sketch model

4th semester Design Studio: k-12 School

Spring 95
Instructor: Scott Cohen

The site is on Commonwealth Ave. across from Boston University. Its adjacency to Boston University is not incidental. The role of the university was to be considered integral to the development of the project.

Included in the program of the school were community spaces, commercial office spaces, and institutional facilities for Boston University. The project was to address a scale of issues from individual classrooms to urban design.

My project took advantage of the existing site topography of a playground next to the site. The idea was to create a new ground(s). Moving through the site and the building, you inhabit several different conditions of ground, mirrored ground, and ‘under’ ground. The ground was treated as a surface to which manipulative transformations such as scaling, mirroring, and stretching could be applied.

This project explores a method of making architecture. Integral to that method is the use of a modeling application which allows maximum freedom to create and manipulate complex curved surfaces. AutoCAD can be used to create complex curved surfaces but is not useful for the modification and alteration of those surfaces. MicroStation provides an environment for flexible manipulation of NURBS (non uniform rational bspline surfaces). This includes the capability to cut and punch holes in surfaces as well as find intersections between surfaces. Using modeling applications that have these capabilities (versus modeling clay) allows for a much more rigerous method of creating and documenting complex curved surfaces in architecture.


Sketch model. View from chapel across Comm. Ave showing the entry to underground connector in the foreground.


In an attempt to find a logic to the placement of vertical surfaces, I enlisted the help of Paul Cote, our inhouse GIS expert. I wanted to map the slopes of each surface to find those areas within handicap accessible range. We used ArcInfo to map three ranges of slopes for each of the main surfaces. The boundary between these ranges of slopes become a possible location for a vertical surface.

This was the first study model examining the arrangement of vertical surfaces using the previous mappings to define a central court with classrooms grouped around the perimeter.


Inside courtyard area where the two mirrored grounds intersect. The third 'ground hovers above'.


Site model with final massing. 1/32"=1'-0"

Photos of 1/16" model from the northeast and southeast.


may 1995 www.gsd.harvard.edu/~gsd94lb5/cover.html