Students:
Kristen Sullivan + Victoria Clark
Project Title:
”Concentric”
Course:
ARCH 40102: Integrated Design Studio
Instructor:
Nick Safley
Year Level:
Fourth Year
Project Description:
The project was a comprehensive and integrated design of a 100,000 SF High School in Miami Florida. Students were asked to develop a relationship between spatial, material, and systems configuration in relation to building figuration.
This project amplifies the existing qualities of the project site for architectural affect. The site is situated between the ocean and Miami’s design district with two major surface streets flanking the site on the east and west. Consequently, the project exists in a high-traffic area.
As a response, the project wraps around the site boundary with a scaleless facade, enveloping a common outdoor space utilized as an open-air atrium. This internally-focuses the spatial organization of the project, filters visibility into the school, provides shade and natural ventilation, and maximizes the area of outward-facing walls for natural lighting and views.
The project is organized according to a radial structural grid derivative of the site’s planimetric figure, and this serves both formal and practical functions. In plan, the form negotiates between a D shape on the ground level and a geometrically perfect circle on the top floor. Shifts within the radial grid that accommodate programmatic needs take place at the lower levels and all intermediate levels utilize the geometric differences between the two initial geometries.
