LSU Minden Main Street Workshop: Crichton Building 12/15

WELCOME

WELCOME to the LSU Minden Main Street Workshop. Students and faculty from the LSU School of Architecture will be working and living in Minden for two weeks to provide assistance to Minden Louisiana Main Street in their efforts to cultivate a resilient community. This program is funded in part through a grant awarded to the LSU Office of Community Design and Development from the National Endowment for the Arts. The Minden Main Street Workshop is the first in a series of workshops to connect environmentally responsible design practices with historic preservation strategies to accelerate sustainable development in Louisiana's small towns and cities. For more information, please contact the Office of Community Design and Development.

Wednesday, December 15, 2010

Crichton Building 12/15

We started the day by finishing our individual designs for the different layout scenarios for the space. We further developed our argument for the space and what would be the best use. Our building was still very mysterious to us because we could not find any documentation on when it was built or exactly what the original use of the building was. through a series of investigations and conversations with different members of the town we were able to conclude that the upstairs of the Crichton building was used for the Webster Parish Health Center. While we originally believed the upstairs to have been residential, the medical use of the building provides conclusions we were unable to make about the layout. The bottom of the building seems to have consistently used for commercial businesses such as law offices and insurance companies.

We prepared all of our designs for our review. After the review, we realized that the designs need to be focused more around the comfort of the buyer than around efficiency housing with minimal space for living. We have to prepare our presentation for our client tomorrow so that hopefully we will be able to go ahead with our apartment designs versus the original boarding home proposition.