Joyce Lin - Track As...

Professor Olivia Gori
Group Work with Grace Miner
Fall 2024

Track as track, as boundary, as wayfinding, as program and space maker, as circulation. The goal of this project is to activate this site and its connection to Arborea, Sardegna through a track. A track that responds to site context, mirroring the conventional track across the street, a track that reframes public and private, allowing safe, simultaneous use, and a track that transforms the opaque school block into a public park.

The back of the site was heavily underutilized since students had only a 15-minute break during which they weren’t allowed to run or leave the field of teacher surveillance. This created clusters of students who spent break time talking and standing. We also learned that the public already used the gym after school hours, and only after school, to maintain safety and security.

To encourage public access and resolve underutilization, our first big move was to punch through the school with the track, to allow access to the back of the site and to create a public block and secure school block. This separation allows the park and the school to be used during school hours by residents of all ages. We looked at how the park might be activated at different times of day whether on a weekday, or a weekend school day (Saturday), or a weekend (Sunday).

The track is also a method of circulation winding through the park and school, connecting both active and sedentary spaces. These programs transform what was once a vast and anonymous surface hidden behind a fence, is now a public, open, and engaging park. Because of the track’s bright blue color, it also serves as a wayfinding tool. The path of the track bounds the edge of the park and creates specific access points when it recedes from the edge. The idea of security was heavily emphasized during our visit, so we maintained a physically inaccessible school. The existing fence around the school is a low solid wall with light metal fencing, which is why we’ve allowed visual access onto the physically secure school.

For the school, we sought to place classrooms surrounding our new atrium. Punched windows encourage visual and physical extension into the atrium and outside. This extension is also an opportunity for outdoor learning, which started during Covid for this school. During school time, the gym and auditorium remain part of the school through the secondary school track which punches through the gym as a bridge. This allows students to access these spaces without having to cross paths with the public and maintain a physical boundary for safety concerns.