The Bridge and The Box

Flanking both sides of the Commerce Street Bridge, the Dawson State Jail and a prison frame one of the most prominent gateways to the city. Dawson Jail, dubbed the city’s ugliest building, also earned a reputation as one of the country’s most poorly managed jails and was closed in 2013.

In 2019, the Trinity Park Conservancy purchased the jail and announced their commitment to transform it from a place of incarceration into a community gateway to the park. While the program is yet to be defined, the conservancy is searching for a new vision that can transform the legacy of the former jail into a reimagined building that can host programs committed to underserved communities, non-profits engaged in social justice, park facilities, and become an inspiring landmark changing the horizon of the city.

This studio was initiated with a three and a half week research project on Hybrid Architectural Prototypes, investigating case studies that begin at the scale of architecture and extend to the scale of urban infrastructures. Multitasking infrastructures (bridges, transportation hubs, megastructures, etc.) and multivalent grounds (layered public spaces, landform buildings, etc.) were also analyzed, offering precedents that catalyze interconnection and exchange within urban environments. The typological genealogies discovered through this research informed the potential for radically new strategies for the “Bridge” and the “Box”.