2023 Best Small Practice Southeast

2023 NC Firm of the Year

BEACON

Collaborators

Jack Wasielewski, Grace Polo-Wood, Chris Noel, Holly-Lynn Tedder


Beacon is not an architecture project; it’s an infrastructure project. Beacon looks at transportation and inequity in Raleigh as a way of leveling the playing field for a city’s citizens.


The proposal identifies four main necessities for opportunity in 2021 – water, food, internet access, and electricity. The project integrates access to these commodities into the existing network of utilities that follow roadways, creating resource nodes at bus stops around the city. Beacons would expand overtime, in response to public need, to include medical support, food and beverage, or even public forum for community interaction. Participants studied the intersection of MLK Boulevard and Wilmington Street, south of Downtown, as a case study for their proposal.