SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE IN

SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE IN
NORTHERN ONTARIO

What School of Architecture could be?
-It can have different shapes and made of a great number of materials.
-It has to fit to the place, where it is designed and comprises features that would distinguish it from any other schools.
Before designing a school we marked several bullet points.
First of all, the design of the school must be well integrated with the surroundings according to the history of the place, to the nature (ecological aspect must be also considered), to the society.
Secondly, it has to be unique and to be one of the focal points of the city, because it will attract not only students who will be studied there but also various organizations, communities for the workshops, lectures and installations.
Thirdly, education in the school of architecture is based on communication and discussion between students and professors, this implies, on the one hand, several small separated open spaces but, on the other hand, they have to be connected to form a united structure for interaction. Moreover, architecture is tightly connected with the art and creativity which implies that all spaces have to be well illuminated and inspire students to invent incredible ideas for future projects.
A place for the school of architecture was chosen according to the analysis of the existing city. New building of the school will form with places of public attraction and public buildings a triangular visual connection. Moreover, the site is provided with necessary transport connection due to close location of the railway and main motorway.
The structure of the school is repeating the rectangular grid structure of the city which has been developed through the history. Thereby, a big volume of the building cut into small rectangular pieces with changing heights, provides the integration with the existing city. Open space visually lighten the mass of the school. But behind the visual openness building is collected together due to the number of horizontal and vertical connections, such as bridges, passages or system of staircases.
School is divided into two parts with the wide pedestrian route connected with the Larch Street by underground passage. One part is functioning as a students’ space (classrooms, theatre, meeting rooms, design studious, etc.) the other part besides comprising administration, faculty offices, library and other facilities is served as a noise protection from the railway.
Students’ part is designed with elevated open yard to separate visually students from people walking on the street. Each room in students’ area is located independently from each other and connected with other facilities with bridges or with passages. Project implies also a dual-stream education.
Besides elevators vertical connection is provided with the system of the staircases forming an atrium in the middle of the building which allows avoiding the intersection of the students’ flows.
Theatre/projection two-storey high room is designed with transforming seats to have a possibility to organize the inner space according to the event.
Effective energy consumption was also one of the issues that had to be solved. Therefore school has double façade where outer layer is a perforated wall. This will allow controlling the energy consumption according to a season.

4-th prize Open Ideas competition in Canada SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE IN
NORTHERN ONTARIO