St. Joseph School Alumni Clubhouse

The building is located on a very steep plot of land below the school campus. Located at the edge of the school but between houses, the building balances between the institutional character and the residential scale of the buildings around it. The building maintains a very gentle relationship with the site. It sits on six pairs of columns on the flat part of the site, therefore avoiding any site excavation work.

The building contains several meeting rooms and offices, as well as a covered outdoor amphitheater. The day-to-day operations of the offices and administration take place on the ground floor, and the big events take place in the large meeting rooms upstairs. The meeting room and large entrance lobby located on the first floor have access to a terrace that overlooks the view. A covered amphitheater built on the natural slope of the site serves as an events space for the summer season. The building functions like a large canopy that brings people together in its shade.

The site has been damaged because of soil dumping, so the proposed project restores the top soil by creating small 50 cm terraces and planting shrubs and trees, enhancing the greenery around the school and maintaining natural water flow down the hill. The building’s roof could be used for rain water collection and for photovoltaic panels to harvest solar energy.

Credits

Client: St. Joseph School
Project Team: Hashim Sarkis, Cynthia Gunadi (Project Coordinator), Scott Melancon