Culinary School Building
This was a second year architecture school studio assignment. The brief for this project is to design a small culinary school in the middle of Philadelphia. I began with a study of Peter Eisenmann’s ‘House II’ (below). I studied how the sun was let into the structure as the day progressed. The structural hierarchy of ‘House II’ is clearly visible in my design.
The school had to contain three types of pedagogic programs. My whimsical and brilliant professor described the programs as characters: the butcher, the baker, and the candlestick maker. The butchers work on the top floor, where they need a stereotomic series of walls and structure to help hang their carcasses. Once the meat is prepared, the dish is carried down to the baker’s floor. There is a mezzanine larder on the way down - the waiter may stop for some necessary garnish. The bakers are in constant communication between up and down. The hearth is here, central to all buildings. Once the bread is given to the waiter, he travels on to the candlestick maker. Candles are the key finishing touch to any good meal. Down and down the waiter goes until finally he reaches the basement to serve the meal.
Below are iterative, mid-review submissions. Bottom left: floor plans from left to right - basement restaurant, candlestick makers, bakers, pantry, butchers, rooftop vegetable garden.
The makers are all connected by the vertical movement of the staircase and the horizontal movement of the sun. The sun strikes through the bronze lens, providing the constant knowledge of the time of day to all students. They hardly have to check the clock! With time, the bronze greens. Leaks and draughts are given away by the greening, and when their isn’t any bronze left - well then the school will be firmly on its feet.
The school isn’t totally insular, it also tests its food on the public - down below. This grotto has plenty of air, being open to the street via building-wide steps at the front. The restaurant goers are deprived of any smells, though, which only waft upwards away from their noses. They are also deprived of any sound of their food, the only noises besides the street are stalagtites dripping and the whirring of distant mechanics above them.
Top left: SE isometric render at dawn, top right: butcher’s floor at mid-morning, bottom left: basement restaurant in the late morning.
