Newark, New Jersey Visitor Center
Professional Architectural Competition
2010
A visitor’s center is for those who come from near and far to find useful information, and like water droplets on a still pond, this knowledge ripples across the community and beyond.

Even if those visitors have come before, the ever changing dynamics of a place such as Newark and its surrounding areas will always have something new to discover. This project seeks to create a new community “node” within the existing urban fabric of Newark, which not only informs and connects the visitors, but also resonates with local residents. It is a place being both a threshold and a destination of one’s journey.

The formal composition of the project is based on the careful reading of the current architectural characteristics of the neighborhood. Externally, through the use a large video board, all are introduced of the opportunities one can find in Newark. Further exploration within will offer the visitors an endless path with constantly changing viewpoints, spaces, forms, and materials, which creates a stimulative environment to communicate and inform all.

Sustainable design strategies such as providing maximum open spaces and vegetated roof, use of renewable energy, natural ventilation, and native materials not only addresses the needs of the building users but also that of the environment.

In this project, the multiple layers of history, technology, landscape, community, building, and people are interwoven together to create a vessel for the ever progressing City of Newark.