Isa Cirulis

St. Joe and Benton Harbor, on the coast of southwest Michigan, have historically been referred to as the Twin Cities. Today, they serve as a quintessential example of segregation and disinvestment, living separate and deeply unequal— “twin” cities with starkly different realities, similar to twin fetuses that unequally share the placenta. The Transfusor challenges the intimacy of domesticity and normative notions of privacy. It reappropriates aspects of a home while maintaining an economy of means. An adaptive reuse project, the existing building is duplicated, split, and butted up against the exterior on each side, two additions protecting the abandoned. By replicating the notion of the home and reducing it to its simplest architectural language, the project seeks to reimagine community and privacy through a speculation of new ways people could live.