SMALL ARCHITECTURE, INC. >


Rafael, the $40 M Renovation and Addition to the California Palace of the Legion of Honor and Master Planning for the De Young Museum. She has also taught architecture at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design, the Rhode Island School of Design, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Andrew Thurlow is a Partner in Thurlow Small Architecture and a tenured Associate Professor in Architecture at Roger Williams University where he founded and runs the School of Art, Architecture and Preservation Digital Manufacturing Laboratory.

His previous professional work in Philadelphia at the office of Venturi, Scott Brown and Associates includes as a designer on the Trenton Firehouse and the Irvine Auditorium at the University of Pennsylvania. At Ballinger, he was a designer on Headend and Hub Facilities Prototypes for Comcast Communications Company, the Cabrini College, Sports Recreation Center in Radnor, Pennsylvania and Henry M. Rowan Hall, School of Engineering at Rowan University in Glassboro, New Jersey. For Rowan, Ballinger received a 1999 Highest Honor Award and a 1996 Design Excellence Honor Award from the American Institute of Architects, Philadelphia Chapter.

He has also taught architecture at Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning & Preservation and the University of Tennessee College of Architecture & Design.

tsa

Thurlow Small Architecture, Inc. is an architecture and urban design office begun in 2001 by Maia Small and Andrew Thurlow that operates in both the local networks of Rhode Island and the global discourse of architecture and landscape urbanism. TSA develops systems-based design that performs—encouraging evolving relationships between interior and exterior environments, public and private spaces, and people and programs. TSA projects are primarily at the very large or the very small scales, from transit oriented development urban design to office interiors for creative economy clients.

Maia Small, AIA, a Partner in TSA, is a licensed architect in the State of Rhode Island and is certified by the National Council of Architectural Registration Board. Along with her professional work, she currently serves on the board of the Pawtucket Citizens Development Corporation, the City of Pawtucket Riverfront Commission, and the steering committee of the Pawtucket Alliance for Downtown Success. Prior to TSA, her previous experience was in the New York office of Bernard Tschumi Architects as the lead designer on the Downsview Park finalist proposal for a $145 national park in Toronto, Canada and in the San Francisco office of Mark Cavagnero Associates, where she assisted with the design and documents for the $20 M Renovation and Addition to the Rafael Film Center in San

Location Providence, RIDate 2007- 2008Design Team Maia Small, Andrew Thurlow, Nick Proto, Kyle Bendle, Phil StottStatus Construction completed Client Working Planet Marketing Group Size 3,000 s.f.Cost $47 / s.f.

WORKING PLANET >

Informally, it dips and rises where visual contact is needed or restricted; it opens and closes, where physical contact or outlets are desired or rejected; it both continuously leads you through the space and encloses areas of extra infrastructure. Special circle packing areas create specific and exaggerated views in and out of the conference area. One area of glass was also added to provide the office partners simultaneously shared and separate office spaces.

The mobile tube walls are the repetition of a common material: four inch diameter by nine inch long mailing tubes made of recycled cardboard glued together and protected with a non-toxic and non-VOC fire retardant. The system was panelized and clipped together for easy installation, replacement, cleaning, growth and adaptability. This system has become more than an architectural solution, it has become a company brand.

The tube system fits into a larger construction project that involved the demolition of a warren of deteriorating and existing walls, flooring and asbestos-containing ceiling systems. The shell was then left open and relined with new flooring, paint, mechanical, data and electrical systems as necessary.

wor

Our clients came to us with two contradictory desires: they wanted an open space that had different rooms. We saw this as an intriguing challenge and began by asking two questions: how to do we work in an office? What would make it beautiful?

Working means going to your desk everyday, performing certain tasks, being distracted, moving through space, talking to other people, eating, getting information, listening in groups, being quiet, joining unexpected conversations-- the same processes every day in new ways. We find beauty in that process too-- ways to see things we understand and find familiar, yet evolve and become something unexpected. Always interested in systems, we looked to a material and spatial process that would grow this experience.

In lieu of walls, we developed a mobile tube wall system that formed a variable and permeable way to designate space. The system, made of stacked and packed circular cardboard tubes, becomes a interior wrapper that indicates zones for activities, without limiting or dividing them. Formally, the tube system defines a workspace with four desk clusters of four desks, a conference room, a separate space for account managers, the entry and a kitchen.


wor View from workspace | Axonometric


worView from AD Zone | Rendering from entry


wor View from conference room | Circle packing diagrams


worView towards entry | Existing plan to New plan

Existing Plan New Plan


wor Transparency effects | 3D printed model


worLighting effects


wor Glass wall


worCircle packed aperture


wor Corner wraps | Cardboard tubes


worCorner digital model | Shop drawings of tube panel system

Location Providence, RIDate 2008 - 2009Design Team Maia Small, Andrew Thurlow, Nick Proto, Kyle Bendle, Phil StottStatus Option 3 selected / Basic whitebox construction finished Spring 2009Client Nail Size 5,000 s.f.Cost $90 / s.f.

