Pivot Youth Center
Abstract
The Pivot Youth Center is a design proposal for Pivot, Inc, a service and resource organization for troubled adolescents in the Oklahoma City area. Pivot currently holds its operations in a leased portion of a warehouse in an area zoned for light industrial use. The current facility is bland, uninviting, and programmatically disarrayed. The Pivot staff is working with youth who need certain resources in order to become successful young adults. Therefore, the proposed building centers around access to these youth resources by means of organization and circulation. In the proposal, the building is conceptualized as a tool, and as such must perform its job properly. Materiality and aesthetic gestures promote movement into and through the youth center while promoting a sense of liveliness and comfort for visiting teens. More practical design decisions were made as the building deepened in its development; elements such as structure and mechanical systems had to be integrated into the design without sacrificing its objectives. The center aims to stand firmly as a beacon of success for adolescents from unstable backgrounds.