Project Details

Children's Pottery Center

3.5 weeks

This downtown infill project’s purpose was primarily to create a space for children to learn the art of hand-building and wheel-throwing pottery design. The owner wanted spaces to accommodate all steps of the process of pottery--making, as well as space for instructors and administrators. Taking into account the scale of a child and the need for both group lessons and individual work space, I began to play with the idea of pods on the south--facing façade, each housing one child, and a row constituting a studio space. These pods could move in and out of the space to allow for a larger inner common space and a heightened privacy of the individual within the pod suspended above the lawn below. Additional movable screens adorn both the east and south facades, creating flexibility of light conditions on the interior. A horizontally undulating central staircase unites all of the spaces and becomes a playful partition utilized for a multiplicity of purposes and a variety of porous conditions, including dense storage, open display, and restroom facilities.