Beinecke Plaza
2nd Floor Plan
Basement Plan
Program Brief: Student Center
Date: Fall 2016
Team Member: Chad Greenlee
Instructor: Peter Eisenman
*Selected for Retrospecta 40
This project seeks to interrupt the direct communication of power through the iconic buildings occupying the plaza by exposing its devices. It seeks an ineloquence and muteness that demands a close reading of the site as a means of undermining the conveyance of power. The most dominant organizational device existing on the site is the cross-campus axis which terminates in the Commons colonnade. This project uses the symmetrical axis as a device to expose the site’s existing relationships and asymmetries. The building is articulated as two masses joined on the axis. The misalignment accentuates the positioning difference of the site’s main masses, Beinecke Library and Woolsey Hall. With these buildings, our building creates two new plazas which reorient and subvert the existing plaza condition. These new plazas each have a proportional relationship to the building with which they align creating additional relational axes. The articulation of these edges also accentuates the misaligned relationship of Woodbridge Hall and Beinecke’s sunken plaza. As a device, the main axis exposes relationships between parts but also the organization of these parts. All the pieces of the left side are aligned on a perpendicular axis which stands in contrast to the ad hoc organization of the right side.
Date: Fall 2016
Team Member: Chad Greenlee
Instructor: Peter Eisenman
*Selected for Retrospecta 40
This project seeks to interrupt the direct communication of power through the iconic buildings occupying the plaza by exposing its devices. It seeks an ineloquence and muteness that demands a close reading of the site as a means of undermining the conveyance of power. The most dominant organizational device existing on the site is the cross-campus axis which terminates in the Commons colonnade. This project uses the symmetrical axis as a device to expose the site’s existing relationships and asymmetries. The building is articulated as two masses joined on the axis. The misalignment accentuates the positioning difference of the site’s main masses, Beinecke Library and Woolsey Hall. With these buildings, our building creates two new plazas which reorient and subvert the existing plaza condition. These new plazas each have a proportional relationship to the building with which they align creating additional relational axes. The articulation of these edges also accentuates the misaligned relationship of Woodbridge Hall and Beinecke’s sunken plaza. As a device, the main axis exposes relationships between parts but also the organization of these parts. All the pieces of the left side are aligned on a perpendicular axis which stands in contrast to the ad hoc organization of the right side.