NAIL ADVERTISING AGENCY >

of the office was to provide an variable experience that allowed for work space, presentations, creative thinking, hanging out and overall inspiration for the active endeavor of the agency. The spatial floor system offers a set of highs and lows that define space without impeding visual connection. The sprite ceiling system intends to hide the existing mechanical systems in the depth of a dynamic thick material while still allowing sprinkler coverage and HVAC distribution. The movable panels would allow for private or interactive meetings within the office and at the same time, surfaces that could contain ideas, drawings, and project display. The site is 5,000 s.f. in an existing space in the historic Peerless building in downtown Providence.

nail1,2 & 3

Each proposal for the Nail Advertising Agency office interior offered ceiling, space, and wall systems to create both an experience and atmosphere:

The Nail office interior Option 1 offers three systems: the floor as islands & coves, the ceiling as a surface flows and walls as perforated light panels.

The Nail office interior Option 2 offers three systems: the floor as path, the ceiling as vernooi packed spaces and walls as facetted panels.

And the one selected by the clients, the Nail office interior Option 3 offers three systems: the floor as central park, the ceiling as a set of sprite clouds and walls as movable display. The intention


nail Exterior view of Peerless building | Spatial relationships diagram


nailInterior view of Peerless space | Daylighting diagram


nail Logics for three ideas for three systems


nailImages for three affects for three systems


nail Vie from entry | Option 1 affects


nail1

nailPlan | Option 1 logics


nail View towards brainstorming room


nailView of brainstorming room


nail Axonometric


nailView from Peerless atrium entry | View from copy room

Location Providence, RIDate 2007Design Team Maia Small, Andrew Thurlow, Nick ProtoLighting Design Julie RoseStatus Construction Documents / Unbuilt due to landlord & tenant disputeClient SorbusSize 1,400 s.f.Budget $75 / s.f.

SORBUS CLOTHING STORE >

and color to a growing urban spot. The components of the wrapper are also targeted for a variety of heights in proportion to the human body, as to allow for a variety of views and goods depending on whether someone is inside or outside, standing or seated.

The undulating wrapper, made from 3Form eco-resin and Maplex, allows for special lighting and display zones as well as set of an entry cashwrap zone. The reminder of the space includes Fleetwood fixtures and window box areas that allow for display of the merchandise. TSA also designed and fabricated a temporary signage wrap for the windows prior to construction.

sor

The Interior for Sorbus, a high-end clothing store, is designed to highlight its interior to its very prominent exterior site in downtown Providence’s burgeoning Westminster shopping district.

Our interest in the interior was to design a flexible wrapping system that would draw in shoppers from street to create a merchandise experience. We imagined an eddy-like spatial configuration, where a changing surface would form pockets and swirls enticing shoppers to hang out and feel a part of the store itself. As the store might expand or grow, they could add onto the system providing new enticements


sor An eddy | On Eddy Street (and Westminster) | Wallpaper on site | Plan


sorView from entry | Wallpaper wrapper


sor View from cashwrap | Interior wrapper elevation


sorTranslucent wrapper

Location New York, NYDate 2005Design Team Maia Small, Andrew ThurlowStatus Construction completedClient Panelite LLC NYSize 1,400 s.f.Budget $25 / s.f.

PANELITE OFFICE & SHOWROOM >

fixed curved panels assemblies and four tracks with moveable panels; it is intended for meetings and should be though of as flexible so that it could open for a larger event (through sliding flat panels in the curved panel assemblies). The Client Zone exists between the Core and the Conference Area for clients to wait, or spend time looking at a digital database. The Conference Area would be a place for salespeople to meet with clients or for the staff to meet as needed.

The goal for all of the components is to show off the translucency and variability of the panel products. During the fabrication and installation phase, due to the availability of certain geometry formwork, the geometry of the Core changed from the initial design.

pnl

Panelite, a NY-based manufacturer of translucent panels, came to us and asked for two things in their new Manhattan space: they needed a beautiful showroom to show off their products and a office that worked for their salespeople and support staff.

The concept for the Panelite Office & Showroom is to use both fixed and loose systems as layers, to create a set of spaces between enveloping sheer walls. The design consists of four major components: the Work Zone, the Core, the Client Zone and the Conference Area.

The Work Zone is mostly fixed and shows off a long wall of flat panel assembly systems. The Core is the heart of the layered condition and is made up of two thicker,


pnl Views of conference zone | Original design layout in axonometric


pnlViews from and of entry | Panel layers | Existing space


pnl View of reception | Revised concept digital views


pnlOffice views | Plan

Location Providence, RIDate 2007Design Team Maia Small, Andrew Thurlow, Nick ProtoStatus Initial Design completed; Construction completed under separate architectClient Cornish AssociatesSize 2,000 s.f.Cost $75 / s.f.

