Undergraduate Project 2

This is a project for a Somali Youth Center in Minneapolis' Cedar Riverside Neighborhood. The neighborhood has a large population of Somali immigrants and every building they occupy is retrofitted or rehabbed. The design concept is to embrace the predominant religious beliefs of Islam in the design of the building. Prayer became the center of the building; a worship space is placed in the tower in the center of the building. The tower would be visible to the surrounding community giving a presence of the Somali faith. The design of the worship space, as seen in the last image, was designed to call the direction to Mecca and create a space that was intriguing and thought provoking through light and material. Other programmatic spaces included a gym, cafeteria, gathering room and a library.