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This has been the asignment in school for this last half year. The school is in a very bad state of maintenance and lot's of small additions have been made without a general coherent criteria. What is there right now is a set of old buildings (around 90 years) placed in a symetrical fashion along the diagonal side of the block. Back in the sixties they built this big block in between the two main buildings ocupying the original courtyard and following no other logic than the old symmetry

This is the facade of the old building (there's two of these)

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The "modern" building in the middle

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this is the floor plan of what there is right now

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Space between the old and new buildings

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The place between both "modern" buildings used for school events and stuff

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We were limited not to touch the historic buildings at all (not even the insides wich are a mess and alredy heavily modified) but we could do whatever we wanted with the rest.
The program was almost identical to what exist in the school, the problem is that mostly the sizes are inadequate, it's hard to get there or it suffers from construction problems.

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Soooo my whole idea was to turn the school on it's back and to make circulation as clear as I could doing as little modifications as possible.
Mainly I place a straight line of circulation along the back of the old buildings and between the new ones covering it with a translucent membrane emulating the streets of the city covered with trees. This starts in an entrance plaza (right) that can be opened widely and ends in the auditorium (left) in the other end, connecting all the different buildings along the way

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Knowing it would be too expensive to demolish everything to build something that's almost the same I decided to tear down only the extremes of the middle buildings, that currently house the stairs, to double the space between them and the old constructions. I would only keep the structure and change almost all the rest to make it look alike with the new buildings I propose.

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then I propose two new buildings. One near the entrance that has a few classrooms, library, laboratory, music studies and computer studies.

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The new and updated buildings don't make a continuous strip so as to leave some openings for the old buildings to reach and have visuals of the yard.

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The other new building is at the other end of the school and houses the new auditorium.

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Toward the yard the school has a new and unified look

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entrance to the access plaza

22nd and last

I think the new aditions adjusts very well with the old ones.
Here you are a pic for structural reference of canopy, may be you have seen it in Barcelona

It's an interesting work,the idea seems to be a valid point of conjunction between the different constructions ..but I think you should put more attention on the structural aspect.I mean,in many points that structure seems not working properly,joints seems too "light",angles too wide....anyway,as I'm not a structural eng.I could be wrong... ;)

...for example...take a look to the "nuovo polo fiera di milano" of arch.Massimiliano Fuksas...

I think it's looking good, but those stairs in Pic 13 are incredibly dangerous; handrails are for sissies!

thank you Juan for the reference. It looks very related in regards of relation between the old and the new.

Arkitrion I know the structure wouldn't hold together, but I only had to give a general idea of how the structure would be constructed. Being on a tight deadline for developing details of the project, I left this aspect in raw.

8FtSpider LOL! Of course I would need handrails. Specially for a school. But that takes time drawing.
The idea behind that stair was to make a small amphitheater integrated to the structure that held together the green roof.

Thank you all for your comments!!

cacapis.... :eek: I'm impressed...
Like the overall solution for the renovation and extension, it's a shame the old buildings are out of intervention.
The SU modeling gave you lot's of work.... :cheers:

the covered structure, instead of glass why not make it with polycabonate panels (lighter and cheaper)?!

Very nice presentation Caca! :clap:
I'm on a hurry right now so I'll comment better later.

By the way, the guy floating in #18 is crazy! :eek:

well done a great sketchup model.

the covered walkway really connects the building together a beautifully simple concept! :clap:

Why red brick?

The glass blocks works well for light but I could not see any windows you could open up for natural ventilation.

Neverthless, good job with tight deadline :cheers:

Pedro: Yes it's a shame they cannot be modified. The interior has some huge problems regarding circulation and ventilation.
I didn't develop the green roof, but I thought it could be of some sort of membrane like kevlar like the ones they use in covered stadiums. It doesn't have to be transparent or rigid, it's just there to protect from the rain.

digdoi: it looks like it's floating because of the face me shadows problem, but it actually isn't

Nurah: this city is a mud hole :D almost everything is built with brick and we have a very good output in quantity and quality. That makes it closely related to construction here.
In some of the views you can see windows in the classrooms, but I didn't have time to copy them to all the buildings. Some don't have doors either :D

Thanks everybody for your comments!!!

I agree with the others...
Being a student not too long ago, I noticed the exact points where you took less attention to details due to tight deadlines - I have been there......
It usually occurs at around 4:30 am, when you notice that you have been messing with some very-unimportant detail for the last hour......you know the feeling? And then you go to sleep........

BTW, I liked the entrance pics ( 2 last ones) , how did you combine the trees? Is it SU?

