Summary

This stage involves the attempt to clump the programs into a strategic layout of a single building. On the broad scale, the general challenge to this process is to find the strategic placement of each room; they must not invade another program’s space. At the same time, to be consistent with the school’s philosophy of multi-disciplinary or shared experience, they must not be too isolated such that participants of each program become invisible from the other. Therefore, we must seek to create a balanced design.

The general hierarchy of programs is as follows: community spaces are surrounded by "rooms of motion". Arts and athletics areas are properly balanced in a yin-yang shape. Common use areas like café and locker rooms are placed in the centers of each floor, equalizing travel time between places and allowing different participants to mingle and see each other. In this layout, the rooms are in a firm balance.

By placing the programs strategically, the building will have the versatility to operate on the two modes suggested in "brainstorm ideas": community mode and spectacle mode. As a result, the building's intensity would vary from time to time depending on the time of day, and the scheduling of events – whether they are athletic events, like games, or arts events, like dance performance. During times of athletic practice and training, an evenly distributed half of the building would exhibit an atmosphere of activity. On the other hand, during times of open gym, dance studio and free periods, the other half of the building would exhibit a similar level of intensity. This versatility would prove to make a living, breathing building.

The building's vascular system is designed to augment the functions of each part, providing proper "highways" directly from one place to another. In the smaller scale, the highways serve direct access to all athletic and performing arts rooms from the locker rooms. At certain corners of the building, the path widens to form informal gathering spaces for students and faculties. On the much larger scale, the highways provide the most geographically convenient routes toward the main school building, and toward the residential facilities, such as the dormitories and the dining hall.