FOR TOM

Tom, thank you for uploading and sharing your work in progress on the dropbox folder. Looks like the (Review 1 stage) 3D CAD site model and High Street Facade drawings are now well advanced.

You have also produced plans of a school building, which in some ways look quite advanced - you have loos, stairs that work, classrooms with windows, etc etc, but there is a disconnect between the midi-micro and the macro.  I say midi-micro because although windows are drawn, there is no indication of the qualities of these, or of the staircase, or the corridors. At this stage, it's important to work at all scales and sensory levels - ie - from how does this space make you feel, to how it operates as part of a school metabolism, to how this new building helps the town around it work better architecturally, socially, politically. This is a contribution to a High Street. It IS a High Street, or is it?

I think you need to step back a little from the midi-micro and ask yourself some bigger questions, and I encourage you not to work in CAD which is

a) reductive
b) scaleless
c) abstract.

I encourage you to get on your coat and leggings and pitch a tent on the site and sit there drawing in a sketchbook, thinking, looking. Is this the best building for the town? Remember only around 1% of the townsfolk will ever pass through its doors. The other 99% have to live with the consequences of your actions, without directly benefitting from the classrooms, etc.

I encourage you to make the building and its facilities more integrated with the fabric of the town.

Sam