With minimal new construction, we enclosed the void between the front and back creating an atrium and 2 stairs – the stairs functioning as both fire stairs and general vertical circulation. The design is organized around the new atrium that has south facing clerestory windows and is shaped to draw light deep into the building interiors. The atrium extends from the second to the third floor with a link to the ground floor through 3 glass portals in the atrium floor. An open bridge in the atrium connects administrative spaces with activity spaces and provides a place to view to events on the lower level.

The program called for a number of general use classrooms and larger multi-purpose areas. These instructional areas were designed with numerous visual links to maintain an informal level of supervision. The everyday operation consists of after-school homework then classes in a variety of subjects including computers, music and dance, with occasional assemblies and performances that bring in the community at large. The project is designed for the future addition of a gymnasium on the roof – all building systems and egress routes were calculated with this addition in mind. The construction was funded by The State Office of Alcohol and Substance Abuse, one of the few preventative funding strategies of this agency.

Sustainability

This project allowed OCF to expand their operations to serve 300 local families. Their formula for success and sustained growth is directly linked to their policy to involve the entire family, not just the children. Programming and the involvement of parents has been a part of OCF from the start. The project was designed to take advantage of the existing site orientation and utilize daylight for interior lighting to the greatest extent possible. Recycled materials were used for flooring, and as a renovation, the project reuses existing building infrastructure. Originally built as a dairy, the structural capacities were already capable of expanded loading beyond the planned afterschool programs. Integrating aspects of the planned future addition into the current design, such as egress widths, allows for that future work to require minimal changes to the existing building.

Due to extensive research indicating better performance in smaller classroom environments, large cities began experimenting with strategies to scale down the organization of schools to achieve optimum sizes for student achievement.

Because it is politically and financially impractical to build new public schools as small as desired, a new typology of schools within schools has emerged.  This project is a new prototype based on an organization that takes an 800-student elementary school and provides 4 smaller schools within one building.  The schools share certain resources and facilities but have adequate autonomy to generate individual identities and cultures within their own precincts.

These investigate organizations of conditional programmatic structure by incorporating a variety of transformative elements to negotiate degrees of privacy and programmatic specificity within open loft spaces.  In this loft we explored variations on themes familiar from the previous designs (this is the third project designed for the family) – the flexibility of the home to adjust to evolving lifestyles, the articulation of multiple domestic activities, and the unconventional use of conventional materials.  The loft is organized by a series of four sliding wood and glass panels and three pivoting doors dividing formal and informal spaces.

This loft is located on the ninth floor of an industrial building on lower Fifth Avenue, north facing with minimal natural light. The space is organized through a series of dynamic planes running longitudinally from the entry to the window wall. These planes range from glass rods and various types of plate glass to sliding fin-ply and glass panels that mediate the relationship of the program and space on either side.  For instance, the guest room is adjacent to the kitchen and can become a dining area by opening the sliding panels or can become privately linked to the bathroom by closing the panels. The materials of these primary organizing planes are used in other locations to establish associations between traditionally separated domestic programs, and these associations are further developed through the slate, cork and cherry flooring materials that extend under the planes connecting adjacent spaces.

Our design is organized by a mediating wall surface that spirals out from the stage proscenium to become the building envelope.  Urban scale windows on the exterior reiterate the wall surface as an interface between audience/performance.  Entry ramps extend the urban space of the adjacent piazza into the concourse, allowing events in these areas to occur independent of the Opera House proper.  Influenced by the importance that water has played in the identity of Cardiff, glass rain slots are placed on axis with the historic city docks allowing rain to fall through the building.