The May Pavilion serves as the “gatehouse” to a fourteen-acre campus for four hundred elderly residents in Miami. It is composed of a series of four aedicules that form a procession from the Southwest to Northeast, from solitude to community. The exterior wall is composed of continuous horizontal bands: a base of cool, glazed slate blue terra cotta against a lush ground cover, pale coral stucco walls are punched window openings, and a stucco fascia that shields trellises for planting beyond the South facing entrance façade. There are two verandas: the first on the South, a shallow colonnade and massive walls; the second to the North and East with larger window openings and a covered promenade marking the path to the waterfalls and overlook.
The client is a not-for-profit sponsor of care facilities for the aging, who has created an unusually variegated community based range of services. Their philosophy is to maintain the aging independently in their own homes as long as possible. This gatehouse pavilion for those who must move on-campus is a simple statement of those goals: invitation, variety, dignity and celebration of the climate and community.
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