PROVIDENCE MARKET >

The idea is to use the notion of the multiple-- the repetition and variation inherent in a market to project through itself out into the urban atmosphere. The color and changing displays become an evolving street transformation. More literal connections between inside and outside is made by opening up seating to the outside through the storefront with tables and benches.

TSA completed the initial design that allowed the project partners to come together, including the architect who had a historic preservation background and completed the project, Durkee, Brown, Viveiros & Werenfels Architects.

deli

With the development of new housing and social life in downtown Providence, Cornish proposed a new deli/grocery that fulfills the needs of both daytime and nighttime activity, beyond the franchise and packaged food available.

The Providence market becomes a critical element in supporting the network structure of the city-- allowing people a place to cross over and more reasons to walk through the Westminster neighborhood.

The design of the market has been to project a sense of environment and action-- a sensibility-- that can entice a new tenant into the space.


Entry

Flowers

Service Counter

Groceries

Seating

Deli Cases

Cool

ers

Shelving

Shel

ving

deli Plan


deliExterior view | Interior stocked shelves

Location Yeosu, KoreaDate 2009Design Team Maia Small, Andrew Thurlow, Carlos Endriga Competition Sponsor Organizing Committee of the Expo 2012 Yeosu

YEOSU PAVILION >

Pools are a spatial net.The geometry of the pools comes from a set of spatial relationships derived from the program brief. We first began by describing a network of open centers between the two main galleries and support spaces, then we experimented with proximities and adjacencies to test out the potential effects. We sought the best option to highlight porosity, overflow potential, and density to contrast the narrow walls with the openness of the pools.

People move like water.This pavilion is a place to learn about and inhabit the experience of all of the forms of water as life, action, value and meaning through a set of interior and exterior pools. Some pools are literal and some are figural; pools contain water, wildlife, people, experience, and texture. Each one is named as shown here, to express the variety of types, uses, perceptions and interactions between water, land, people and the earth. While the wall geometry is complex, the spaces are simple to allow for the exhibits.

Responsive Wall system.Parametric modeling (RhinoScript / Grasshopper) was used to both create and control a system of structure and panelization for the networked wall system, dubbed “butterfly clip.” The integrative

yeo

workflow model incorporates design criteria, programmatic & site analysis (both internal and external constraints), as well as fabrication requirements as generative devices for the creation of the self-similar wall system as architectural prototype.

Walls like water.Moving through pools of program is more than going between rooms. The walls themselves are delicate structures of bent aluminum, a cage of circulation that varies in density and porosity. Thus one falls from one pool to the next, swirling through the basins, from interior to exterior. The paperclip walls are translucent and open slightly differently for everyone such that movement is unpredictable and dynamic. The waterfall walls, on the inside, would have a variety of panel enclosures to allow for or restrict movement and, on the outside, to create a solid barrier as necessary for the roof and exterior edges.

Network site.Moving to and from the Thematic Pavilion requires navigating a set of docks and negotiating the water itself. Here the pavilion is a heightened experience of a larger system spread across the water surface. It is anchored in the harbor, but tethered to the land, the rest of the expo, and the city.


Exterior viewsyeo


Night view | Plan organization yeo


Wirewallsyeo


Interior view | Wire frames | Longitudinal Section yeo

Location PrototypeDate 2008Design Team Andrew Thurlow, Maia Small, Nick ProtoFabrication Precision Laser

165 NC WALLPAPER >

This project originated with the interior design of a 5000 s.f. advertising agency in downtown Providence. The panels would illuminated the brand of the company in an existing poorly lit space. We found the system had potential beyond the singular project and eventually applied a mock-up to our own office interior. In the following images, a flower pattern was used as an example and tested in a variety of materials as mock-ups, including pink foam, wood and paper board before fabricating a set of four panels in steel. Since the system is structured to be variable, it is just as easy to produce one image as another-- any client could apply his/her own image to the process with ease.

165

The 165 Panel Project is a customized perforated wall system designed to provide an inexpensive, variable open texture for any surface by offering a two-dimensional process with three-dimensional effects. The technique begins by transforming an image into a pattern of pixels through a simple Photoshop algorithm, choosing which version works best and then modifying it to accommodate structural and material requirements. This pattern is then laser cut into steel. Next, the steel is bent to structure the panel and provide attachment points, and, finally, powder-coated to create a consistent, high-end finish.


