Building for Bowkunde

The Old front Door
There is a traditional concept for a faculty building where the visitors and occupants of the faculty are expected to leave the street and enter through the main door the faculty environment. The main door is locked at night and has a name board for the spaces within.

There is no Main Door
We propose a landscaped garden, a street, a series of buildings that diffuse the boundaries between the faculty the campus and the city. The Ground Floor is the Front Door onto which the University Academics, the Students, the Professionals and the interested Public enter into the environment of the Faculty of architecture. The environment of the Faculty of Architecture is defined by the foot print cast on the ground floor by the perimeter of the glass canopy that extends into the landscape of Mettel Park of the campus.

The Canopy of glass is horizontal and static and protects
As visitors and Users of the faculty move to the space under the glass canopy, they are drawn by the energy of the faculty to the `Information-Communication WordWall` of glass that forms the spine of the faculty at all levels.

The WordWall of glass is vertical, dynamic and communicates.
The vertical WordWall glass spine and the horizontal glass canopy of the faculty are defined by vibrant sheets of glass. They form the vertical-dynamic element of the building and the horizontal-static elements of the building. The vertical divides zones, provides information to, communicates with, announces to, separates from and unites its users. They write messages, they see projections, they read announcements, they see each other or they ignore each other through it. They use the dynamic vertical WordWall wall to extend their minds and share their ideas with each other and with the Community.

The Social Space
The WordWall of glass is therefore the source of attraction for all who visit the Central street, because it is here that academia from the University and faculty of architecture will interact, it is here that the students of all faculties will interact and it is here where the visiting public from the town and region of Delft will interact will all the users. The ground and first floor will host the public lectures and demonstrations, the seminars and conventions, the exhibitions and open forums, the restaurants, canteens and cafeterias set amongst the park landscape under the canopy of glass.
The two themes of New Concepts and the Dynamics of the City and Campus are integrated together as a single multifaceted theme for the whole proposal.

The Academic Space
Three floors of academic faculty and student functions are located above the social space
Three floors totaling 30,000 sq meters are located above the social front door of the faculty. These floors provide the Central Processing Functions of the faculty and consist of the Studios, Office spaces for the administration and faculty, most lecture Halls – a major lecture hall is situated on the ground floor for public lectures, educational facilities and data facilities as well as some conference rooms for internal conferencing plus all storage space.

The spatial arrangements of these academic functions is seen to be shared as well as exclusive if required. The library has been located on the ground and open basement level. We visualise the library providing services to the wider academic users, the students as well as users from the region of Delft town.