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The largeness of the continuous shared work space is moderated by RL's graphic plywood work/storage installations and two enclosed spaces - a small tool library and ventilated 3D printing room. Both rooms, along with
enclosed spaces in the Center's lower level, are articulated as discreet plywood boxes that leave the space as a whole intact. © Michael Moran
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Dirty making: the wood & metal shop is the only isolated work area in the Center. © Michael Moran
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At a time when universities increasingly focus on maximizing assigned pedagogical space, the Making Center subverts this norm with a physical and programmatic openness that informally brings thinker-creators together. More than half of its 14,000 sf main level is dedicated to not being dedicated.
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School of Fashion students with tool library beyond.
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The Making Center is a multi-disciplinary center for digital technologies & physical craft. © Martin Seck
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Pivot point of U-plan, lined by project cubbies. © Michael Moran
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R+L designed all millwork to be provide adjustable cubbies for individual student projects and materials.
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In the midst of physical craft working spaces, R+L situated Parsons' state-of-the-art technologies corral for 3D digital production. This zone houses technologies that will test the limits of how and where everything is made, upending notions of supply-chain, local production, craft, micro-targeted production runs, and mass customization. © Michael Moran
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Open works spaces are lined with adjustable storage cubbies for student projects & materials.
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Open work spaces with segregated dirty making wood & metal shop beyond. © Michael Moran
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Ramped connection between 2W13 Street & 66 Fifth Avenue and digital corral beyond. © Michael Moran
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Partial axonometric view of 2nd floor at the ramped connection between 2W13 Street & 66 Fifth Avenue.
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The layout uses the innate linearity of the open U-plan, to organize space without compartmentalization.
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Partial overview of the cellar level with dry & wet open work areas for printmaking, lithography, etching, silkscreen and ceramics.
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Dry making zone: printmaking, lithography & silkscreen slip in below a tangle of existing building services. A newly restored light well beyond offers daylight & an expanded sense of space at the cellar level. © Michael Moran
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Printmaking exposure (left) & wet ceramics (right). Each program is graphically branded with a dark stain over plywood.
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Section perspective through Making Center levels illustrating the close relationship to the street and SJDC glazed-roof quad designed by R+L.
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A R+L proposed glazed bridge studied a possible connection between the two legs of the U-plan as a way of creating a shortcut from the dirtiest to the most clean making zones.
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The connecting bridge would span across, and be visible from, the street level quad through its glazed roof, giving the Making Center a strong & immediate presence at Parsons main 2W13 Street entry.
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R+L proposed reorganizing & opening up an existing stair that may, in the future, more directly connect the two levels of the Making Center with the SJDC street level quad.

PARSONS MAKING CENTER

Parsons School of Design/The New School, New York, NY

Proposal 2013
Project 2013-16
Completion 2016

The 26,000sf multi-disciplinary Making Center at Parsons supports the most advanced practices in digital technology and physical craft in a raw. unprecious working environment. Stitching together spaces in two buildings, the Center was conceived as a de-siloed making place where design students from a diverse range of creative disciplines can work side-by-side. At a time when universities increasingly focus on maximizing assigned pedagogical space, the Making Center subverts the norm with a physical and programmatic openness that informally brings thinker-creators together from the entire New School community. More than half of its 14,000sf main level is dedicated to not being dedicated.

A state-of-the-art 3D technologies corral, situated in the planimetric saddle of the existing "U" plan, tests the limits of how and where everything is made, upending notions of supply-chain, local production, craft, micro-targeted production runs, and mass customization. A gradient of surrounding exploratory spaces, from clean to dirty, utilizes the existing fioor plate's awkward bent linearity to maintain complete openness between disparate making & prototyping functions. Custom graphic plywood work/storage cabinets, tool library, and 3D printing room islands define a series of work zones within the continuous shared work space.

Winner of the 2018 AIA New York Merit Award, 2018 SARA/NY Design Award of Merit, and named a NYC X DESIGN HONOREE.

Rice+Lipka Architects
Principals: Lyn Rice & Astrid Lipka
Associates: Benjamin Cadena, Taylor McNally-Anderson
Sr Designers: Lindsay Harkema, Ahmad Khan
Project Team: Alexander Crean, Rachel Kim, Karl Larson, Marisa Musing, Iggy So, Camille Vantalon, Wayne Yan, Emmeily Zhang, Guanyi Zhang

Structural: Silman
Environmental: ME Engineers
Lighting: Richard Shaver Architectural Lighting
Acoustics: Lally Acoustical Consulting
Security, Technology, Audiovisual: Preda