San Diego Culinary Arts School

By:  | September - 13 - 2012

Steel train truss bridges have been a staple in American culture since the early 19th century. Truss bridges have helped shape the steel industry with new truss construction and engineering able to hold 120-240 ton trains. As technology progresses and steel has become almost a 100% recyclable old train truss bridges are being retrofitted and torn down due to increased shipping loads; creating a wide range of adaptive reuse possibilities.

The Culinary Arts School of San Diego designed by Kyle Duvernay, Ian Patzke, Siah Afrasiabi – students with the NewSchool of Architecture and Design – aims to take advantage of existing resources and couple them with new design projects and programs. The school’s mission is to show how the culinary industry is all about efficiency and circulation. The continuous ribbon that transforms from double skin into the walls, floors and façade represents these culinary ideas. This school will become an icon which emanates green design by utilizing existing trusses for the long span structure, growing rooftop herbs, and using a double skin to control lighting conditions. The culinary school’s positive ideology will go hand in hand with San Diego’s East Village identity, which aims to connect the community through education and involvement.

By creating transparency throughout the school between public and private usage, each person walking by the structure should take away an architectural and culinary learning experience; relating human scale to the scale of the steel structural design. These elements will promote learning in day-to-day interactions while people wait in the new bus stop, walk to the trolley one block away, interact with the ground floor restaurant or enter in the community plaza.

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