165 Raster to pixel process


165Cut foam wall | Panel taxonomy


165 Cut foam wall | Laser cut panel model


165Lit up cut foam wall | Laser cut paper model


165 Perforated panels rendering | CNC process


165Laser cut metal panel prototype | Laser cutter | Metal break | Scale photo

Project Partner L + A Landscape Architecture, Park co-designers Project Consultant Horsley Witten Group, site and hydrological engineersLocation Pawtucket, RIDate 2010 - 2011Design Team Maia Small, Andrew ThurlowStatus Conceptual design complete; in developmentSize 1.4 acres

BRIDGE PARK >

would merge ecological logics and pedestrian access, looking at how lanes for people could cross with channels of water. The water basin would need to accommodate 70% of the 100 year flood stage as part of the variance obtained by RIDOT from CRMC, be safe for the public, and offer new ways to see and experience the new bridge and the river’s edge. This project is currently in process and in review at RIDOT.

bri

As part of the work being done for Bridge 550 by the Rhode Island Department of Transportation, our office, during the process of developing the Pawtucket Downtown Design Plan, identified the possibility of transforming the proposed storm water retention basin into a publicly accessible park that would connect the School Street neighborhood to the Blackstone River. The PDDP Team then collaborated on a conceptual design for the park itself, one that


bri Park view | Park plantings


briPark view | Park plan


bri Park North - South section


briPark East - West section

Project Partner L + A Landscape Architecture, Park co-designers Project Partner Team Minus, Master Plan designersLocation Ningbo, ChinaDate 2008 - 2010Design Team Maia Small, Andrew Thurlow with Zhang Rui, Sun LiStatus First Place, Invited Competition; Anticipated completion May 2010Size 78 hectaresBudget $42 Million

YINZHOU CENTRAL PARK >

relationship of the park to the city, allowing a healthy aquatic life and close pedestrian relationships.

The geometry and program are defined by a set of circles that pull and extend the hard, soft and constructed water banks. These circles also function as pools of program, in some cases defined by textures of ground or water or by plantings. The vegetation is more a system than fixed planting-- it will evolve over time just as a forest or wetland would naturally.

yin

Yinzhou Central Park is the 78 hectare centerpiece of a new master planned mixed-use development for 80,000 people in Ningbo, in Zhejing Province, China. The park design describes an artificial landscape that uses natural logics to allow for self-organized growth and ecological, social and economic sustainability. The five blocks are organized through five types of water: the meaner, the canal, the lake, the convergence, and the fens. Water flow and access structures the


lenticular islandslenticular hills

lenticular fields

yin Park plan | Park program


yinLenticular island view | Topography


yin Waterway view | Edge types: Soft, hard and constructed


50 year flood stage

hard / soft / constructed edges

second phase construction

yin50 year flood stage | Edges | Second phase construction diagrams


yin Lenticular fields view | Program diagram


yinLighting plan | Connections diagram


yin Foliage view


yinPlanting plan | Planting strategies

Location Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, CADate 2005Design Team Phase 1 Maia Small, Andrew Thurlow Design Team Phase 2 Jose Goncalves, Eric Scott, Theodore DubocConsultants Mark Kelley, MACK5, Mark Cavagnero AssociatesFabrication Support Snehal Intwala, 3D Systems, Inc.Status Selected as a Finalist; Published in Emergent MemorySize 1.7 hectaresBudget $2 Million

NATIONAL AIDS MEMORIAL >

nam

Gabion Field. In an environment of a disease that captures and changes lives throughout the world, over time, incrementally, in hidden and overt ways, in all economic and social environments, through political passages: our design proposal is more a memorial landscape than monument. It is a loose and interactive system of distributed components, an open network of landscape organized by choreographed figures; it is not a fixed, pristine, idealized object intend to charm or abstract a complex experience.

The project deploys wire-mesh-architecture in the existing landscape of the Memorial Grove in Golden Gate Park. These objects, as a landscape of spirit, elevate a series of layers of screening and overlapping to express light weight organizations of air and space, containers of program, eddies and swirls of density. They also house remembrance by becoming a framework for memento, such as for red ribbons-- or the impromptu self-organized memorials, such as in New York City after 9/11. (Imagine the impossibility of a red ribbon appended on a wire for every person who contracted HIV...) The wire frameworks offer a structure for layers of memory so that remembrance is not abstract, but instead has texture, individuality-- so that it remains conscious and alive.

The wire components are distributed into the surrounding forest and out into the meadow where they densify and help to form organized spaces. The wire is deformed to create benches, walls and portals. The wire lattice also creates an atmosphere of framework, without interfering with the lush surroundings nor treading heavily upon the ground. The figures become more angelic, more spirits in the material world that guide the space of the memorial garden. The figures, as trunks, operate like columns of collected space, similar in scale and nature like surrounding trees. They would be both visual clues of an(other) type of garden space and space defining objects. The wire-mesh-components shape space, they are meshes which consist of braids and linkages, a form of architectural drapery, like webs floating in the air, “strong yet delicate in appearance.” The individual wires are joined together, creating an airy and light structure that can be extended in multiple directions.

