Kintsugi Ceramics Center

The city of Alexandria has an extensive history of clay and ceramics. The streets are lined with brick townhomes and construction projects bring to light ceramic artifacts of the city’s past. Learning of this fact in combination with my own personal enjoyment of ceramics, I thought it might be fitting to design my arts and housing surrounding and being surrounded by the medium.

The center is based on the ancient Japanese technique of Kintsugi, in which broken ceramic pieces are reassembled with gold between the cracks; this theme can be seen throughout the project in the jagged edges, the illuminated cracks, and the oxidizing materials. At street level there is a ceramics museum/gallery which displays the work of the artists in the compound, as well as artifacts local to Alexandria; it also features a “lost and found” gift shop that sells pieces created by the artists. To the West of the gallery is a Japanese BBQ restaurant that features a particular form of BBQ, historic to Japanese Fishermen, in which the food is cooked over kiln cooked wood. Below the gallery and restaurant is the ceramics studio, which is level to the courtyard. Pedestrians passing by or coming to watch the artisans work can look over the edge of the front patio and down to the courtyard to watch the artisans fire their ceramic works. Across the courtyard is the housing element of the project where the artisans and some previously homeless people live. The units overlook the courtyard and also feature work space for the artists.