KATIE CARTER ARCHITECTURE PORTFOLIO

Location|Orlando, FL

Program|Masonic Lodge No. 69

In Collaboration with Yuly Mojocoa and Sarah Edwards

 

The Orlando Freemason’s Masonic Lodge No. 69 was looking to expand and renovate their facilities to create a home worthy of celebrating their history and traditions. The lodge requires private spaces for rituals but they also had an interest in community engagement.

 

The base of our project revolves around the Mason’s symbolic use of the “level” and its relationship among the members. The instrument itself is a tool in masonry to lay horizontals, but it takes on a personal meaning among the freemasons. According to the freemasons, the level is a symbol to remind us that we are all traveling upon the level of time as equals. When a mason enters the grand lodge to meet with the fellowship, all members are among their contemporaries “on the same level.”

 

We blended the “level” symbol with the site trajectories, in order to create a path of entry. The idea of “path” can also be reminiscent of the moonlight path members took to lodge meetings before the invention of electricity. By allowing the course of travel to inform the geometries that compose the building, a cohesive and elegant meeting space is created to grow with the needs and demands of Masonic Lodge #69.