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BIG creates shifting platforms with elevated green terraces for Wilson Secondary School in Virginia

United States Architecture News - Jan 11, 2016 - 14:46   11780 views

BIG creates shifting platforms with elevated green terraces for Wilson Secondary School in Virginia

image © Doug & Wolf

Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG) has added Wilson Secondary School in Arlington, Virginia to its new US projects.  The new Wilson Secondary School expands and relocates two existing county-wide secondary programs in a new building. Located in a dense urban context along Arlington’s urban Rosslyn-Ballston Corridor, the school is designed across multiple levels in order to maintain open green space for recreation. BIG's new Wilson Secondary School sits on the 15.800m2 area in five-storey building that explores the potentials of terraces by using green and different plantations for students, which makes every part of the building usable. 

BIG creates shifting platforms with elevated green terraces for Wilson Secondary School in Virginia

image © Doug & Wolf

BIG’s design seeks to maintain the feeling of a 1-story school building while still having a vertical organization and the efficiencies afforded by it. The building is designed as a series of classroom bars rotated along a single hinge point. The rotation creates cascading green terraces leading from the educational spaces of the school to the athletic field.

BIG creates shifting platforms with elevated green terraces for Wilson Secondary School in Virginia

image © BIG

Beneath the rotated classroom bars is a pair of large public levels with varying ceiling heights. The large and public functions of the building, including auditorium and gymnasium, are placed on these levels and accessible from the main street front, Wilson Boulevard. The Wilson Secondary School's shifting platforms create a variety of spaces for students- acts like an entertaining, educational and attractive areas for several facilities that become one part of the education. 

BIG creates shifting platforms with elevated green terraces for Wilson Secondary School in Virginia

image © BIG

BIG creates shifting platforms with elevated green terraces for Wilson Secondary School in Virginia

image © BIG

BIG creates shifting platforms with elevated green terraces for Wilson Secondary School in Virginia

image © BIG

BIG creates shifting platforms with elevated green terraces for Wilson Secondary School in Virginia

image © BIG

BIG creates shifting platforms with elevated green terraces for Wilson Secondary School in Virginia

image © BIG

BIG creates shifting platforms with elevated green terraces for Wilson Secondary School in Virginia

image © BIG

BIG creates shifting platforms with elevated green terraces for Wilson Secondary School in Virginia

image © BIG

BIG creates shifting platforms with elevated green terraces for Wilson Secondary School in Virginia

image © BIG

BIG creates shifting platforms with elevated green terraces for Wilson Secondary School in Virginia

image © BIG

BIG creates shifting platforms with elevated green terraces for Wilson Secondary School in Virginia

image © BIG

BIG creates shifting platforms with elevated green terraces for Wilson Secondary School in Virginia

image © BIG

BIG creates shifting platforms with elevated green terraces for Wilson Secondary School in Virginia

image © BIG

BIG creates shifting platforms with elevated green terraces for Wilson Secondary School in Virginia

image © BIG

BIG creates shifting platforms with elevated green terraces for Wilson Secondary School in Virginia

image © BIG

BIG creates shifting platforms with elevated green terraces for Wilson Secondary School in Virginia

image © BIG

BIG creates shifting platforms with elevated green terraces for Wilson Secondary School in Virginia

image © BIG

Project Facts

Name: Wilson Secondary School
Code: WILS
Date: 08/10/2015
Program: Education
Status: In Progress
Size in m2: 15800
Project type: Commission
Client: Arlington Public Schools
Collaborators: Leo A Daly, Silman, Interface Engineering, Gordon, Theater Projects, Jaffee Holden, Faithful & Gould, GHD, Hopkins Food Service, GeoConcepts, Haley Aldrich, Sextant, Tilitson Design Associates, EHT Traceries, Lerch Bates
Location Text: Arlington, Virginia, USA
Location: (38.8941,-77.0807)

Project Team

Partners in Charge: Bjarke Ingels, Daniel Sundlin, Thomas Christoffersen
Project Manager: Sean Franklin
Project Designer: Ji-young Yoon
Project Architect: Adam Sheraden
Team: Daisy Zhong, Bennett Gale, Anton Bashkaev, Janice Rim, Douglass Alligood, Aran Coakley, Ricardo Palma, Romea Muryn, Cadence Bayley, Ziad Shehab, Tammy Teng, Benson Chien, Valentina Mele, Eva Maria Mikkelsen, Mateusz Rek, Jin Xin, Terry Lallak, Pablo Costa.

> via big.dk/#projects