The spatial gabions are coated with bonded rilsan, specified with either a shiny, highly reflective white nylon coating, for maximum reflection as an enhancement of the picturesque pointalism throughout the site, or with an ultra-matt grey-white nylon, to absorb more light, for greying effects to coincide with the fog and for enhanced atmospherics.


nam Landscape view


namPlan | AIDS quilt, ribbon, and 9/11 memorial fence


nam Wire gabion view | Landscape affect


namMaterial and landscape affects


nam Interaction view | Etherial memorial images


namGabion units


nam Landscape atmosphere | Grouping sketch


namForest view | Grouping sketch


nam Lighting view | Human proportion diagram


namFibre optic lighting view | Gabion duo

Location Pawtucket, RIDate 2010 - 2011Design Team Maia Small, Andrew Thurlow, Chris Capozzi, Jarrod MartinStatus Study to be completed 2011Client City of Pawtucket Planning Department; Pawtucket Foundation

PAWTUCKET DOWNTOWN DESIGN PLAN >

problems, we had to trace their roots. In 1790 Pawtucket presented a vision of America as an urban industrial nation to a receptive Alexander Hamilton, then Secretary of Treasury, as he crossed the Main Street Bridge. The city soon emerged as a dense urban hub connected to commercial corridor spokes. That clear pattern, though still evident today, was later interrupted by major projects intended to benefit the city, like the interstate and the northeast rail corridor, as well as a succession of planning decisions that altered the function of short segments of roadway and intersections.

While likely made with good intentions, these choices inevitably undid established connections. The design team found that linking existing routes, instead of reconfiguring them, could allow people to use their natural instincts to get around. All we had to do in a town developed during the textile era was knit its original threads back together.

The Pawtucket Downtown Design Plan proposes five concepts that look backward to move forward — not through nostalgia but common sense. The first reconnects the historic turnpike system, including the former Boston Post Road, so that travelers see clearly how to get to and from Main Street. The second identifies Exchange Street as a true place of “exchange” between the highway, the river, the coming train station, and the delineated systems for bicycles, local car and

pddp

Pawtucket, Rhode Island, is a city of roughly 73,000 situated just a few miles north of Providence on the Blackstone River. Like many small New England cities, Pawtucket has seen its fortunes ebb and flow with history. It expanded with the industrial revolution in the 1800s, suffered an outflow of manufacturing in the 1930s, lost residents and density to suburbanization and urban renewal in the 1950s and ’60s, and resurged with real estate growth in the early 2000s.

Many of these eras introduced plans to redesign Pawtucket’s physical environment, and the city today reflects these layered efforts. Its unused train station deteriorates slowly above a closed rail stop. Interstate 95 coarsely cuts off the downtown from its neighborhoods. The core of the city, once a meeting point of historic routes, is now a confusing set of one-way streets and inescapable loops.

In 2010, the City of Pawtucket’s Planning Department and the Pawtucket Foundation initiated a project to fix the downtown. Called the Pawtucket Downtown Design Plan, the project’s goal is to improve the city’s infrastructure and, as a result, foster sustainable economic and residential development. The city selected Thurlow Small Architecture to lead a team of traffic engineers, landscape architects, and regulatory consultants on a 10-month project to study traffic, public space, and zoning.

Before we could solve Pawtucket’s

bus traffic, and pedestrians. The third is a parking system that will discourage the creation of new surface parking and decrease the city’s environmental impact. The fourth project develops a Riverway that supports public spaces along the mostly undeveloped river and connects them to local neighborhoods. The final project, Downtown Guidance, cleans up zoning and land use issues to encourage the pedestrian-oriented, mixed-use development the city wants and discourage the car-dominated, low density it doesn’t.

So the PDDP is not really a single “plan” so much as a set of ongoing projects. These efforts may not fix downtown, but they will give the city a solid infrastructural base that provides healthy and clear ways to get around by allowing the city to leverage its many strengths. Pawtucket is what so many places are not— a small, walkable urban center filled with new and old buildings, neighborhoods of people from all over the world, hardy entrepreneurs and accessible city government. At just one corner, Fountain and Exchange streets, you can find a world-class theater, a silkscreen company, a high school, a renovated mill full of design companies, a historic armory, and, just across the adjacent river full of wildlife, you reach City Hall, a post office, a public library, and a historic site soon to be the center of a new National Park. What we learned from the downtown plan was that sometimes the best design is simply to make a place evident to itself.


pddp Turnpike idea | Main Street plan


pddpMain Street view | Turnpike system | Signage


pddp The Exchange idea | Exchange Street plan


pddpExchange street views


pddp Downtown Guidance idea | Design guidelines for plan, facade and lighting systems


pddpPDDP Projects | PDDP affected area

Location Providence, RIDate 2007Design Team Maia Small, Andrew Thurlow, Nick ProtoStatus Study completed 2007Client Cornish Associates Size 3,000 s.f.Cost $47 / s.f.

