charlottesville, virginia 2001

In a back alley located just off of the Downtown Mall, the ruin of an abandoned one-story concrete block garage becomes a masonry plinth on which a translucent shoji screen-like cube encloses a new upper floor. Throughout the day, the screen diffuses daylight into the offices and shields the occupants from the visual clutter of the alleyway. At night, the upper volume glows like a lantern in an otherwise unremarkable landscape of service and utility.