Metamorphosis

City High School

Surrounded by upcoming condominium developments and a park that promotes communal interactions, the school acts as an interface between the park and the urban surroundings. By serving as an extension of the park, the school incorporates green spaces that interject into the rigidity of traditional school spaces to create a series of spatial conditions that flow into one another. On the ground level, the school engages with the urban context, embodying the busy and active atmosphere of Dufferin street. As one goes up the levels, the spaces transform from a dynamic and public atmosphere to a serene, park-like, space. Within the school, clusters of gathering spaces are spread throughout the floors to encourage spontaneous moments of interaction between the students.

Zoning and Program

Building Form

Circulation

Exploded Axonometric of Programmatic Elements

Green Space

Icelandic Movie Pavilion Mirror

Project Softwares

Grjótagjá, Iceland

Iceland Movie Pavilion Competition

Embedded within the earth, a warm wooded movie theatre space protects the viewer as they enjoy the movie. The pavilion is enclosed by a heavy concrete structure and fronts a sunken plaza. An observation deck is suspended above the sunken plaza where the structure just barely rises above the landscape in rift-like ridges. Here, the visitor’s exposure to the landscape is enhanced through mirrored reflecting pools.

This composition of enclosed and exposed space celebrates both the immediate cave and rift landscape and the extensive use of landscape in Icelandic movies. The movie theatre space is thus the warm heart of the project.

Mirror is a tribute to two iconic motifs of Icelandic life that appear consistently in Icelandic cinema. Images of the solitary person within an unending, otherworldly landscape are often contrasted by views into warm interiors where people gather. This movie pavilion expresses these two modes of Icelandic cinema through enclosed and exposed spaces.