WESTMINSTER STREET ENVIRONMENT >

people outside and a texture of the vertical surfaces. The intention was to allow for a consistent quality or level of design, but at the same time offer complexity and variation in the area.

From this work, Cornish also asked TSA to complete architectural designs for projects associated with the Westminster Street area including: Sorbus, Nail, Heir, the Galleria, and the Providence Grocery (initial design), three of which have since finished construction.

wes

Westminster Street is the center of a new inhabitation of Providence’s urban environment. Cornish Associates, the developer largely responsible for its rehabilitation, asked TSA to both help with design review of their tenants signage and street components, but also to look at the whole environment of the street to help encourage a vital atmospheric experience. The interior of the Peerless and Alice buildings was complete and new retailers have moved in, but the street itself needed a finer grain, a place to sit, enjoy, shading devices to protect


wes Westminster view | Plan


wesRetail entry view


wes Project diagram | Street section


wesTazza cafe entry

290 Maia Small & Andrew Thurlow

Partner Experience 291

education 1998 Columbia University, Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, NY Masters of Science in Advanced Architectural Design Avery Library Archive, selected for permanent collection CAD Design Honor Award, awarded at graduation Full Teaching Assistant Award Scholarship

1995 Syracuse University, School of Architecture, NY Bachelor of Architecture James Britton Memorial Award for Outstanding Thesis Super Jury, Thesis Invitation in final year AIA Academic Scholarship, New York Frederick W. Revels Traveling Scholarship Slivers Design Award

1990 Greenfield Community College, MA Associate in Science, Art

professional experience 2001 - Thurlow Small Architecture, Inc. Pawtucket, RI Partner

2000 UT Battelle Group Designer Oak Ridge National Laboratory Master Plan/Research

Campus, DOE/UT-Battelle, Oak Ridge, TN.

1997 Venturi, Scott Brown and Associates, www.vsba.com Designer Trenton Firehouse Headquarters, Trenton, NJ & Perelman

Quadrangle, Irvine Auditorium Renovation, Philadelphia, PA

1994 - 97 Ballinger, www.ballinger-ae.com Intern Architect Comcast Communications Company, Headend and Hub Facilities Prototypes Cabrini College, Sports Recreation Center, Radnor, PA Rowan University, School of Engineering, Glassboro, NJ Highest Honor Award + Design Excellence, Philadelphia AIA 1994 Munley Brown Architects Intern Architect KOMA Competition, Los Angeles, CA. Honorable Mention

ANDREW THURLOW, PARTNER > Andrew Thurlow is a Partner in TSA and a tenured Associate Professor in Architecture at Roger Williams University where he founded and runs the School of Art, Architecture and preservation Digital Manufacturing Laboratory.

His previous professional work in Philadelphia at the office of Venturi, Scott Brown and Associates includes as a designer on the Trenton Firehouse and the Irvine Auditorium at the University of Pennsylvania. At Ballinger, he was a designer on Headend and Hub Facilities Prototypes for Comcast Communications Company, the Cabrini College, Sports Recreation Center in Radnor, Pennsylvania and Henry M. Rowan Hall, School of Engineering at Rowan University in Glassboro, New Jersey. For Rowan, Ballinger received a 1999 Highest Honor Award and a 1996 Design Excellence Honor Award from the American Institute of Architects, Philadelphia Chapter. In 2000, Andrew was one of four faculty at the University of Tennessee to develop a Master Plan for the Oak Ridge National Laboratory with Battelle under the leadership of Department of Energy Secretary Bill Richardson and ORNL Director Bill Medea.

He has also taught architecture at Columbia University, the Roger Williams University School of Art, Architecture and Historic Preservation and the University of Tennessee College of Architecture + Design.

act


Location Glassboro, New JerseyDate 1994 - 1997Ballinger Team Jeffrey French, Terry D Steelman, Mark Chadwick, David Lang with Margaret Grahame, Eric Keune, Todd Ray, Andrew ThurlowLocal architect Radey and Fuller Client Rowan University, Henry M. Rowan

