To say the end of the term was extremely difficult for me would be a bit of an understatement. After presenting what I thought would be my final design, I got the more of the same critiques that I’ve been getting all term: I need to connect with the rest of the site; I need to pay attention to asymmetrical site forces; each small learning community (SLC) should not be identical, but should have it’s own character and contribute differently to the overall space; and so on. But the more I tried to design these aspects into my scheme, the more the whole thing came apart– until I found myself with barely a week left of the term and nothing to stand on for the final.
So, at T-minus 6 days, I started over. Under Suenn’s excellent (and nervous, I’m sure) guidance, I began to look not just at the form of the building, not just at the function of the building, but at its experiential qualities– understanding how each successional habitat (prairie, oak savanna, and forest) can inform not just the form, but the experience of each space. As these habitat metaphors began to evoke physical building forms, I began to ask the broader question, one that has really been missing from this project: how does the building inform the experience of the site? And how does the site inform the experience of the building?
This project is supposed to go beyond buildings as objects, to look at buildings and landscapes as relationships. So what was the real experiential relationship between building and landscape? And that’s when I thought: AH HA.
When habitat is rebuilt on the site, the primary human experience of the landscape will be through the nature running trails. So what if the building is the trailhead? What if the trails begin at the entry of the school, run through each of the SLC’s (already designated as prairie, savanna, and forest), and then lead you out into the park? The school is merely a part of the students’ learning experience, a step on the path of their educational journey.
(sorry for the icky photo colors, the lighting was really bad)
So, some notes on the building design: each SLC draws on the qualities of each habitat type in its form, function, and experience. Each has a commons, that acts as a “home base” for students in that SLC, but also serves the school as a whole. Around the commons are the “uncommons,” a variety of teaching spaces that allow for different kinds of teaching, learning, and social interactions.
The prairie SLC draws heavily on the planar qualities of prairie landscapes, and incorporates grassy greenroofs over each space and rammed earth walls that extend outwards into the landscape. Its commons are open and versatile, easily used as an active space, a gallery, or an assembly.
The oak savanna SLC looks at the role of the garry oak in its landscape: a tree with a spreading, dome-line canopy, the oak actually shapes its ecosystem by chemically determining what plant species can live near it. Thus, the commons at the center of the savanna SLC is a domed, theater-like space. The “uncommons” radiate out from the circular commons, their shape and arrangement heavily influenced by its presence.
The forest SLC looks at how species occupy space within a forest habitat. A forest is not just about trees, after all– the canopy, understory, and ground each play important roles for different forest-dwelling species. Thus, the commons are elevated to a mezzanine level, looking out over the double-height library and providing a kitchen and access to student gardens and greenhouses on the roof.
Rather than being distinctly separated, as in earlier schemes, the SLC’s blend at their boundaries, just as each habitat zone will on the site.
Somehow, magically, I managed to design all of this and produce a reasonable final presentation in time for the final review. My reviews were overall very positive. Much of the discussion focused around how the design of the trails will develop throughout the rest of the site (an aspect which, as of yet, has been given very little focus, but is now hugely important to my scheme). I was also encouraged to explore in more depth the character of spaces between each SLC, and to develop ECS systems and other sustainability concerns (this scheme is well-designed for daylighting and stormwater management, but will need some deeper investigation into its passive systems, which I look forward to tackling next term). Because this design is very new, I think it would be wise to undergo another round of design and critiques before being completely set on it; but perhaps that will become part of the refining process next term.
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