A DEMOCRATIC FORUM BETWEEN THE WALLS

Spring 2022, Comprehensive Design Studio

Instructor: Richard Rosa

Partner: Kaicheng Zhuang

Location: Syracuse, NY

Awards:

ACSA Steel Design Student Competition 2022 Category I, Honourable Mention King + King Leadership by Design Prize 2022, Finalist

A major problem of contemporary architectural education is the elitist top-down pedagogy that focuses on incubated/ isolated abstractions and speculations without addressing the rich entanglement of disciplines and networks crucial to the dynamic civic contexts we operate in. The choice of sitting in an architecture school is a meta critique of our tendency to view the ‘public’ as static scenarios; the intervention of inserting a living archive in its agora, and a campus corridor for the public to access, is a provocation of how the dynamic politics of difference should inform and challenge the way we design for communities. The project introduces two walls of knowledge to replace the original walls which separate professional spaces apart from the public atrium space.

ArcGIS/Rhinocerous/Adobe

Detailed Sections

Rhinocerous/Adobe Illustrator

Section East-West Direction

Rhinocerous/Adobe Illustrator

Axonometric Section View of Slocum Hall with the Glass Walls Intervention

From our case studies, we realize that in our discipline, there exists a tradition of top-down planning and decision making. Whether it is based on pure idealism like the people’s commune, or stems from what we think is the best for the occupants like in the Hutongrenovation project, it makes little difference in the long term. Even our representational tools such as plans and axonometric exudes ration and control.

The new walls primarily serve the function of archive storage and displacement, they create a grand vertical space for students and faculties to experience each time they enter any program in the architecture school. The two glass walls go down to the space underneath the building, forming the space of a grand auditorium with a campus corridor that sits above it. The corridor enables public access to the archive and makes them part of the architecture’s academic discussion.

From our case studies, we realize that in our discipline, there exists a tradition of top-down planning and decision making. Whether it is based on pure idealism like the people’s commune, or stems from what we think is the best for the occupants like in the Hutongrenovation project, it makes little difference in the long term. Even our representational tools such as plans and axonometric exudes ration and control.

From our case studies, we realize that in our discipline, there exists a tradition of top-down planning and decision making. Whether it is based on pure idealism like the people’s commune, or stems from

These two glass walls are each composed of a display wall and an archive storage wall. The display wall is composed of openable double-layered glass panels, where students and facilities can insert drawings and display them on both the atrium side and the inside of the wall space. The backside of the storage wall interacts with different programs behind it, it can operate as a studio pin-up space on the fourth floor, a screen for the Selignmen Auditorium on the first and second floor, and even an exhibition wall inside the marble room. The two walls work together to form a multifunctional space, where archives can be displayed, lectures can be held, studio crit can take place, and with foldable glass desks, working and studying in front of the displayed masterpieces becomes possible. The archives are no longer stored in storehouses with limited access, instead, they constantly interact with the students, the building, and the public.

Renders by Zhuang

From our case studies, we realize that in our discipline, there exists a tradition of top-down planning and decision making. Whether it is based on pure idealism like the people’s commune, or stems from what we think is the best the occupants like in the Hutongrenovation project, it makes little difference in the long term. Even our representational tools such as plans and axonometric exudes ration and control.

From our case studies, we realize that in our discipline, there exists a tradition of top-down planning and decision