We as architects are connected to our technical schools in a different way as other college students do. This is probably due to the great amount of time we spend in it and the team works executed. Working this way makes the relationship among students quite unavoidable.

For this reason, a building for an architecture school is quite unlike other university college. It is more like a factory or a building with many different workshops, rather than a building with just classrooms and corridors.
On the other hand, the personal connection a student has with his own school causes that the different spaces end up adapting themselves to their particular activity. For this reason it is quite important to encourage this flexibility in order to allow different non regulated activities, meeting the particular demands of every student.

As an answer to this situation, the project suggests a large central horizontal unit plinth sized that intends to be an activities incubator with inspiring and adaptable interior spaces. Courtyards and skylights make the most of the reticulated structure modulation as well as the natural light. Furnishing will define different configurations, offering a dynamic and changing interior space.

This ground floor is completely open in its four façades, thus recognising the outside space as an extension of the teaching area.

A volume with a great height will be displayed over this large horizontal ground floor. This unit will be wide enough to allow light coming from both façades. The more regulated and serial spaces will be located in this section of the building, in clear contrast with the more changing activities developed in the lower part.
The grid pattern of the pillars allow different shapings in the volume set over the plinth and the school could also be extended in the future just adding new volumes over this one.

It is a project solved in two scales; one horizontal scale linked to outside public space and another vertical one that considers the new urban masterplan. In both situations the excellent interior connections allow profitable synergies among the different teaching areas.

The NEW AARCH campus will become a global destination and incubator of great ideas.