Students:
Ezra Bard + David Merchant
Project Title:
”Clouded Figures”
Course:
ARCH 40102: Integrated Design Studio
Instructor:
Amanda Shin + Melissa Shin
Year Level:
Fourth Year
Project Description:
The 4th year Integrated Design Studio represents the culmination of the undergraduate architecture studio sequence. The students worked in pairs to design an 80,000sf high school for DASH (Design and Architecture Senior High School) - a magnet school with a one-of-a-kind art and design curriculum complemented by rigorous academics. Each design must resolve the formal, experiential, and technical requirements of architecture through the integration of tectonic, structural, mechanical, and passive systems.
This project is driven by the eclectic architectural palette of Miami and Art Deco architecture. Our building consists of four separate figures that rise above the ground through cast-in-place concrete legs and archways. The building is lifted in response to some of Miami’s climatic concerns: a rising sea level, flooding, hurricanes, and a warm, humid environment. Their cores are clouded by the exterior circulation plates, which encourage activity and allow for dynamic exchanges laterally, vertically, and diagonally - inside to outside. The building blurs the separation between public and private, inside and outside, solid and void. It also invites the community to wander about the grounds filled with gardens and reflecting ponds.