The City of Fenton requested a proposal that would provide a design concept for a 300-seat auditorium, gallery space, bookstore, classrooms, and offices to be joined with the existing community center. The existing community center was designed in 1938 by Eliel and Eero Saarinen as their first joint venture together prior to opening the Saarinen office. 

The most important relationship between the new building and the original should be in spirit to each-other without replicating each-other.  This is achieved by studying the intangible or immaterial qualities of the original, such as the rhythm of the movement as one moves through the building, the relationship of transparencies and solids, the alteration of close views, the rise and fall of the building in relation to ground, wall, and roof, the exterior space created by the built form, and building scale. The new building can stand on its own merit and at the same time compliment the original maintaining its “specialness”.

ARCHITECT: Swanson Meads Architects
MODEL: Zoyes Creative