Plans and Sections

In order to make the new building workable, it was necessary to completely remove all of the original interior walls and to start from scratch, which necessitated the development of a new floor plan. Given the concept underwriting the project, using an historical precedent as a basis for the design seemed natural. 

Ultimately, I chose to base the  plan on the Villa Capra (1592) by Andrea Palladio, and this was for three reasons. Firstly, the logical, grid-like arrangement of rooms in the villa seemed particularly suited to the rigid, boxy external form of the appropriately named Squarehouse, and so I felt the two would mesh together rather well. Secondly, the Palladio design epitomised the rational and enlightened approach to design that was developing at that time, and these were values I felt were appropriate to embed into an educational space. Thirdly, and finally, my own personal interest in the architecture of that period meant that I felt rather at home working with the Villa plan, and so I reasoned that I was in a position to do better things with it than, say, the equally excellent works of Hadid or Zumthor. 

I took the basic plan and simplified it, rendering it in Sketchup:

I then converted its curved forms to straight ones, allowing them to engage more effectively with the overall shape of the building. Additionally, I skewed the layout off-centre, purely for the sake of interest:

Finally, I reconfigured this to the suit the exterior shape of the Squarehouse, removing sections of the floor to allow light to enter what was originally a rather dark interior:

This was to form the basic shape of each of the three upper floors of the building, that is, three large spaces stemming from a central circulation space, with a triangular elevator at the lower right corner to provide access to each:

For the ground floor, the floor space was to be cut back to an area consistent to the floors above it, thus removing the small spaces that currently jut out from the main ground floor area. This was to provide a cleaner, more regular appearance but also to increase the area encompassed by the retained colonnade.

It is worth noting that the section of the building was also informed by the shape of this plan.

This basic form runs through the entirety of the building, and is an allusion to the long gaps that run through each floor section. This section is repeated through the other aspect, and together with the floor plans, they great a kind of six-armed cross of empty space that sits at the heart of the building.