First Place Tie
w/ Avery Guthrie & Omar Aljebouri
Laval University School of Architecture 50th Anniversary International Competition
2011
The School of Architecture forms part of a larger complex of buildings that have served, historically, as the Seminary of Quebec and the original home of Laval University. The tradition of building on the site has been one of addition and adaptation; new growth is accommodated through the accumulation of axial wings, with form and programmatic function evolving to suit the needs of successive ecclesiastical and pedagogical eras. Any intervention on this site must thus treat the context as a dynamic process, rather than a group of static artifacts. This project aims to take part in this process through the addition of the next axis in the Old Seminary complex.
The project acknowledges the fact that each addition to the seminary site both creates new interior volumes and relationships, but also defines new outdoor spaces. While this practice has created the school’s most prominent public space, the central courtyard, it has also resulted in an often unintelligible circulation system and a condition in which the architecture school is largely cut off from its wider context. The creation of a new axis establishes a clear and decongested circulation path that both satisfies the architecture school’s contemporary spatial needs as well as re-establishes a strong visual link to the city and river valley.
steve socha 