MEMORESSITAS

Memoressitas, as a mixed use flour production, archive, housing, and bakery space is located on the site of the Jackson Avenue parking lot in Knoxville, TN. This hybrid semester, being online one week and in person the next, included a workflow moving between digital and analog, and developing abstract concepts into architectural ideas like character and program. The intention of the studio’s work is to view architecture as a structure of understanding as it must reconcile, negotiate, and in some cases, embrace conflicts. Within this structure, we used a unique process by passing each drawing and idea through every person of the team one at a time, inviting sometimes differing opinions to clash yet ensuring everyone’s main ideas were incorporated. Often having to defend one’s idea and generate new defenses for its inclusion brought an energetic engagement in conversations around the project. This specific program is influenced by the historical fabric of Knoxville which was driven by industry and production. The rapid movement occurring around the site, alongside the location in the historic landscape of Knoxville prompted a reaction to these factors in the architecture. The Gay Street bridge, adjacent to the northeast side of the building, serves as a major connector between its main thoroughfare in Downtown Knoxville and furthers the path to Old City serving cars and pedestrians. Running underneath this bridge are train tracks, with the Knoxville and Holston River Railroad Depot being on the opposite side of bridge. Historically, there was a flour factory in the Warehouse District so our project reimagines this typology as a singular line of production, live/work community, and spectacle. This project involved collaboration with Zach Orig, Rachel Parks, and Niklos Toldi.