Gullah Cultural Center - St. Helena Island, South Carolina
The US Congress recently designated a 12,000 square mile zone stretching from Wilmington North Carolina to Jacksonville Florida as the Gullah/Geechee National Heritage Corridor. The National Park Service is responsible for developing the cultural resources in the new Corridor and is now considering the construction of a Gullah Cultural Center at the Penn Center Historic District on St. Helena Island. The studio project will be to design the 40,000 ft2 facility in close collaboration with the NPS, the Penn Center, and the St. Helena and Gullah communities.
The Gullah population is widely dispersed across the US, but the heart of the community is still in the lowcountry and Sea Islands of SC, and St Helena Island is the absolute center of Gullah culture. Descended from the slaves brought from West Africa to work the rice plantations of the coastal region, their great numbers, partial isolation, and liberation in 1862 contributed to the development of a rich and distinct culture. The Gullah speak an English-based creole language that shares many words with indigenous African languages. Gullah handcrafts, notably woven sweetgrass baskets, and Gullah cuisine are world renowned.
The Penn Center Historic District is a National Historic Landmark and is the site of one of the first schools established to educate freed slaves. It is also one of the most significant African American cultural institutions in America. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. made numerous sojourns to the Penn Center, which eventually built a retreat for him on the grounds. The historical importance of the site is paramount in the project and developing a master plan for the Center is one of the most important studio objectives.
The sea island landscape is one of spectacular and seductive beauty. It is a world of horizontals punctuated by towering palmetto trees and massive live oaks draped in Spanish moss. The 200 acre project site borders Haigh Creek and is surrounded by salt rivers and tidal creeks, marshes, and vast expanses of sea grass. The sea island ecosystem is situated between land and water and requires a delicate ecological balance, one easily disrupted by intrusions. So in spite of its powerful character, the environment is very fragile.
The studio will first develop a master-plan for the entire site then develop designs for the Gullah Cultural Center building. The baseline use-program from the NPS will include visitor contact services, museum and exhibition space, an educational center, and meeting spaces. Given the site’s expanse we will also develop a wide range of exterior and landscape spaces. The studio focus will be spread across three main areas of emphasis: the facility is programmatically complex and will require a careful analysis of the NPS brief, the project must be woven into a challenging site context, and the physical environment, which is a humid sub-tropical climate zone (also a hurricane zone), will demand innovative structural, mechanical and enclosure solutions.
This is a Comprehensive Building Design studio so we will be working across many scales: from site planning, programming, spatial development, material deployment, systems integration, innovative structural design, enclosure systems, down to finish details. Studio sessions will be organized primarily around one-on-one desk critiques but there will be regular group pin-ups and ad hoc discussions. Major project reviews will be held at midterm and, of course, at the semester’s conclusion. There will be a site visit to St Helena in the last half of September.
studio syllabus