Nicole Cao's ARCH 392 project Solar Steps has been revealed as the winner of the 2023 Azure AZ Awards' A+ Student Awards. The project was created for Adrian Blackwell's 3A Studio: “Human beings are more important than real estate”: Environmental Justice through Affordable Housing.

Solar Steps explores how thresholds define spatial relationships between residential programs, asking what architectural interventions can exist between interior and exterior and between domestic and public program, as well as how thresholds can be pushed and pulled to merge or define layers of separation and create gradient degrees of transparency. By adjusting circulatory, visual, and auditory porosity, how can the manipulation of partitions, connections, or a flexible combination of both relate to different programs and living arrangements? Oriented towards the south for thermal heat gain, the offset third floor reaches out over the sidewalk to engage pedestrians as a covered arcade, supporting the retail experience at grade. This gesture pulls the exterior envelope threshold back on the south side, the protruding shift inversely creates a shared terrace on the private side of the building, which becomes a covered greenhouse: a semi-public mediator between interior and exterior and residential and public programs in addition to being a climate strategy. In combination with its stepped massing, the incorporation of flexible bifold doors allows the greenhouse condition to bleed past the entrance boundaries of each unit and merge with each private living quarter when desired.

architectural drawing of the cross section of a building
illustration of a woman cooking a second woman and a cat are in the background looking out on an autumn evening
illustration of a woman hanging laundry outdoors during magic hour in the autumn
overhead architectural drawing of a building ground level plan
overhead architectural drawing of a building third floor plan
overhead architectural drawing of a building third floor plan
architectural drawing side view of a building
overhead architectural drawing of a building ilplan
illustration of people in an indoor outdoor greenhouse space
architectural drawing of the cross section of a building
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illustration of a woman cooking a second woman and a cat are in the background looking out on an autumn evening
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illustration of a woman hanging laundry outdoors during magic hour in the autumn
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overhead architectural drawing of a building ground level plan
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overhead architectural drawing of a building third floor plan
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overhead architectural drawing of a building third floor plan
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architectural drawing side view of a building
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overhead architectural drawing of a building ilplan
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illustration of people in an indoor outdoor greenhouse space
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