‘Scrape’
Library, Community Center, and Greenspace with Retail
Providence, RI, USA
Spring 2020

The origins of the
word ‘Scrape’ as it relates
to this project are multiple.
The interdimensionality
of such words are exactly
why I find myself drawn
to them. As it relates to
this site, sitting in West
Downtown Providence,
straddled by Weybossett
and Empire Street on
the Southern and Western diagonals, ‘Scrape’ is
unignorably linked to the
current and historical uses
of the space.
Formerly a bussling corner on the way out of Downtown, the site was filled with a plethora of structures - including multiple inns, laundries, shops, and a large baptist church. These all stood on former marshland, covered and graded for the construction of Downtown Providence throughout the 19th Century. In fact this site sits at the transition between the former marsh and the slope up to Federal Hill.
This transition from Indigeneous American marshland to bustling Euro-Industrial American city marks the first ‘Scrape’ this space experienced. Over a century later, the site was scoured twice more within a decade. First, for the construction of Empire Street in the early 60s - tearing through the Western Half of the site. Second, a few years later, around 1970 - the remainder of the site was cleared for the construction of the existing garage and parking lot in relation to I.M.Pei’s adjacent ‘Cathedral Square’ developement. With this in mind - I chose to explore the formalized nature of the site’s memory itself for its fourth ‘Scrape.’ The many lives of the site - bustling with animal life, pedestrian life, then finally auto life, are all deeply tied to the architectural and human conditions of the space, and therefore beg to be incorporated into the site’s next use - pulled to the surface, mixed togther, torn apart, reimagined.

Axon Drawing


Jumping off from my historical and existing spatial explorations, I began by asking a few questions. How does the nature of scraping apart a city in the name of progress - especially around the introduction of the automobile - effect the interpersonal and pedestrian characteristics of an urban space? How do and can pedestrians and communities relate to stark, modal, and ‘Scraping’ architecture? ...







Additionally, on each level, spaces and forms are defined by their relationship to the ‘Scrape.’ The outside ‘Edges’ of the building follow a more predictable, commonplace langauge of rigidity while the abraded spaces towards the core of the erosion are more open, grand and irregular - as well as often providing central passages for verticle navigation.
Following the survey of three distinct processions through the structure - I learned numerous methods for sucessive and vertically traversing spaces that feel cohesive and natural - yet the ‘scrapped’ nature of the building begged for these processions to heavily interact. Freed from this restriction of entirely distinct elements of movement, the building was able to more effectively scrape its parts toghether into distinctive yet integrated sequences. The lacerated spaces therefore act as ‘scrapes’ on multiple dimensions: formally defined by their torn character meanwhile pulling the patrons, employees, and uses of the structure into a frictional communication in several key spaces across the building.

The building itself - in its most synthesized form - is a multifaceted ‘Scrape.’ The building is a peice of a larger, gestural scratch across the site, peeling and exposing the layers of idea, material, and memory. Individually, each procession through the structure sweeps back and forth as it scrapes upwards - interacting with the hard edge, the carved away gardens and courtyards, and other processions. Simultaneously opposing and syncronizing with the nature of modal and monumental architecture in its reality in the contemporary world, this building is not only an exploration of the layering, spatial qualities, and multdimensionality of a scraped stack of paper - but an experiential and emotive study of the imposing, effectual, and destructive power of architecture.







