PERFORMING ARTS HIGH SCHOOL
Detroit, a post-industrial American city, is seeking new opportunities for the community. To develop a new economic system, Detroit is turning its focus to education and creativity which consists of developing a performing arts high school.
In order for the school to be an investment, it sits in between two large parks along a major roadway in Detroit. Situated in close proximity to the Mies van der Rohe Apartment Towers this area is between downtown and the residential neighborhoods.
The Aretha Franklin High School for the Performing and Visual Arts, explores the unique spaces that are created through the concept of overlapping. Using the connecting and separating of floorplates, new spaces are created within parent ones. This allows for the school to have areas that are multi-functional to be used during and after school hours.
YEAR:
U.G. 4
SEMESTER:
FALL 2018
PROFESSOR:
KAREN LEWIS
ELEVATIONS
BREAKING THE ENVELOPE
When pulling and pushing begin to occur in the right and left direction, spaces penetrate the envelope of the building to become cantilevered. This allows for a long terrace to pertrude from the front of the building, demonstrating to viewers the clear idea that is happening on the inside with the floorplates.
MODEL PHOTO
Through mapping the path a potential student could take in a school day, this system began to classify different types of students. The timeline created an interesting language of the way students use spaces and how various disciplines constantly overlap one another. There is a continual back and forth between performance spaces and normative school spaces. The concept of overlapping was fundamental in the form finding process for the high school.
SITE RELATIONSHIP
The plans are constantly changing at varying levels of the building, many spaces become overlapped in the expansive, open area of the school. This allows for multiple views for occupants to be connected to several parts of the school at once.
The school sits firmly along the street edge of the site while standing at an appropriate scale to the surrounding buildings. It is a centerpiece between the two-story houses of the east to the downtown towers. Transparency of the facade allows for students and faculty to have maximum views to the greater Detroit area while giving passerby’s a glimpse into the school such as the cantilevered ballet studio or the art gallery.
PLAN 1
PLAN 2
PLAN 3
PLAN 4
PLAN 5
PLAN 6
MODEL PHOTOS
