Emma Oakes • Rachel Scudder • Jacob Von Mechow • Mark Warfel Jr.
Edge–Ucate is an auto-didactic site design similar to the methods used by arboretums. Caroline Elementary’s site is divided into distinct plant communities which represent the various ecological conditions that are found in the greater Fingerlakes region. Students are able to see the contrasts between these communities thanks to the stark division lines that transect the site. The division lines come in several different varieties, paths, retaining walls, seating walls, and permeable walls, and are laid out along the geometric lines projected from the walls of the school building itself.
Student start and end their school days passing through swamp and wetland zones around the parking areas. Chevron parking eases the process and new swales create a lush barrier between the building and the road. During recess the kids can play on elevated berms in the successional farmland meadow, a stepped anarchy zone in the urban planting area, or in the shade of the mixed oak forest. Science class takes the children into the floodplain forest zone, where they find aggressive native species overtaking the invasives that once dominated it. They also find a bog, and a subdivided wetland plant community traversed by boardwalks and divided by weirs.
With each year, students plant seeds in their class room in small pots. They follow the growth of their seeds with each passing year. As they move through grades, the seeds become saplings and then trees. Once the saplings become too large for the classroom they are moved into a greenhouse. Before the students graduate from Caroline Elementary, they have planted their trees in the landscape.
The design interconnects the site by dividing it cleanly. It highlights the diversity of the local ecology by massing, and juxtaposing it on a single site. Children are engaged by plants, topography, and choices rather than pre-built play structures, mowed grass and asphalt. The school loses it’s dull institutional mediocrity and becomes.
Student start and end their school days passing through swamp and wetland zones around the parking areas. Chevron parking eases the process and new swales create a lush barrier between the building and the road. During recess the kids can play on elevated berms in the successional farmland meadow, a stepped anarchy zone in the urban planting area, or in the shade of the mixed oak forest. Science class takes the children into the floodplain forest zone, where they find aggressive native species overtaking the invasives that once dominated it. They also find a bog, and a subdivided wetland plant community traversed by boardwalks and divided by weirs.
With each year, students plant seeds in their class room in small pots. They follow the growth of their seeds with each passing year. As they move through grades, the seeds become saplings and then trees. Once the saplings become too large for the classroom they are moved into a greenhouse. Before the students graduate from Caroline Elementary, they have planted their trees in the landscape.
The design interconnects the site by dividing it cleanly. It highlights the diversity of the local ecology by massing, and juxtaposing it on a single site. Children are engaged by plants, topography, and choices rather than pre-built play structures, mowed grass and asphalt. The school loses it’s dull institutional mediocrity and becomes.
Final Boards Downloads
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