Rolando Girodengo



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@rgirodengo
Village Tech School



Year
Location
Status
Co-author
Area
2017
Arlington, TX
Research - Presented at A4LE Conference
Carolina Segura
58,000 m2




We were invited to design alternatives for a School Campus in Texas by the Association for Learning Environments. For this proposal the initial idea was to transform the classical American school hallway and convert it into an open air gallery that twists and turns throughout the site, broadening at points to house public programs. The gallery contains all public programs while the private program, including classrooms and labs, is hidden in the surrounding garden with private courtyards that are revealed as you venture down the gallery. The proposal breaks the typology of a closed school and opens it up to the amazing site and it builds on the design of the Darmstadt school by Hans Scharoun. The experiential education that came from the chance encounters in the open gallery could also come from an encounter with nature.  

Every cluster of classrooms has a secluded garden private to each level. We utilize the site’s slope placing every group of buildings in a way that the garden is protected and only discovered once you enter the cluster. Every building is an individual piece that responds to the specific function the program requires and the necessities each student has in every stage of his academic formation. We placed the administrative program and the youngest classes towards the entrance of the school. As you go further in the education system you continue farther down the gallery, eventually reaching High School at the end of the path. From the final block, students can see all the terraced levels corresponding to each stage in their education. Education is cumulative and so should be the experience at the school.  

A school that changes with you;
An envelope that suits your needs.
In every turn a new thing to learn.  

A school in which you look forward to those rainy days.
An ever-present learning environment:
A building that in itself teaches the cycles of nature.