Beggar’s Wharf Townhouses | Rockland Maine

The Beggar’s Wharf redevelopment design vision has been commissioned by the Rockland Maine City Planning Department as part of their proposed rezoning and development of the Beggar’s Wharf post-industrial brownfield waterfront district.

Rockland is becoming one of Maine’s art and cultural meccas. The Farnsworth and Center for Maine Contemporary Art among other art and cultural institutions draw approximately fifty thousand visitors annually. Rockland’s waterfront is underutilized currently, while the adjacent, inland historic business district is thriving and dense. 

We are proposing a mixed use of public parks, exhibition and event spaces, maker space studio and workshop facilities, artist-in-residence work / live studios, townhouses with flex studio apartments, commercial, marina, hotel, conference and co-work spaces. The project has a total gross site area 100,000 square feet; total gross floor area 200,000 square feet; total net museum area 55,000 square feet; total net residential work / live area 60,000 square feet; total net hotel area 35,000 square feet; total net commercial area 15,000 square feet; and 85,000 square feet of open space.

The project posits an eco-system for culturally adventurous Mainers and visitors, prioritizing and intermingling open spaces and event spaces, leisure and work spaces, exterior and interior.

Framing the non-Museum sides of the Beggar's Wharf Arts Complex full block development are further workshops and administrative functions as well as townhouses and artist-in-residence work/live studios above a primarily retail ground floor.

The townhouses are accessed from common lobbies and esplanades at the street and sculpture garden at the block's center. The townhouses are split-level from front to back with stairs and landings running axially across the middle. Each space is its own floor, allowing distinctive privacies within each space while simultaneously connecting between kitchen and living room, living and study, parents and children's rooms, bedrooms and studio. Each space can have views to or through adjacent spaces as well as outward to exterior views and terraces. Spaces are framed on three sides by a c-shaped concrete shell, on a fourth side by a steel core, with the ends open, glazed, or with retractable walls.

Team - Garrick Jones | Graciela Hodgson | Garrick Houston | Sharvari Mhatre

Collaborator - MRLD

Awards - 2018 A|N Best of Design Awards Unbuilt Cultural category | 2018 Architizer A+ Award Finalist Unbuilt Institutional category | London International Creative Competition 2018 Honorable Mention in Architecture