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Style and Substance
High School of Architecture to
Have Avant-Garde Style
by Dave Platter
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School
officials are hoping the unique design of the new High
School of Architecture and Urban Planning in the Ozone
Park section of Queens will both attract and motivate
students.
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When it's completed, the new 150,000 sq.-ft. High School
of Architecture and Urban Planning in the Ozone Park neighborhood
of Queens, should show off an avant-garde design that will
attract and motivate students.
But first it must be built, and the person responsible for
constructing the school for more than 1,000 students said
that won't be easy.
Demolition of the dilapidated brush factory that had occupied
the site began in March, and bells will mark the first day
of classes in September 2006.
"When I first looked at the building [in a rendering],
I said, 'Boy, that's going to be really hard to build,'"
said Thomas J. Coleman, assistant vice president of Skanska
USA Building, the general contractor in charge of the project.
Coleman said he appreciated working on schools because, unlike
most office or residential projects, they contain multiple
uses within each building. "When you build an office
building, you build a lobby and above that every floor is
repetitive. With schools, you get a varied type of construction.
You get to build an auditorium, a cafeteria, a gymnasium.
These are all different types of buildings contained in one."
The designers of the High School of Architecture and Urban
Planning used this diversity as the theme of their design.
Arquitectonica of Miami is design architect on the project,
and STV Inc. of New York, N.Y. is the architect of record.
The plans show two sides of the site lined with an L-shaped,
four-story windowed red brick structure. Three other volumes
appear to be stacked on top of one another within the two
arms of the L. Each is brightly colored, distinctively contoured
and wrapped with a different façade material.
The unique shapes, colors and skins of the four volumes suggest
that each houses a different function, and it does. The square,
functional red L will hold the new school's classrooms and
administrative offices. A corrugated metal rectangle in metallic
blue houses the cafeteria.
A precast cement structure with one window-wall holds the
library. Its canary yellow form is suspended above the glass
brick exterior wall to the gymnasium. A monumental grey, precast
concrete parallelogram on the corner of the site is the theater.
"Normally in schools it is just straight brick,"
Coleman said. "In this façade we have five skin
materials - brick, glass brick, metal panels, curtain wall
and precast concrete."
All the materials require different subcontractors to install
them, he added.
Despite the unprecedented avant-garde design it ended up
with, the School Construction Authority, which manages the
construction of new public schools in New York City, did not
set out to make waves with the new school. "We just went
through our typical selection process," said Timothy
F. Ng, director of Design Studio 2 in the Architecture and
Engineering Department at the SCA.
As design development progressed, the SCA realized that incorporating
today's most common façade materials in the school
would make the building what Ng calls a "teaching tool
for the students."
"Since this building is about architecture and design
and planning, the building itself is a form of educating students
about form, materials, light and shadow, and the idea of a
building as a concept," said its principal designer,
Bernardo Fort-Brescia, FAIA, who with Laurinda Spear is a
co-founder of Arquitectonica.
Despite its complex design, the project's $44.9 million budget
works out to an average of only $300 per sq. ft., substantially
less than the $450 per sq. ft. that has been common in past
SCA projects, Ng said.
SCA officials hope the school's design will help it attract
and motivate students interested in an architectural career.
The High School of Architecture and Urban Planning is the
latest in series of career-themed high schools in the borough
of Queens.
One such school, the Aviation High School, founded in 1925
in Long Island City, has produced 10 percent of all licensed
aircraft maintenance technicians in the United States, according
the New York City Department of Education Web site. Although
few local communities welcome new public high schools into
their neighborhoods, "The community is supportive of
this school," said Mary Leas, a project support manager
for the SCA. Possible opposition was softened for this school
because of its focus on architecture, she added.
"If it does have a theme, there's a sense that kids
are coming there because they really want to learn,"
she said.
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