Transformable Interstice

Claremont, NH

Operating from 1837 to 1963 along the Sugar River, the Monadnock Mills Company was a vital factor in the growth and prosperity of Claremont, New Hampshire in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The design aims to carve into the decaying structure of Claremont’s post-industrial landscape in order to revitalize Monadnock Mills’ former functional use as a textile mill and to engender transformable spaces for job training facilities and food markets.

A series of glass conical forms cut against the horizontal grain of the mill building at its core, providing circulation space that runs parallel to a vertical library of manuals, textile patterns and recipe books. The composition of these glass forms facilitates bridging social capital, encouraging connections between groups through both observation and physical interaction. Transparent fabric ellipsoids grow from the glass core, dilineating soft boundaries for small markets and job training classrooms. The intersection of two movable fabric forms provides a hybrid, third space. These fabric forms are moveable and adaptable, allowing inhabitants to continuously redefine boundaries of space.