Careful extension with structural ambition
The project Both Sides, Now is based on a clear and resilient structural idea: extending the logic of the existing school building while quietly preparing it for the future. Developed in close collaboration with the architects Atelier Broglia Dias, the competition-winning proposal builds on a rational structural grid, translating the concrete skeleton of the 1960s building into a contemporary timber construction system.
The new volumes combine repetitive timber frames with precisely placed concrete and steel elements. Rigid cores and targeted bracing ensure seismic stability, while lightweight timber floors reduce loads and allow the existing structure to remain largely untouched. A new aula is delicately suspended from parallel trusses, lifting the space above the old building with minimal intervention and maximum effect.
Systematic, adaptable and deliberately understated, the structural concept supports an architecture that can grow, change and endure,
as did the fine concrete construction that came before. Proving that sometimes the most convincing structural moves are the quiet ones.
