The School of Architecture building is conceived to be a prominent presence and a focal point for the school's students, faculty, visitors and Sudbury residents.
The Sudbury School of Architecture building is shaped by its location in the city, with infrastructure, climate, topography, and adjacent neighborhoods aIl playing significant parts in the process.
1. Choice of site
-The building nests on top of a hill and follows the slope of the site down towards
Brady Street. The existing topography provides for a monumental approach and visibility from Brady Street.
-The site offers an immediate connection to the downtown and the existing transportation routes as weIl as an opportunity for future expansion and growth of the school.
-The new system of roads created for the school of architecture completes the existing city grid and is a resultant of a study of radial curves stemming from tracing implied connections between Brady Street and Wood Street. This system facilitates porosity through campus through an implementation of routes for different uses: service route, students' route and visitors' routes.
Aresulting building takes maximum advantage of its current site, while looking ahead for its future potential.
2. Massing
-The approach to the form of the building is a stage-by-stage process. Asystem of routes is delineated first. Then, the already existing zones of the city are taken into consideration to derive an appropriate programmatic distribution within the system of routes and within the landscape.
-The mass of the building has a strong public face, which includes a front lawn where school's and community's gatherings take place and a more private programmatic spillout to the East, where academie functions take place away from the liveliness of the public streets.
3. Programmatic distribution
The building's three separate zones of presentation, information and education are closely connected above and underground. The theater below ground and a circular courtyard directly above are the central anchoring points of the program, with the building's circulation peeling off of these central nuclei and tying parts of the building together.
Most interesting activity occurs within the red volumes of each building. By showcasing the activity occurring within those volumes to the visiting public, the volumes become hubs of activity, while other programmatic requirements are placed around these hubs in such a way as to optimize focal attention.
4. Environmental sensibility
The site's topography and the positioning of the building's component take advantage of Sudbury's unique climate conditions.
In the winter, the undergraduate and graduate wings of the building block off much of the cold North wind, while the glazed facades at the West side allow winter sunlight to come in and heat the interiors of the theater lobby and its surrounding presentation zones and the library.
In the summer, the Southwest wind is used for passive ventilation by being drawn from the outside to the interior with louvers at the east facades. These louvers can also be angled to prevent direct sun from heating up the interior of the building.
(Competitor's text)
18 scanned / 12 viewable
- Presentation Panel
- Presentation Panel
- Presentation Panel
- Plan
- Schema
- Perspective
- Perspective
- Plan
- Plan
- Plan
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