Leonard Palmer

Designer.Researcher.Maker.

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Inside Out

Office as part of the Public Realm

Third semester core studio
Fall 2020
Harvard GSD
Instructor: Ron Witte
 Inside Out is a proposal for an office building for the Municipal Art Society of New York (MAS), a public advocacy organization. At the core of this project is negotiating the different scales of relationships – between the public and the building, and its occupants. The structure can define the architecture of building – while furniture can define an architecture of intimacy. At the building scale, the plaza is defined as a distinct space that is neither inside nor outside the street - connecting the building and the public. On the office floors, this is recreated at a more interpersonal level. Every floor intersects with the tapered cut that connects to the public plaza below – with typically private meeting rooms protruding out into this public void, making them inherently public. By projecting the intimate spaces out to the public at different scales, the office building is no longer just a workplace; it is flipped inside out and renegotiated into the public realm, a part of the city.

The proposed headquarters for MAS centers around a void that cuts diagonally through the structure, reaching the public plaza – slightly below ground but a part of the streetscape. Every floor intersects with the tapered cut that connects to the public plaza below – connecting to the street. This void is where the public and MAS constantly arrive at: This accumulation of arrivals flips the inner façade into the main façade of the building, bringing the inside out.
The meeting rooms jut out into the void that is a part of the public plaza below. This design makes previously private meetings inherently public, and renegotiates what an office space is, and how its occupants act in this new office.
Thinking about public spaces like the stoop in front of a restaurant, the steps in front of the MET, the underground concourse at Rockefeller Center --- these spaces create distinct areas for gathering while still being a part of the streetscape. In some cases protrusions break the continuity of the façade and physically enter into the collective void, bringing more attention to the spaces inside them.
The void diagonally cuts through the building, meeting the street corner facing Washington square park with a large opening.
The plaza is an extension of the sidewalk, one of the largest spaces that belong to the public realm in the city. And yet, the plaza is also inside the building where you’re instantly engulfed in the inner façade upon entering. All circulation starts and ends with the large opening of this plaza.
On the ground floor the public programs like the exhibition space and lecture hall are directly connected to this plaza, with the library on the second floor.
Offices of MAS occupy the upper floors, all connecting to the central void extending from the street.
At the core of this project is thinking about how to negotiate the different scales of relationships – between the public and the building, and its occupants.
The structure can define the architecture of building – while furniture can define an architecture of intimacy. 
What the knife edge above the plaza does is that it creates a distinct space that is neither inside nor outside the street – connecting the building and the public.
On the office floors, this is recreated at a more interpersonal level, creating an architecture of intimacy.
At the building scale, the plaza is where the building interacts with the street and the public.
It could transform into an extension of the auditorium, or a performance stage, or even a place for art, inviting the public inside.
Inside the building, the tapered cut creates different scales of spaces on each floor.
In the ‘alcove’, desks are grouped into clusters, as opposed to endless rows. Wood canopies extend out of the structure, creating a bubble of intimacy for small group collaboration.
At an even more intimate level, the ‘nooks’ create individual spaces of work and reflection.
Just as the large knife edge creates a space that is continuous with the street yet distinct from it, the furniture creates an intimate space that is still a part of the collective lobby and corridor.
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