HENRY M. ROWAN HALL > The Rowan College School of Engineering is concerned with the ongoing and future tasks of engineering as context, landscape, spatial and functional structures. It simultaneously engages a body of water while creating a new quadrangle for the entire campus. The definition of these exterior spaces are defined by the two distinct primary geometries of the building. The bar-forms are each comprised of laboratory and classroom programs, responding individually to both an idea of formal campus planning and that of object building. The formal and programmatic configurations are to be viewed as distinct pieces of function that relate to one another. A ‘tower’ acts as the central core for the building while the auditorium form relates to the newly created campus entrance. Two L-walls clad in limestone wrap each laboratory bar, while a curved faculty office wing clad in metal panel is offset by the rectalinearity and materiality of the larger of the two L-walls. The faculty offices terminate in the atrium between the two laboratory-bar geometries. As well, multiple circulatory devices activate the academic convergence and event-space. The atrium space is both visually and physically connected to the primary exterior space of the building, the small lake, via the massive curtain wall and stair system that lead down to the water’s edge.

rowBallinger


The great hall of Irvine Auditorium was adaptively restored as a multi-seat performance hall with variable capacities ranging from 400 to 1,200 seats. Renovations provided the auditorium with modern sight lines and acoustical, lighting, and environmental conditions for music, speech, and organ performances while retaining its chromatic architectural glory and its historic organ. Student practice rooms, a rehearsal hall, double-story side lobbies, and appropriate backstage spaces were also part of the restoration scheme. A new campus-side entry from the Commons to Irvine now facilitate day-to-day use and enhance, both symbolically and functionally, Irvine’s participation in the Perelman Quadrangle design—a campus center, not as a new palace, but as a new precinct. (Robert Venturi)

perventuri, scott brown

& Assoc

PERELMAN QUADRANGLE / IRVINE AUDITORIUM INTERIOR RENOVATION >Location Philadelphia, PennsylvaniaDate 1995 - 2000Client University of PennsylvaniaDesign office + Team Venturi, Scott Brown and AssociatesRobert Venturi, Denise Scott Brown, John Hunter, Susan Lockwood, Richard Stokes, Jon Wagner with Hideano Abe, Courtney Anspach, John Bastian, Stephanie Chistoff, Ronald Evitts, Elizabeth Hitchcock, Jake Hokanson, Kathleen Culpa, James Liebman, Jeffrey Lewis, Adam Meyers, Timothy Mock, Julie Munzner, Mindy No, Felisa Opper, Eric Oskey, Cynthia Padilla, Ahmed Patash, Matthew Seltzer, Andrew Thurlow, Howard Traub, Kenneth Wood, Jeffrey Wyant, Aaron Young


Location Trenton, New JerseyDate 1996 - 2000Client City of TrentonDesign office Venturi, Scott Brown and AssociatesDesign team Robert Venturi, Timothy Kearney, Brian Wurst, with Sara Loe, Daniel McCoubrey, Amy Noble, Nathalie Peters, Andrew ThurlowLocal architect Vaughn Organization

TRENTON FIREHOUSE HEADQUARTERS >

The architectural design for the Trenton Fire Station Extension directly accommodates and frankly expresses on the outside a big garage with industrial-like auxiliary spaces; yet it independently fulfills the civic-aesthetic dimension via applied iconography. This iconography embraces graphic and symbol juxtaposed on form; it is independent of the form and integral to it at the same time. As signage it identifies, informs, and ornaments all at once. The frieze across the front of the new wing, consisting of Roman lettering works to unify the irregular composition of the functional garage-like facade. At the new pedestrian entrance is architectural fanfare: a tradition statue of a fireman and a representation of a large-scale helmet are the central accent for the whole composition. The entrance also purposely allows a view through the building, thereby spatially uniting the front and the back. (Robert Venturi)

treventuri, scott brown

& Assoc


MAIA THURLOW SMALL, AIA PARTNER >

Maia Small is a partner in Thurlow Small Architecture, an architecture and urban design office begun in 2001 that operates both in the small-scale networks of Rhode Island and the evolving global discourse of architecture and landscape urbanism. Prior to her independent office, she worked at the New York office of Bernard Tschumi Architects as the lead designer on the Downsview Park finalist proposal for a $145 national park in Toronto, Canada and designer on the finalist proposal for a convention center in Lyon, France. She also worked at Gary E. Handel and Associates in New York, where she assisted in the interior planning and elevation studies of the $400 M Millennium Place Towers in Boston. Between 1994 and 1996, at the San Francisco office of Mark Cavagnero Associates, she assisted with the design and documents for the $20 M Renovation and Addition to the Rafael Film Center in San Rafael, the $40 M Renovation and Addition to the California Palace of the Legion of Honor and Master Planning for the De Young Museum. She has also taught architecture at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design, the Rhode Island School of Design, and the University of Tennessee.

