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     Architecture     The Public Condition
     2021    




Teaching Team:
Prof. Federico Garcia Lammers,  Prof. Jesica Garcia-Fritz,  Prof. Brian Lee,  Prof. Robert Arlt,  Prof. Nesrine Mansour 

Course Information:
DoArch Building Studio, South Dakota State University, Spring 2021 : Link


The Public Condition was developed within the Building Studio sequence at South Dakota State University, where the design process begins at the scale of the architectural detail. The studio focuses on technical conditions that are often treated as secondary—ground and foundation assemblies, envelope systems, roof and parapet details—and uses them as the starting point for architectural design.

The project began as a public gymnasium in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, translating selected construction details into a larger architectural system. Those same drawings and design decisions were later treated as existing conditions for a second phase of the studio, in which the gymnasium was reimagined as a public library.

This transition shifted the project from the design of a single building toward an investigation of adaptation, reuse, and continuity. The original gymnasium became a kind of “as-built” framework, allowing new spatial conditions to emerge while retaining traces of the earlier proposal. Across both phases, the project examined how architectural ideas are developed, transformed, and communicated through detail, drawing, material, and construction logic.





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