But nonetheless ----> :rock on:

Pedro: Yes it's a shame they cannot be modified. The interior has some huge problems regarding circulation and ventilation.
I didn't develop the green roof, but I thought it could be of some sort of membrane like kevlar like the ones they use in covered stadiums. It doesn't have to be transparent or rigid, it's just there to protect from the rain.

Better... with the membrane :)

I agree with the others...
Being a student not too long ago, I noticed the exact points where you took less attention to details due to tight deadlines - I have been there......
It usually occurs at around 4:30 am, when you notice that you have been messing with some very-unimportant detail for the last hour......you know the feeling? And then you go to sleep........

That is sooooo true!! I usually tend to stop in small details and waste so much time. The difference is that I didn't sleep that night :D

That's all sketchup. The trees and plants are textures with alpha map. Since they're .tiff they made the SU file weight like 150 mb

Cesar

There are always important lessons to be learned in every exercise, particularly as the complexity of a program increases and there are seemingly an infinite number of options. You seem to have passed two.

The first lesson is that of not giving importance to those things that are not relevant to the the overall quality of the solution. Don't get me wrong, God is in the details, yet I feel that you are able to handle details deftly given the time, those are either lessons learned or yet to be. The overall translation of the program to an interesting, appealing and buildable solution is far more relevant.

The second lesson is that architecture is not seen from above nor judged from without but experienced from within. You have created an interesting laberynth, an uneven an relatively unpredictable pedestrian sequence, one that may change every time you take it, I find that exhilirating and a mark of maturity and self confidence of you as a designer.

My best wishes and most heartfelt congratulations, my friend.

Saludos

Juan

Juan, as always very intelligent on the observations ;)

The first lesson is that of not giving importance to those things that are not relevant to the the overall quality of the solution. Don't get me wrong, God is in the details, yet I feel that you are able to handle details deftly given the time, those are either lessons learned or yet to be. The overall translation of the program to an interesting, appealing and buildable solution is far more relevant.

Thank you! I think I still need to develop more on this. As I said I get easily distracted with details.

The second lesson is that architecture is not seen from above nor judged from without but experienced from within. You have created an interesting laberynth, an uneven an relatively unpredictable pedestrian sequence, one that may change every time you take it, I find that exhilirating and a mark of maturity and self confidence of you as a designer.

But I thought I made a straight clear path!! LOL. I think I understand what you mean. I couldn't avoid the crossing of different paths and therefore I tried stating as strongly as possible the way I want the place to be organized.

That's all sketchup. The trees and plants are textures with alpha map. Since they're .tiff they made the SU file weight like 150 mb

Could you please elablorate on the process?

The trees are 0% transperancy with pic on them? I know it is a very simple solution, yet I can't figure it out :bang head

It's a texture with alpha channel.
Alpha channel is an extra 8 bit channel that include some image formats that has information about transparency. As you have information for each color (RGB or whatever combination you can use) for each pixel you also have this extra grayscale channel.

You have a more technical description in the all knowing Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpha_channel)

Some of your lack of experience shows in your documentation. That is expected in students of architecture. I agree with some of the other comments in the issues with certain structural connections. There is also a bit of non-convincing sense of scale in the structural elements, wall planes, and landscape elements. All will come in time when you learn what it takes to actually build these things.

Your approach works well, and your presentation seems to be very clear of your intentions. You have decided to "turn your back" to the exsiting. No one can ever tell you that is a bad idea as long as your scheme works. I usually like to try to integrate and collide with the existing fabric on projects like this. That is where some of the most beautiful detailing occurs, and it usually results in some of the greatest spaces. These intersections of old and new always fascinate me - Taking modern forms and colliding them with existing more historical fabric :rock on: really intrigues me.

I would say you were sucsessful in your attempt to "turn your back" and would tell you next time try to integrate the two...and see what you like better.

Your approach works well, and your presentation seems to be very clear of your intentions. You have decided to "turn your back" to the exsiting. No one can ever tell you that is a bad idea as long as your scheme works. I usually like to try to integrate and collide with the existing fabric on projects like this. That is where some of the most beautiful detailing occurs, and it usually results in some of the greatest spaces. These intersections of old and new always fascinate me - Taking modern forms and colliding them with existing more historical fabric :rock on: really intrigues me.

I would have tried to integrate everything, but since we were so restrained not to touch the old buildings there was little I could do about it. Otherwise it could have been more of a Falkestrasse-like aproach. Also there were huge circulation issues of all kinds. I actually think that was the biggest problem in the school and is a very important thing to consider.
Nonetheless, the combination of the old and new almost always looks good. I love the way the covered walkway looks. I think it's one of the most achieved parts of the project.

Tomorrow I will get the last criticism by my teachers and I will tell you how they liked it.

Great work =)

how did the professors received it?