BUILDING FOR SCHOOL AND COMMUNITY - Kennedy Bibliothek

89. Gradually a design for the building emerged. East Orange is a compact
community. Large sites can only be assembled through relocating
families and demolishing their homes. It would clearly have been antithetic
to the process to contemplate doing this. The site for the new
school was therefore restricted to less than four acres in a residential
area of frame houses and apartment blocks; and this is clearly a very
small site for a school with a capacity of 1 800 pupils, aged 12-14. To
complicate matters, participants in the design process, as already mentioned,
called for the gym, pool, library, auditorium and health services
to be open to the community.
90. The final building, which opened in January 1975, is in the form of
three blocks interconnected by an internal "street". Each block contains
a "house", with a two-storey performing arts area in the center surrounded,
on the lower floor, by related spaces such as music, speech, family arts
and shop, and on the upper floor by specialized learning areas.
91. The roof is a community park reached by public ramps for access when
the school is closed. There is a community entrance to 'the gym, pool and
library. Dining spaces bridge the three wings and open'onto the roofs
for school or community use. Elevators interconnect every floor. Ramps
to the rooftops and elevator service provide a multiple mode of access.
There is at least one entrance to each one of the three separate houses
that has a step-free access from the exterior to the lobby spaces,or offices.
92. The planning process which resulted in the HUB Community Center being
built was similar to East Orange, though there was no direct communication
between Jules Gregory and Evans Woollen, the HUB's architect. ' Also in
1970, Evans Woollen opened a Design Center in a vacant shop. The location
of the shop could hardly have been better. It was opposite the
market house in the center of the Over-the-Rhine, a densely urban community
in the heart of Cincinnati. In the storefront Evans Woollen put his team
of young architects and invited the collaboration of the students from the
city planning programme of the University of Cincinnati. Very shortly
a similar process to East Orange occurred, resulting in the HUB multiservice
center, including indoor recreation (gymnasium, swimming), adult
education, library, medical services, legal services, employment and career
counseling, and a post office.(1)
1) Charles Moore and Gerald Allen, "Modesty: If it's not the end, it's
certainly the beginning", Dimensions, McGraw Hill, New York, 1976,
pages 157-166.
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