Jesup Blair House Transformation 2021

Stanley Ira Hallet

Richard Loosle, KUBE Architecture

In early 2021, Carpe Diem Arts asked Stanley Ira Hallet, FAIA, former Dean of the School of Architecture and Planning at the Catholic University of America and Richard Loosle, a partner of the distinguished architectural firm KUBE Architecture, Washington, DC to restore the abandoned historic Jesup Blair House located in Montgomery Park as the future home of Carpe Diem Arts and her co-tenants. 

Carpe Diem Arts, a nonprofit arts organization based in Silver Spring Maryland, is known for its high quality and culturally diverse programs and extensive outreach to schools and communities throughout Montgomery County via creative partnerships with low-income housing developments, social service agencies, the Recreation Department, libraries, early childhood centers, senior care facilities, among others. 

Our goal was to take a traditional two-floor center-hall four-room layout and transform it into a vibrant venue for multicultural and multigenerational arts programming and a home for some of our County's finest nonprofit arts organizations providing music festivals, outdoor yoga and other arts, health and fitness activities in the Park.

 The following preliminary design drawings document the proposal submitted to the Montgomery County Planning Board.

Washington DC Metro Canopy Competition Finalist 2000

Stanley Ira Hallet and Ali Omer

Congratulations to Professor and Former Dean Stanley Hallet, FAIA and Graduate Student Ali Omer for being selected from a field of 167 entries as one of three finalists of the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority Entrance Canopy Competition. Hallet and Omer were joined by recent architectural graduates of the School of Architecture and Planning, Marta Johnson, Georges Mohasseb, Chris Pilla and Wing Wong.

Although the Hallet/Omer scheme, a flat plane of glass delicately suspended over the metro entries, was not chosen, the Washington Post Architectural critic Benjamin Forgey described their solution with these words: From those gossamer trusses to the pinpoint supports for the glass lid, the constructional details of this design are exceptionally beautiful - much better, in fact, than those of the winning design.

The original Metro design by Harry Weese and Associates, developed over thirty years ago, expressed the latest developments in reinforced concrete technology, especially appropriate to the underground construction required of a modern mass urban transportation systems. It is with this same spirit that we now propose aboveground, an equally appropriate 21st century technology of glass and steel to express the transition from underground to above ground, from earth to sky. At this intersection, concrete and granite are thus transformed into light, transparency and constant reflection, this time using a materials technology that speaks to our time and place. A single plane of glass lightly floats over stainless steel cabled trusses carefully covering the metro entrance. Sets of steel perlins cross over the trusses, holding the plane of glass on stainless steel "finger tips" effortlessly suspending the glass canopy in the sky. The beams rest in turn on the back parapet wall of the Metro opening while a tilted portal consisting of two simple columns prop open the entrance at the opposite end, announcing with signage and lighting the entry to the Metro. Every effort was made to set off and respect the existing parapet walls as representative of the direct and thoughtful intentions of the original Metro designers. Our proposal protects their efforts while celebrating today's evolving structural and material technologies.

Finalist Metro Canopy International Competition, Washington Post, Benjamin Forgey, 2001 Exhibition National Building Museum, 2000

4542 28th St. NW Washington DC 1996

Architect’s Treehouse by Stanley Ira Hallet, FAIA

The house is most simply described as a box, requiring a modest footprint on the site and a hopefully equally modest budget to build. A "thick" nine foot poche wall contains the stairs, utilities and particularly dense media and music rooms, acting in turn as a back drop to the more open public spaces. The house is further divided into the smaller more cloistered rooms to the "back" that serve the more expansive common spaces to the "front." Although the house reaches up three stories into the trees, each level is somewhat self-contained servings communal activities on the first, work activities on the second, and sleeping and retreat activities on the third. Although the first and second levels intermingle spatially, the third remains adamantly apart.

At first, the house appears to "deconstruct" itself as the well-defined container appears to shed its "clothes" as internal spaces peer into each other until outside, the borrowed landscape becomes just another vegetal wall defining increasingly outdoor rooms. The character of the expansive north-east window wall shifts from day to night, first continuing space, then reflecting it. Cool in summer, semi-transparent shades descend during winter nights to reduce heat loss and radiation.

Similarly, the box appears to fragment and dissipate as steel columns and wood beams climb skyward until only a few members lift glass roofs and metal rods that bend in the wind. The rods, sometimes compared to fishing poles, sway with the branches of the two great pin oaks which in turn become the final roof and exterior wall to the house.

Washingtonian, DC AIA Chapter award, 1998, Residential Architect, feature review, 2000 Il Projetto, Mia Casa, 2001 Washington Post, feature review, 2000

Rehabilitation vs Punishment

Revisiting the design of a prison for an era of social justice

A proposal by Sanley Ira Hallet, FAIA

I was inspired by the recent documentary "Frank Gehry: Building Justice”, a film that examines both the criminal justice system and the issue of prison design. In response, I have been personally revisiting the problem of incarceration to see how one could redefine the physical environment of the typical correction facility in a manner that could be more conducive to the rehabilitation of the inhabitants. I am now in the process of completing a powerpoint presentation describing the design approach and the resulting physical model. Recently completed, I would like to review the work to date with experienced experts to see how such a model can be further refined as well as serve as an object for discussion with those interested in exploring alternative solutions to the architecture of the ‘prison’,  especially when reconsidering the role of incarceration as a time and opportunity for rehabilitation.

In some ways, the correction center I propose could be better compared to a walled city with the emphasis on city where the residents occupy a single room occupancy hotel room. Others suggest that it is a modern version of a traditional monastery where once again work and study predominate. And even others have even suggested that the proposed 3D model could be equally suitable for women inmates with young children, less violent male offenders, adolescents, a halfway house or even a refuge for battered women. It is scalable in size. Preliminary estimates of construction appear to be far less costly than those, for example, proposed for relocating inmates at Rikers.

In trying to personally assist an inmate, now experiencing his third term in a Maryland prison, I have experienced firsthand how incarceration and the prisoner release program leaves the released inmate unable to function in civil society and destined to return to a form of lock-up often costing over $40,000 a year.

My proposal can easily be presented over Skype where computer screens can be shared.  As a first step, I have attached a series of images drawn from the PowerPoint Presentation that, although insufficient in describing the overall design strategy, will most certainly give you a better idea of the approach. If you find it of interest, I would be pleased if you could share it with your colleagues who could provide much needed critical input and identify others interested in this seemingly overwhelming problem of incarceration