Go Above or Below
A student center for Soochow University.
Its roof is a second ground.
A campus of many disciplines, with few places to meet.
Soochow University’s campus is scattered, with little public space for everyday encounters. It needed a student activity center open to every group.
A large-span roof leaves the floor open, and becomes a floor itself.
The course asked for a large-span building. I looked past the structure to what it is for: open space below for sports and performances, and a vast, continuous roof above.
Many things happen at once, side by side.
The idea drew on Bertrand Russell, Alfred North Whitehead and Edward de Bono’s parallel thinking: a decentralized community rather than one program per room.
- Site and trafficpeople and cars apart
- Functions by scalesmall, medium, large
- One continuous roofthree roofs interlock like cards
- Below: one centreentrances from every side
- Above: many clubsboxes plug into the roof
- Synthesiscirculation, functions, landscape
From the site to the roof, in six moves.
Under the roof, everyone meets in the middle. On it, clubs spread out.
Below, one large central space for sports and performances. Above, small club boxes set into the stepped roof, each on its own.
Go above, or go below.
- Role
- Design, solo
- Course
- Large-span Building Design, Soochow University, with Dr. Shen Shaojie
- Year
- Spring 2022