Mirror Art Gallery:
Reactivating The Historic Eden Park

Working with the Cincinnati Park's and Recreation department, we were able to go with them inside the building where we learned it was a Cincinnati Police Department dispatch center and had already undergone serious renovations since it's original construction. We were then able to compare it's present state to photos of the original building and start to make a plan to restore it to its former beauty.

Using materials like concrete, cardboard, foam, string, mesh netting, and scrap metal, Sam and I let loose and removed ourselves from the context for a second to allow free exploration of form, space, light, materiality, and design driver.

Over the course of 3 weeks, we created a 1' = 1/4" scale model using cut insulation boards wrapped in lathe then covered in Structolite to represent a rough ground texture. Then we created the new interior building with dowel and basswood sticks and aluminum sheets to create a polished metal finish to contrast with the existing rough brick.

Thus far, we have primarily worked with physical models and sketches; it was time to model our building. Using Rhino v7, we modeled everything from the site condition, to the structure system, even down to the interior details like the kitchen cabinets and lighting fixtures. With a robust model, I used a mix of V-Ray and Photoshop to capture important moments throughout the building that highlight the tension between old and new and showcase the entry condition.

With the building accurately modeled in Rhino, drafting section and plans was intuitive. We decided to show them in perspective to give a spatial depth to the drawings and give more context.