The Morven Outpost: Adaptive Reuse as Cultural Architecture within a Living Landscape | Bachelors Design Project

Site Context

The project seeks to repurpose one of the many old, existing structures on the University of Virginia’s Sustainability Lab, Morven Farm. Morven as a site stands today as a rich cultural landscape filled with opportunity for research, nature connection, and developing a greater understanding of Virginia Piedmont’s complex history. Our understanding of the site first acknowledges the Monacan people that first inhabited and cared for the land—a tribe of Native Americans indigenous to the region. The site later served as a working plantation, one to which descendants of enslaved laborers in Charlottesville can trace their bloodlines. The land was more recently owned by the Kluge family, then gifted to the University of Virginia by the family in the early 2000s. Since then, UVA has worked to develop a strategic plan for the future of Morven in its role as a sustainability lab and a place for research just as much as a place for greater community connection and learning about the land and the region’s past. 

The Black Barn, the specific focus of this proposal, is one of 40+ existing structures on the property and currently sits in a state of decay, used only for some storage for farm equipment. That said, its ideal position in the northwest corner of the property presents the opportunity for the development of a new centralized hub for the land-focused activities that occur across the property—in nearby forests, agricultural fields, etc. Additionally, the development of this project presents the opportunity for collaboration with the Kitchen Garden and the intersection of architecture and cooking on the site, a core focus of the studio in terms of program.

More information about Morven: 

https://morven.virginia.edu 

Design Process

The studio began with research on the rural Piedmont region with a focus on material, ecology, land use, building practices, historical context, and more. A precedent study additionally was conducted for adaptive reuse projects—this project’s key takeaways were from Bernard Tschumi’s Le Fresnoy on how to create a relationship between existing architecture and new design systems and programs to intensify a place and a spatial experience. From there, existing conditions were mapped for Morven as a whole as well as for the Black Barn. 

A series of diagrams was then created in sketch form to map the potential experience of users on the site and to inventory possible activities that the outpost could facilitate—this led to a better understanding of the spaces to be included in the final product as well as the best way to begin organizing them, thinking both about the user’s experience and the natural site conditions. 

Once an initial layout had been finalized, a high-fidelity daylighting and detail model was then developed, which paved the way for the completion of the design and the finalization of the design argument in terms of building systems, relationship to nature and to people, etc. A final 3-D digital model was produced, followed by drawings and renderings.

Final Outcome

The Morven Outpost seeks to blend directly into the landscape through the attitude of its envelope and its approach to the site and existing building. To extend the primary communal gathering and dining space of the outpost, a winter garden extends down the hill along a new northeast axis perpendicular to the northwest axis of the existing barn. The winter garden sinks down into the hill to follow the grade, accommodated by the changing floor system and a series of accessible ramps to navigate the hillside. 

The gear room and entrance space, as well as the utility and prep space in the back of the outpost, are the only zones designed to be fully conditioned; the primary gathering space, rooted by a sunken hearth in the center of the barn, becomes a three-season space. During the summertime, the walls are slid open from either end of the building to allow for a gentle summer breeze to be funneled through the space along the northwest axis to provide passive conditioning and a more temperate indoor environment during hot Virginia summers rather than using energy-intensive air conditioning systems. 

Just as the design of the Morven Outpost blends into the landscape, the experience of people visiting or interacting with the outpost similarly stays tied to the landscape. A typical visitor—a student, professor, community member, etc. visiting Morven—would come first to the Outpost. Upon entry, visitors are able to orient themselves to the rest of the property through maps and information displayed near the gear room, and hikers and other guests are able to take off their shoes and store their equipment while stopping at the outpost. 

From the entry, the visitors would then enter the main communal space of the outpost, drawn in most directly to the sunken hearth. From here, they are able to rest, dine, and interact with those cooking directly adjacent to the gathering space. Dining spaces on the west side of the outpost feel embedded into the landscape and the forest, while dining spaces moving towards the east side of the outpost and the winter garden become more formal, with a light and airy feeling accompanied by views out of the winter garden in a greenhouse-like space. 

Food is brought in through the back entrance of the barn, washed and prepared for cooking, then brought to meet the visitors in the middle of the cooking stations. Visitors then can go out and hike, then return again to the outpost, then garden or work in the fields, learning about agriculture, then return again to the outpost. They can participate in a cooking course, or they can go visit the historical core, then return finally to the outpost. At the end of the day, visitors will leave the outpost with new food, new skills, new experiences, and new friends.

Conclusion: Ultimately, the project transforms the Black Barn into a resilient, landscape-embedded hub for gathering and learning. Through adaptive reuse and passive systems, it honors Morven’s agricultural history while fostering new social, ecological, and communal relationships across the site.

[This Academic Project has been published with text and images submitted by the student]