Academic Work @ RISD: Thesis Project – Providence Jewelry Museum

My Graduate Thesis Project was designing a new home for the Providence Jewelry Museum. With a concept of “Knowing Process, Knowing Place” or Setting | Setting, I proposed renovating three connected buildings on the Providence Canal that had once – originally – been a raw metals warehouse; a hardware store; a jewellers studio. In each of the buildings respectively exhibits were placed to focus on metallurgy & history; tools & techniques; jewelry & metalwork.

While the layout was designed to accommodate a constructivist viewing experiences for visitors, the didactic flow would take visitors up a grand staircase to the gallery at the most historic point of the building where a rooftop addition framed a view to downtown Providence. Here they would learn about the roots and importance of the jewelry trade and craft to Providence, understand the materials available to makers, then pass through technique galleries and jewelry display galleries as the museum visitors wound back down through the building via a series of ramps and staircases.

A great deal of work samples follow. I do hope you have the patience to review them all! This was a prolific, complex and thoughtful project – for which I won RISD Interior Architecture’s award for ‘Most Outstanding Graduate Thesis’.