Math themed elementary magnet school 

Peck Slip, Manhattan

K-5 classrooms, music & dance rooms, library and playgrounds 

Situated between the Brooklyn Bridge, the FDR along the East River and lower Manhattan with sweeping views of the Gehry tower and Brooklyn. Consider the infrastructure and the site, an existing adjacent parking lot, transit hubs, and seasonal pier activities.

A bifurcating tectonic system in plan and section divides and elevates spaces on the macro level and opens views or closes for privacy at the skin detail. 

The outdoor ground plan is almost completely open to the public, allocating space for seating and foot traffic. The building itself provides shade and blocks off the existing cross streets to create an urban park and form the entry which lifts students and faculty up into the building, out of the public realm. 

The interior is a continuous ‘meandering’ floor plan with shortcuts and scenic promenades navigating the significant vertical footage required by the program. 

Classroom clusters are centered around open air playgrounds; The 4th and 5th grades share space elevationally above the FDR overlooking the East River, the 2nd and 3rd grades share the other cantilevered area taking advantage of views of downtown across the existing parking lot and Water Street. The 1st and Kinder grades have separate play areas on the indoor/outdoor roof area. The library is reached from multiple paths thus without interrupting the adjacent Kindergarten double class or play spaces. 

Most of the ramps and stairs, including that connecting the Kindergarten rooms use a performance mixed use stair-system. This maintains the bifurcation language at the structural level where multiple stairs merge. The resultant stacking is used as seating, storage, display spaces etc. on one side while the other side acts as the wall/roof/floor of another space/activity or the exterior.