Learning center

This project is located in a growing area of the city of Aguascalientes. The unknown future development of the adjoining lots guided the creation of an inward-looking campus. The campus’s compositional and functional strategy lies in the central plaza’s design: a series of concentric rings radiate outward from this large meeting space, giving meaning and shape to the program and use of the project. The courtyard is subdivided by the Learning Center, creating a multipurpose plaza as well as a contemplative garden for the school’s most public activities. A structural arcade creates the perimeter circulations around the courtyards and is followed by the classroom blocks and the project’s general program. The façade or structural perimeter resp... More

This is a learning center located at the EPFL / École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne campus which includes diverse programs such as a library, multipurpose hall, café, restaurant, etc.We designed the building as a single space and put it almost in the center of the site for easy access from the surrounding facilities. All programs are installed in this big room. It is a 166.5m x 121.5m area, which is undulating gently, making it a kind of topographical environment. These waves create a large amount of openness under the building, inviting people to walk under and approach the entrance hall located at the center of the building.This landscape with valleys, slopes and humps, as well as different-sized light gardens, generates spaces with... More

For more than 125 years, Barnard College has been known for its distinctive academic culture—dedicated to women of intellect, ambition, and vision, devoted to the integration of teaching and scholarship, embracing its relationship with Columbia University, and imbued with the vibrancy of New York City. To carry its mission into the future, the College has constructed a new place of interdisciplinary scholarship at the heart of its campus. When it opens for the Fall 2018 semester, The Cheryl and Philip Milstein Center for Teaching and Learning will become the hub of academic and intellectual life at Barnard and reinforce its commitment to sustainability and climate action. SOM designed the 128,000-square-foot building to serve as a crossroad... More

The Learning Resource Center, an innovative state-of-the-art library that provides a vibrant collection of study spaces organized around a dramatic social stair on the Michael J. Grant Campus of Suffolk County Community College in Brentwood, New York, takes its place at the center of the campus, at the confluence of major pedestrian pathways between the Caumsett Student Center and the Health/Sports/Education Center, and between the major parking lots for this commuter college. A simple mass of nine cubes arranged in a three-by-three grid accommodates the library program on two floors. Portions of the cubes are either removed or expanded to create an interplay between negative and positive space that allows the Learning Resource Center to ac... More

Entering the original building, the architects turned left while the engineering students went to the right. Now, openness and a variety of meeting places encourages interdisciplinary collaboration that will help shape our future cities and societies.The heart of the buildingMerging the previously separate departments into a new Department of Architecture and Civil Engineering called for a redesign to create modern ways of working. The central idea has been to create more open spaces for people to meet and make the activity within the facility visible. The architects have focused on the interior; changing the building’s static and closed form has created greater mobility and more modern ways of working.Flooded with daylightPeople meet on th... More

The new Visitor and Learning Center situated at the gate of the Káli-basin that demonstrates the herbs of the region was designed by AndrásKrizsán DLA. The good-tempered group of buildings of the Learning Center reflects well on the Balaton Upland’s architectural traditions. Written by DávidBán, pictures by TamásBujnovszky.Zánka, which was for long mostly known for its pioneer campgrounds, is a particular town of the Northern shore of Lake Balaton with an exceptionally polarized settlement structure. The old-town that includes the school and the reformed church lies open towards the Káli-basin, and plays a kind of a central role in the region’s life. Ideas were formed years ago to create a Visitor Center beneath the road going towards Köves... More

*No fixed chairs and tables but user-controlled, modular furniture. No teacher-centric podiums and blackboards but stimulating, collaborative work and learning spaces. To embody its namesake, the Chaoyang Future School by Crossboundaries has to work differently. That means it has to think differently.* Chaoyang Future School, in Beijing, is the latest iteration of Peking University’s pedagogic model for China’s future creators, in their continued exploration with Crossboundaries to manifest places and spaces that embody their collective vision.  The large 26,000m² renovation of an existing educational campus built in the 1980s completely reassesses the landscape, façade and interior. It uses color to negotiate from the urban scale... More

