Our scheme is focused on solving two site problems. The first is the double barrier of entry to the school and the second is completing the site as a place.
The site is at once physically removed from the cityscape and, because the interior courtyard is the only physical connector of school spaces, the school has turned its back to the cityscape — or more historically the city has ignored the order of the school buildings. Only once the city barrier, and the building barrier, have been pierced can one find the "place" of the site.
But there is a further challenge. Should the barriers be pierced, the school would still Jack a sense of place. Certainly there are finely proportioned spaces within, but the site, and its subsets, Jacks definitive place.
Both challenges are of an overlapping nature. Solving one at least partially solves the other.
From both city entrances ribbons of program, pragmatic and decorative, lead the visitor to the wall of the building. These ribbons contain, on the south, public facing uses (café and display space) and are situated to draw the visitor into the site. They are placed in such a manner as to provide defined places and stopping points along the way. The barrier becomes place.
Once faced with the wall the city forgot, the ribbon of program penetrates and overarches the building leading to a dynamic courtyard that links levels, uses and landscape types. A tower containing open digital studios brings all these elements together. The history that rejected the site becomes the future of architectural education.
The ribbon now screens the sun and fends movement and contrast. The large plaza is broken clown into overlapping scales and, landscaping that at once moves the visitor or student from place to place laterally and vertically.
(Competitor's text)
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