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education 1999 Columbia University, Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, NY Master of Architecture American Institute of Architects Henry J. Adams Medal William H. Kinne Fellowship Award Skidmore, Owings and Merrill Traveling Fellowship, Columbia University GSAPP Nominee Fred L. Liebmann Award, New York Society of Architects

1994 University of California, Berkeley, College of Environmental Design Bachelor of Arts in Architecture with Highest Honors Professional Promise Award, awarded at graduation Undergraduate Thesis Selected for Permanent Collection, University of California Library Student Lounge Competition, Honorable Mention

professional experience 2001 - Thurlow Small Architecture, Inc. Pawtucket, RI Partner 1999 - 00 Bernard Tschumi Architects, New York Lead Designer Parc Downsview Park, Invited Competition, Finalist Congress Centre, Lyon, France: Invited Competition WIPO Headquarters, Invited Competition, Third Place

1998 Gary Edward Handel and Associates, New York Designer Millennium Place, Boston, Massachusetts

1997 Archi-tectonics, New York Designer Johns Residence, Millbrook, New York Maashaven Housing Study, Rotterdam, the Netherlands

1994 - 96 Mark Cavagnero Associates, San Francisco Intern Architect Legion of Honor Museum, San Francisco: Addition Rafael Film Center, Addition and Renovation San Francisco Civic Center Courthouse DeYoung Museum Master Plan, San Francisco

1993 - 94 David Baker + Associates, San Francisco / Baker + Vilar Architects, Oakland Intern Architect


Location Boston, MassachusettsDate 1997 - 2001Client Millennium PartnersDesign office + Team Gary E. Handel and AssociatesGary E. Handel, D. Blake Middleton, Frank Fusaro, Richard Lee, John, Banks, Bo Lee, Annmarie Lewis, Maia Small, Sylvia WonConsultants Childs Bertman Tseckares Inc. (Architecture), DeSimone Consulting Engineers, P.L.L.C. (Structural Engineers), Enclos Corporation (Facade), Cosentini Associates (Mechanical), Haley & Aldrich (Geotechnical)

MILLENNIUM TOWERS > Located at the southern corner of Boston Commons, Millennium Place is a two building mixed-use project that significantly contributes to the revitalization of the historical theater district of downtown Boston. Two towers, located on an irregular perimeter along Boylston, Washington and Avery streets, define the corner of the common and identify a gateway between the park and neighborhoods beyond. The podium of each tower is massed to clearly demarcate the thresholds of each of the surrounding neighborhoods, with a vertical “oculous” that marks the corner at Washington and Avery Street, providing an urban counterpoint to the Old South Meeting House to the north. The program consists of retail, an 18-screen cinema, restaurant, hotel, fitness club, and condominiums. Both building are clad in gray granite, glass and metal panel. I was involved with massing and elevation studies, as well as interior residential plan configurations.

milgary e. handel & assoc


Location San Francisco, CADate 1990 - 1996Client Fine Arts Museum of San FranciscoDesign office + Team Mark Cavagnero Associates with Edward Larrabee BarnesMCA Design team 1994 - 1996 Mark Cavagerno, John Barnes, Karen Gibb, Bradley Davidson, Roslyn Cole, Maia Small Consultants GFDS Engineers, (Structural), Auerbach + Associates (Lighting)

CALIFORNIA PALACE OF THE LEGION OF HONOR RENOVATION & ADDITION >

The California Palace of the Legion of Honor was a $40 million renovation and addition project undertaken by MCA in association with Edward Larrabee Barnes. The original building, constructed in 1927 as a one and a quarter-sized replica of the Legion in Paris, houses the $2 billion collection of the Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco. The addition created a series of new modern galleries in the excavated courtyard of the historic building, new curatorial spaces, restaurant, museum store, storage facilities, and lobby desks. The building also underwent a seismic upgrade, ADA compliance, and significant historical restoration.

This project was published in both Architecture (December 1995) and Architectural Record (April 1997).

legmark cavagnero assoc


Location San Rafael, CADate 1994 - 1997Client California Film InstituteDesign office Mark Cavagnero Associates Design team 1994 - 1996 Mark Cavagerno, (Principal), Karen Gibb (Project Architect), Roslyn Cole, Maia Small Consultants Steven Tipping + Associates, (Structural), J S Engineers (Mechanical), Auerbach + Associates (Lighting)

RAFAEL FILM CENTER > The architectural design for the Trenton Fire Station Extension directly accommodates and frankly expresses on the outside a big garage with industrial-like auxiliary spaces; yet it independently fulfills the civic-aesthetic dimension via applied iconography. This iconography embraces graphic and symbol juxtaposed on form; it is independent of the form and integral to it at the same time. As signage it identifies, informs, and ornaments all at once. The frieze across the front of the new wing, consisting of Roman lettering works to unify the irregular composition of the functional garage-like facade. At the new pedestrian entrance is architectural fanfare: a tradition statue of a fireman and a representation of a large-scale helmet are the central accent for the whole composition. The entrance also purposely allows a view through the building, thereby spatially uniting the front and the back. (Robert Venturi)

rafmark cavagnero assoc