This project is not just a school, but a thriving eco system where work and education flow with different stages of learning and life.  Housing a nursery, primary school, an adult education facility, and an investment company, B Campus aspires to be a learning center for all ages and stations of life. The investment firm driving the project sees personal progress as the key to a global progress.  OUR CONTRIBUTIONOur approach to the various programs was to seek unity of space throughout. A simple choice to let the grey concrete building narrate its own rhythm by treating the structure as it essentially is, set the tone for the rest of the project. Wooden portals, doors, and cabinets warmed the in fills and transitions of space... More

The City of Sacramento sought from the beginning to deliver a distinctive, flexible, high-performance branch library to this underserved yet growing community. The library is sited at an intersection unique within the community: planned high density multi-family housing to one side, Consumnes River College across the street, a new 10-acre park to the south, and retail and freeways within eyesight. The branch library seeks to establish an anchoring presence, while also being inspiring, sustainable, and low maintenance.This LEED Gold library sets a precedent for insulated tilt-up concrete walls and establishes a new standard for sustainability in a civic building. The V-shaped roofline mimics the shape of an open book and uses generous natura... More

The Mae Ku Learning Center is a new educational building located near the Thai-Burma border. The building is designed as a mountainous, monolithic object nestled in amidst the adjacent fields.  The center is a multi-functional educational space for the Min Tu Won School, a community-led organization that provides education for a local community of Burmese refugees and migrants.  Faced with minimal resources, the Min Tu Won School’s existing classrooms needed relief for their overcrowded teaching areas. They sought additional room for 70 students to improve the learning conditions of the school as well as to continue to cultivate and promote local education. The new center responds to these needs with a massing of adaptable, m... More

Tumo is an after-school educational environment in Armenia intended to instill creativity and innovation in new generations. Thousands of students between the ages of 12 and 18 take charge of their own learning at their own pace. Tumo Center allows children to explore four main disciplines: animation, game development, filmmaking and web design. Tumo has branches in Yerevan, Gyumri, Dilijan and Stepanakert. Technologically, all Tumo centers are equal in capacity and resources. However, what differentiates Tumo Artsakh from the other locations is its interior design concept. We faced a very specific challenge in terms of redesigning the interior of a dominant and iconic historical building with a strong architectural theme. Therefore, we wer... More

MARIN EDUCATIONAL CENTERRibersborgsstranden, MalmöThe marine educational center stretches out along Ribersborgsstranden shore, where city and landscape meet. A concrete floor is laid out level with the sand. Sand from the shore is mixed into the concrete to give it the same color and reflecting qualities. From the floor a constellation of solid volumes rise up to lift the room underneath the massive, reed-covered roof just above the horizon.The interstitial spaces created between the floor, the roof and the volumes open onto the surrounding nature, transmit light and provide visibility through towards the horizon. The activity of the marine educational center unfold for anyone who dwells on the shore, while at the same time this activity fr... More

Museum expansion of existing University Art Museum, Art and Architecture Library, and History of Art Classroom Building. The 80,000 s/f project includes Great Hall, visitor reception facilities and Great Hall, and 35,000 s/f new gallery space with an integrated Art Study Center. This project involves the planning for a major expansion of the Museum of Art to enlarge its exhibition galleries and provide new study and learning centers, advancing its mission as a teaching museum. The planning includes renovation of the existing neoclassical museum and construction of an addition that embraces the original building and creates a new edge along the neighboring historic landscape of Marvin Grove. The existing building contains museum operations,... More

In Florence sustainability takes the shape of a lightning bolt For the new Arval headquarters in Florence, Pierattelli Architetture has designed a zero impact building distinguished by a unique architectonic shape. For Arval headquarters in Scandicci, in the outskirts of Florence, Pierattelli Architetture has designed a concept capable of gathering in one project the values of a distinctive iconic shape, technological innovation, social and environmental sustainability. Arval is one of the leading companies in long-term car rental and its new headquarters in Florence represents the themes of social and environmental sustainability that characterize the company. This “Photovoltaic Bolt” aims to be a building that architectonically repre... More