Ally Santori
The Valencia Lighthouse is about offering a path towards hope for low-income communities in San Francisco. Through my research and my own personal experiences, I focused the project on creating a program that works as a support system for families. The design stemmed from my mapping, where I mapped out community resources and realized many community resources rely on each other in order to survive. Taking this dependence concept, I explored this through the process of model making, where the basswood became the depending structure and the offset surfaces became ways for allowing light to pass through spaces. I developed a language where spaces are housed within translucent and transparent walls, where screens define special boundaries and where volumes intersect and overlap each other. Using this language in the design, offered beneficial characteristics for the user group. Allowing views of people and activities from the exterior inviting people in. Volumes of space offset and intersect maximizing views from the interior into other spaces and out, allowing natural light to filter into each space.
karen seong architect 