Abstract:
This month, there is new work hanging in the Parish Hall. This is the output of an architecture studio at North Carolina State University – College of Design taught last fall, born out of a collaboration between Father Taylor and Zach Hoffman—an adjunct faculty member and a principal at in situ studio, a local architecture firm. The studio was a 16-week graduate course for upper-level students pursuing their architecture degrees.
The students were assigned a project that is somewhat subversive for architects in today’s culture and climate: research a place and its history deeply, fall in love with the place slowly, and find quiet, sustainable ways to help reinforce its success for the next generation through writing, design, and planning. Students were encouraged to leave modern technology behind, focusing instead on hand drawing, oral histories, and physical observations.
Building upon a legacy of steadfastness in our St. Ambrose congregation, the stewardship of Dr. Camp through the wetland center, and the critical, intersectional gateway our church provides in the revitalized Walnut Creek Wetland Park, students were challenged to think about slow and sustainable design solutions. Their goal was to find ways to incrementally galvanize the church’s place in Rochester Heights for the next 60 years.
The featured projects reflect a variety of influences and spaces. These include the history and celebration of Blackness in the Ethiopian Christian church, formal tie-backs to the original church building in Smokey Hollow, dedicated spaces for outdoor worship under the trees, rain gardens filled with native species that celebrate the adjacency and power of water, and even a new mode of commerce for the church—beehives and orchards.
The students welcome your feedback. Post-it notes have been left nearby—please feel free to add your own ideas, share stories that may have been overlooked, or note important highlights and stick them to the wall. The students will return to retrieve their work later this year and will be looking for ways to dig even deeper into a place that is so important to us, and is now a deep part of them.
Project Credits:
Fabiola Minerali, Litzy Rodriguez, Jordan Wells (Southeast)
Valerie Li, Allie Richards, Abi Toejnes (Southwest)
Harrison Kaufmann, Ari Lotfi, Angelina Ramirez (Northwest)
Dan Boney, John Strynar, Micah Turner (Northeast)
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