Marwa Saeed

I designed a community center in National City. The site has a rectangular shape facing the national city boulevard, which is the main entrance of the building is found. The site is angled 18 degrees from the north to the west, which gives more areas to be exposed to the sun. I designed the building to be a two-story height and has many activities that would attract a different group of people, so I divided the building into two spaces, the noisy side and the other side is silent, by adding a space between them to work as a partition and preventing the noise that will come from the busy activities. Fashion and Art were my added programs to other programs such as HealthCare, Gym, ESL Education, Legal Services, Communal Hall, Offices, and Administration that we must have on the site. Because the site is next to an alley and streets, I designed the building with four entrances to make the circulation seamless and continuous. The main floor has a courtyard separated by a shaded public space shaped by arches. I connected the rooms on the second floor by a shaded walkway that has a series of arches that leads to two main stairs of the buildings, one on the north, the other one is on the south, and they are outside the building to allow being safe during emergencies, especially during fires. Also, I designed the building to have two elevators for accessibility which are found in the middle of the site and close to the four entrances to be reachable by people of particular need. Each program serves the needs of an individual and has restrooms and a resting area. I used a light gray brick to be the primary material of the building envelope. Structural steel is the second part of the building.  

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Programs used: Revit, Rhino, and Photoshop.

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