Southwestern Law School Graduate Residences

The building’s design presents the school as a positive influence in the neighborhood — bright, dignified, and sufficiently confident in its stature to be visually open. This visual openness symbolically conveys a positive message to the community, while physical openness allows daylight and natural breezes to fill the building for the benefit of its residents. We want people to see the world a little differently by using this building; the juxtaposition of one framed view or fragment against another allows one to understand the architecture, and the city, in unexpected ways that hopefully reveal some new insight about the nature of this place.

Wide hallways open to cooling breezes and punctuated by daylight, seating, and framed views encourage social interaction. Living rooms for two-bedroom apartments were placed at the building corners along a diagonal line-of-sight from the entry to dramatically frame city views. One-bedroom apartments are oriented lengthwise along the exterior wall, with living and sleeping areas linked by an open galley kitchen. This doorless internal arrangement provides good daylighting and allows cross-ventilation for each apartment in a double-loaded plan.

We organized the project much the way a choreographer conceives a dance: considering bodies moving through space, in sequence, with path trajectories, confluences and conflicts, and eddies of stasis amid fluid movement to encourage the spontaneous chats and chance encounters that build a sense of familiarity and community. Varying sequences of daylight and framed views set the rhythm.