2009-2010
Steel Design
Student Competition

RE-LIGARE INSTITUTE

Reconnecting Mind And Body

Competition Name

Program

category I Re-ligare insitute

There are three fundamental directions in which our life may advance: doing, having, and being.

Living in America today means one must be busy 24/7. Be it at work, in the market, or at school, we are asked to do more and more. Doing is the ticket to success: have you seen anybody progress by standing still? So, doing, getting-things-done, is the mantra running our lives. We accordingly pack our days from dawn to dusk with activities aimed at achieving maximum benefit. Not surprisingly, this attitude bleeds into our leisure time (i.e. we come back from vacation more tired than we left), physical exercise, and even social relationships.

But, the reach for doing is only one side of a coin. The other side is the simultaneous expectation and desire for consumption.  Buying, getting, having, and using are socially legitimate ways in which to spend ones free time.  An individual’s value to society is in many ways measured by their capacity to conspicuously consume.  In fact, consumption has taken on patriotic value: the best contribution a concerned citizen could do right after 9-11 was … to go shopping! 

The message is clear and loud.  If we are not busy doing, then we must be busy consuming, but the key is to be constantly busy. Don’t stop! Just keep on going. Those people, practices, activities, or beliefs not fitting in this picture are quickly spotted and discredited. In this new puritan ethics people caught hanging-out, idling, and not doing are seen as parasitical, aberrant, if not plain subversive. And if the recent economic crisis had the potential to make us stop, it has de-facto only exacerbated our need to remain busy. Doing and consuming have won the day.

THE CHALLENGE

Faced with this state of affairs, a cooperative of individuals have decided to create a place to practice  ‘being’: the Re-ligare Institute. By fostering and celebrating not-doing, not-having, stopping, and wholeness, the organization intends to give people a space to step back and become reconnected with themselves, others, and nature. Faculty, administration, and staff will support patrons to accomplish such goals and conduct research concerning the practice of being.  Architecture is to become a sanctuary for finding, studying, enjoying, and developing being. As such the building will provide a necessary retreat from real world dis-eases, promote healing, and foster a re-connection at the individual and collective levels. Given its intense focus on being, the Re-ligare Institute demands a building of great quality that highlights phenomenological presence at all levels and scales.

Developing being means to offer pedagogies directed to the subjective (personal, individual self), intersubjective (social, collective self), and objective (environmental, no-self) dimensions of human experience. This translates into practices directed to observing, studying, exercising, and expressing being’s mind, body, and connectivity to others and nature. And while these aspects of being do not occur in isolation, it is appropriate to focus on one or the other to foster particular developmental gains. Hence, the Re-ligare Institute demands programmatic separation and connection, that is, dedicated places to work on our physique or inner mental-scape as well as areas where we can come together in society and nature. For this reason, the Institute seeks to establish fluid yet carefully crafted relationships between urban and architectural spaces, exterior and interior, culture and nature, self and others, and so on. In the spirit of healing and growing being, the Institute professes sustainability understood in its widest and deepest sense: the affirmation, appreciation, and support of all life.

SITE

The Re-ligare Institute will be sited on an urban lot to be chosen by the Faculty Sponsor or the student. The locations of the ACSA member institutions are diverse, but all have some proximity to an urban context. The criteria for site selection include the following:

PROGRAM

The Re-ligare Institute professes four principles of connection and healing toward a sense of being:

The program is thus to provide spaces that meet the functional criteria for each of these principles of being.  The spaces are not meant to be discrete, but rather overlap, connect and be interdependent.  It is the responsibility of the student designer and Faculty Sponsor to determine the degree to which the programmatic spaces engage or are separate based on their individual understanding and approach to the project.

RE-LIGARE INSTITUTE INTERIOR SPACES
  MAIN SPACES    
  Meditation / Worship   2500 S.F.
  lassrooms (2)    750 S.F.
  Library / Reference Room    1000 S.F.
  Large Lecture / Performance Hall   2500 S.F.
  Music Rooms (2)   750 S.F.
  Dancing Room   1500 S.F.
  Yoga Room   1500 S.F.
  Spinning Room   1500 S.F.
  Weight Room   1500 S.F.
       
  Relaxation / Refection Spa    
    Check-In, Lobby 500 S.F.
    Sauna + cold plunge + hot pool + steam room 3000 S.F.
    Bathroom / Locker / Shower (men) 500 S.F.
    Bathroom / Locker / Shower (women) 500 S.F.
    Massage (4 rooms) 1500 S.F.
    Hydro Therapy Pool Room 1500 S.F.
    Laundry 500 S.F.
       
  Café / Juice Bar   500 S.F.
  Co-op Organic Food Restaurant   2000 S.F.
       
  SERVICE SPACES    
  Re-ligare Institute Lobby   500 S.F.
  Re-ligare Institute Director Office   150 S.F.
  Re-ligare Institute Administrative Assistan   150 S.F.
  Re-ligare Institute Records / Memberships   200 S.F.
  Re-ligare Institute Retail Shop   1000 S.F.
  Research Laboratories (2)   1500 S.F.
  Nutritionist Staff   150 S.F.
  Spiritual Staff    150 S.F.
  Therapist / Counselor (2)   300 S.F.
  Trainer (2)    300 S.F.
  Doctor Staff   150 S.F.
  Treatment Rooms (2)   300 S.F.
  Staff Conference Room   300 S.F.
       
  SUPPORT SPACES  15-20 % of total  
    Mechanical / Services  
    Storage  
    Janitorial  
    Circulation  
    Elevators / Stairs  
    Loading Dock  
    Shipping Room  
  _________________________________________________________________________________
  TOTAL INTERIOR SPACE   29,550 S.F.
       
       
RE-LIGARE INSTITUTE EXTERIOR SPACES
  NATURE SPACE    
  Silent Garden for Mind & Meditation   4000 S.F.
  Social Garden for Body & Working   8000 S.F.
  Music Garden   4000 S.F.
  _________________________________________________________________________________
  TOTAL NATURE SPACE   16,000 S.F.

 

CODE INFORMATION
Refer to the International Building Code and the local zoning ordinance for information on parking requirements, height restrictions, set backs, easements, flood, egress, and fire containment. ADA is applicable for this competition.

CONSTRUCTION TYPE
The design project must be conceived in structural steel construction. A strategy should be considered that evaluates a method for taking advantage of steel’s properties and characteristics in order to conceptualize and propose a critical evaluation of a mind and body center.

 

Category II OPen

THE CHALLENGE

The ACSA/AISC 2009-2010 Steel Design Student Competition offers architecture students the opportunity to participate in an open competition category with limited restrictions. This category will allow the students (with the approval of a Faculty Sponsor) to select a site and building program. 

The Category II program should be of equal complexity as the Category I program.

Faculty sponsoring students entering Category II must submit a written building program along with the submission.

RESTRICTIONS

To enter the open competition students may select any building occupancy other than a Mind and body center. Students may not enter both categories of the competition.

CONSTRUCTION TYPE
The design project must be conceived in structural steel construction. A strategy should be considered that evaluates a method for taking advantage of steel’s properties and characteristics in order to conceptualize and propose a critical evaluation of the design.

 

Competition Program (PDF)