Symbiotic School

Symbiotic School is a educational project that was undertaken during the first semester of SCI-Arc. The project revolves around a speculative approach to conventional notions of architectural design. The brief required the building of a permanent elementary school to the existing Diamond Ranch Highschool, which was designed by Morphosis in 1996. The studio challenges the “regular” techniques and workflows that take part in making an architectural project. The process began by creating handheld objects that conveyed a sense of space. The Challenge was to create such objects, by using familiar objects such as shoes. The objective was to abstract the pieces of the shoes into an object that conveyed space. The narrative was then derived from the relationship between the shoes and the human. The narrative was if shoes were given agency, one would imagine that shoes would almost fight back there users in order to gain control over the host. The narrative of the shoes would then carry over into the final design of the project.

William Virgil

After the shapes were formed, they were 3D scanned, and imported into Zbrush. The Boolean, as well as its mesh management capabilities were key in making this project a reality. The Volume were used as objects to carve out space from rectangular extruded forms that were of the typical size, and volume of an elementary classroom’s dimensions. The school was in essence designed from the inside out. The form of the school was purely informed by the design decisions made on the exterior. As such the symbiotic design language was present in the form, which can be traced back to the original abstracted objects. The symbiotic design languages then carries through on the outside, where the form of the building makes an attempt at assimilating itself amongst the existing school around, which in itself is a symbolic play on what it means for children to find themselves in the world as they progress through life.

Shoe 1 deconstuction

Final Abstracted Model 1

Shoe 2 deconstuction

Final Abstracted Model 2

These small objects were bi-products of the main shoes that were dissected. The following small pieces were much like the large abstracted pieces, were made with no program in mind, they were simply explorations in form

The small objects were then used as boolean objects to further abstact the large foot pieces digitally. The process was entirely based on a few components that added up to be much greater than their basic components.

The symbiotic chair was a piece of furniture which was commissioned as part of the 2GAX at SCI-Arc during the DS1200 Studio, which revolved around creating a new elementary school, as part of an existing school. The task was simply, to create a piece of furniture which followed the same design language as the building in which it is being housed. Therefore, the design of the chair references the organic nature of the building, as well as the abstracted shapes that informed the design of the building. The chair attempts to make a symbiotic approach to design a chair

Classroom 1

Classroom 1 was designated to be an activity space, the key challenge was to carve out a space that allowed the class’s instructor to always maintain visual contact with all the pupils of the class. As a result, the viewing angles all around the class room were a key design factor

Classroom 2

Classroom 2 was designeted to be a flexible and resilient library, as well as a space of congregation for the elementary school. The form of the classroom was dictaed by the 3D scans of the shoes, which were then used as booleans objects in order to carve out the volumes of the space.

Classroom 3

Classroom 3 was designeted to be a creative space for the exploration of creative arts, therefore it was important to create segreagted spaces to allow those classes to take place.

Exterior prespective

The overall exterior form of the new addition was designed to echo the same formal design language of the exisiting school. The new addition mimics the large cantilever that is present in the exisitng school. The new addition also blends in it’s own design languge that allows it to set itself apart from the surronding context while also making an attempt at assimilation to the surronding context. The form of the new building also makes a symbiolic statement about the trials and tribulation of growing up within a world, and in the way kids must find their own way in life.

Interior prespective

The interior froms where derived from the 3D scanned abstract models. The 3D models were primarily used for boolean operations to create complex architectural volumes. The insertion of typical furniture types as well typical architectural, mechanical and electrical details grounds the space into a sesne of reality.