The institutional tower is approached as a work of public architecture. Here, the building performs a connective role within its urban context. Though it is a high rise, the building’s starting point is a number of modestly-scaled interventions that open it to the city around it: a sunken amphitheater for public occupation on the ground; an underground passageway to the nearby metro station; an escalator from the institution’s existing building next door; a new bus stop that forms the street entry; a pavilion in the adjacent empty green lot and an elevated walkway.

Internally, the tower responds to the city through the logic of the urban grid, in which hallways and corridors become streets and alleyways. Even the auditorium — embedded within the tower — performs as a kind of street. A self-aware confrontation of spectacle and a layered people-watching. This tower is made to float, as the institution co-opts its own air rights over its existing building. Thus the ground is released and returned to the public.

Somin Yoo

Harvard Graduate School of Design

Advised by Angela Pang

Instagram: @sominyoo

Website: sominyoo.com