Laura Melkonyan

The Angel Island Visitor Center is designed as a place where history, nature, and human emotion intersect. It is a response to the site’s layered story—one of beauty and confinement, freedom and isolation. Positioned on a rugged slope, the building emerges organically from the land, shaped by the island’s topography and the emotional weight of its past. At its core, the project opens the tension between being locked in and the possibility of release. Angel Island’s history as an immigration detention center inspired the design to awaken this duality: feelings of being confined in an isolated space yet surrounded by vast, breathtaking views of the San Francisco Bay. The sea—a symbol of both barrier and connection—plays a central role in the experience. The concept draws on a poetic sequence of movement, shifting between restriction and openness. Visitors begin their journey along narrow, shaded pathways that are intentionally enclosed, creating a sense of being “mured”—walled in, disconnected. These spaces bring up to face the isolation felt by those held on the island. Gradually, the spaces open into terraces and light-filled galleries, framing expansive views of the sea and sky. This movement symbolizes a release—a transition from confinement to freedom.

Faculty Gilberto Rodriguez