Wang Weijen Architecture

This project is one of a series of design researches that the architect had been working on: how to re-invent the traditional courtyard typology for contemporary multi-leveled urban conditions. It also aims to establish an innovative fabric system of classrooms to create a variety of open spaces at different levels. In the humid and hot weather of Southern China, it also provides shaded open spaces and opens several two leveled openings allowing the cross ventilation to travel across the courtyards.

Rather than using large scale of tall blocks that conventional college design would do, this design identifies two-leveled linear module of classroom blocks, interlocks, rotate and overlap them to create a series of two-storied courtyard unit of 14 by 14 meters. In addition to a sequence of connected courtyards on the ground floor, such layout makes most classrooms on the upper levels share a sense of sky-courtyard and be able to have a terrace deck near-by each classroom courtyard. For a college that has nearly seven-stories high and sitting on a sloped site, the design moderates the scale of spaces and establish identities. By such arrangement the design also lifts most of the building mass from the ground and preserves the original contour and green slope, as well as keeping all original trees on the site.