Weiss Hall
Temple University
Health Equity Workshop and Symposium
Architecture and Public Health: CPH Commons Project
Workshop: September 29, 2018
Symposium: October 2, 2018
Facilitators: Ulysses Sean Vance
Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning
University of Michigan
Mikael Avery
Penn Design - Architecture
University of Pennsylvania
Participants: Heather Burket (CPH)
Carole Tucker (CPH)
Mike O’Hara (CPH)
Fauzia Sadiq Garcia (ARCH)
Marty Henry (ARCH - alum)
Mary Stiger (ARCH - alum)
The Project
The College of Public Health (CPH) Commons Project is the pursuit of a humane and healthy relationship between an architecture that is both a place of mediation, acting as a welcome mat in a hurried urban environment, and the embodiment of comfort and trust found around the kitchen table. Members of both the architectural and public health community have come together to work as change-agents, identifying the issues, communicating positions, and exploring possibilities in order to generate a conceptual design for the common spaces of a newly proposed clinic on Temple University’s Main Campus. The team members have brought together their diverse skills sets to bear on the decision-making process and provide unique insights into a design experience consisting of a workshop and symposium.
The Workshop Challenge
Framed by the first two floors of Temple University’s Weiss Hall, our study area will also include the exterior entry aprons to the north and south of the west entrance, and analysis of the preceding two city blocks in each of the cardinal directions. Conceptual presentations are expected to enhance the interior and exterior conditions regardless of the current building envelope and physical boundaries (horizontally and vertically). The definition of an arrival sequence and system for meeting the awaiting care-staff punctuates this first exploration. Developing further the internal connections between program components, the challenge of establishing unique way-finding between the arrival sequence and the variety of models for service explores the generation of transitional spaces that prepare the guest for their care experience.
Our initiative intends to serve the community of care providers by listening to their needs and working with them in the processes of design. We embrace the envelopment of the collective participants as architects, collaborating on building a welcoming community center, and we look to our responsibility as caretakers of the environment to ensure that the ideas reflect a resiliency towards the future of public care. It is in the act of speculating that we endeavor to challenge the participants to think more broadly on the roles they play, the stage of their offerings as caregivers, and the potential for a place to imbue wellness and wellbeing on those it serves.