Student Work
Title
Undermining Beinecke Plaza
Project Description
Beinecke Plaza is an icon of power on the Yale Campus. This project challenges the Yale’s institutional power by using the ground as an antagonist to the relationship of the buildings to site. Beinecke library is a floating object building that obtains power through its abstract relationship to the ground. The Schwarzman Center is a neoclassical L building that articulates power through groundedness. Our proposal is a subterranean student center that manipulates the ground in order to destabilize the architectural motifs of Beinecke and Schwarzman. The ground beneath Beinecke pushes up to eradicate the floating nature of the building while the ground drops away from the Schwarzman center, suspending its classical arcade in the air.
